Academic Nurse Leaders’ Application of Bolman and Deal’s Leadership Orientation Framework

While Academic Nurse Leaders (ANLs) are vital to the functioning and quality of nursing programs in academic settings, many enter their roles with limited or no prior academic leadership and management experience. The inadequate preparation and development of ANLs remains a critical concern. For this reason, ANLs positions can be challenging and hard to fill. Although ANLs can hold various titles and positions across different academic institutions, this study specifically focuses on Deans, Directors, and Department Chairs working in the New York State area. Bolman and Deal’s (2021) four-frame model of leadership offers a framework that can be used to understand the leadership values that ANLs prioritize. This leadership framework uses four distinct leadership frames (structural, human resource, political, and symbolic) to describe the mental models of leaders and managers within organizations. Bolman and Deal’s (2021) four-frame model of leadership can assist ANLs in navigating their roles, responsibilities, and decision-making processes within colleges and universities. This descriptive quantitative study used Bolman and Deal’s (1990) Leadership Orientations Instrument-Self to identify the primary leadership frame used by ANLs. Additionally, this study examined the percentage of ANLs that rate their overall effectiveness in the bottom 20%, middle 20%, and top 20% of leaders and managers know with comparable experience. Understanding how ANLs reflect on their own effectiveness can offer valuable insight for role development. A Qualtrics® survey was sent to 131 ANLs in the New York State area. 61 responded, and 53 completed the entire survey, forming the basis of the data analysis. Study findings revealed that ANLs primarily use the human resource frame in their leadership practices and rate their leadership and managerial effectiveness highly. ANLs rated their overall leadership effectiveness slightly higher than their managerial effectiveness. Future studies can focus on investigating if ANLs apply a multi-frame approach to leadership. Longitudinal studies can be conducted to investigate if ANLs primary leadership frame changes over time, and studies can be done at the national level to diversify the participant pool.