Understanding Self‐Leadership in Nursing: A Descriptive Qualitative Study

AIM: To describe nurses' perceptions and to deepen the conceptual understanding of nurses' self-leadership in nursing. DESIGN: A qualitative descriptive interview study. METHODS: Data were collected between December 2024 and February 2025 in one Finnish Wellbeing Services County through six online focus group interviews with a total of 17 nurses from diverse care settings. The interviews followed a structured thematic framework. The abductive analysis began with a deductive coding frame, which was iteratively refined through inductive interpretation. The resulting dimensions were further quantified by examining their frequency of occurrence. RESULTS: All ten dimensions outlined in the theoretical framework were evident in the nurses' narratives of self-leadership. In addition, two new main dimensions were identified. Across nurses' accounts of self-leadership, the most frequently recurring dimensions were autonomous actions, collaboration, professional capability, time management, and balancing the workload. CONCLUSION: Although theoretical self-leadership strategies can be identified in nursing practice, they do not fully capture the everyday, context-bound realities of the profession. In practice, nurses enact self-leadership through concrete, situationally embedded behaviours. IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PROFESSION: The normative orientation of self-leadership theory prescribes how individuals should regulate themselves to achieve optimal performance. However, prioritizing these prescribed strategies may narrow the analytical lens and obscure alternative conceptualizations of self-leadership. This study deepens the understanding of self-leadership in nursing by identifying its key dimensions as nurses themselves describe them and by contributing a new perspective to the existing theoretical framework. The findings emphasize that nurses' self-leadership is largely grounded in situationally embedded behaviours, which underscores the practical relevance of self-leadership for everyday nursing practice and its potential to support high-quality care. REPORTING METHOD: The study was reported in accordance with the Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research. PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: No patient or public involvement.