Developing Tomorrow’s Perioperative Leaders Today: A Comprehensive Leadership Development Program

Frontline nurse leaders face challenges as the health care landscape and workforce evolve, creating unique learning needs. Executive leaders in the Nursing Perioperative Services Institute at a regional health care system identified structured leadership development training as an opportunity to increase nurse leader job satisfaction, improve retention, and create a leadership pipeline for novice and emerging nurse leaders in perioperative services. The program leads created a 10-month leadership development program based on organizational needs assessments and nationally established nurse leader competencies. The program incorporated didactic training, action learning, and mentoring. Program evaluation was guided by the Kirkpatrick Model's levels of evaluation. Sixteen participants in the first two cohorts self-reported high satisfaction with program content and presenters, increased confidence in leadership competencies, and improved job satisfaction. Participant-led quality improvement projects demonstrated improved department outcomes affecting patient safety, waste or cost reduction, staff engagement, or department efficiency in alignment with organizational goals.