Global nurse leadership development: evaluating the impact of a global mentoring programme

Background: Formal structured mentoring has demonstrated to significantly strengthen nurse leadership. By pairing mentors and mentees across Sigma’s seven global regions, this programme proposes to enhance nurse leadership globally especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Aims: This paper aims to evaluate the impact of this 18-month online structured mentoring programme and participants’ ability to form sound relationships, set meaningful goals and develop their leadership skills. Methods: This opportunistic programme evaluation is designed to understand participant experiences and improve future cohorts. Following ethical principles, a post-programme satisfaction survey was used. Representing 14 countries, 26 participant pairs were recruited through opportunistic applications, snowball sampling and presentations at international Sigma events. Seventeen mentors and 18 mentees completed the survey. Results: Three themes emerged: (a) Developing supportive and productive mentoring relationships, (b) Achieving personal and professional goals and (c) Strengthening leadership skills across cultural and geographic boundaries. Given the impact of the global pandemic, evaluations were extremely positive with ongoing partnerships created and confidence to step up. Conclusion: Participants highly valued this programme, demonstrating global mentorship which offers deliberate exposure to a different geographical region can reduce their sense of leadership isolation, build their confidence and promote personal and professional growth which is mutually beneficial.