Nursing Academic Leadership: An Urgent Workforce Shortage in Nursing Education

AIM The aim of the study was to describe the California nursing academic leader workforce shortage, identify succession planning activities, analyze driving and restraining forces of the role, and distinguish critical leadership competencies and onboarding strategies. BACKGROUND Several studies have projected a workforce shortage for nursing academic leaders and studied the leadership competencies and driving and restraining forces impacting the role. METHOD The study was a secondary descriptive analysis of an existing cross-sectional needs assessment survey administered to California nursing academic leaders of prelicensure programs. RESULTS The results validated an impending workforce shortage for California nurse academic leaders, with 66 percent planning to leave their positions in the next five years and 46 percent not having a succession plan in place. CONCLUSION To avoid threatening the success of nursing programs, a sustainable plan to address the workforce shortage of well-prepared academic nurse leaders is urgently needed.