Leadership Development for Frontline Nurse Managers Promotes Innovation and Engagement

The need for highly engaged frontline nurse managers is becoming more evident to affect staff engagement, patient care, safety outcomes, and advancing nursing practice. At Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, we created an effective framework and process to assess engagement and leadership development data across 7 units. This provided the evidence to design a relevant solution to support our frontline nurse leadership engagement and affect our frontline staff nurses' levels of engagement. To develop the framework and process, the Associate Chief Nursing Officer (ACNO) and the Director of Leadership and Organizational Development partnered to assess the engagement data, and outlined a process that led to the development of the Leadership Engagement Academy (LEA) for frontline nurse managers. Through this framework and process, there were key areas of engagement to have an effect at both the leadership and staff level across 7 units, in alignment with the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Nursing Excellence standards.