This guideline is intended to assist nurses and others performing both formal and informal nursing leadership roles from the point-of-care to the board room, across a variety of practice domains and settings. It identifies evidence-based leadership behaviour that nurses can implement individually and collectively to benefit patients, health-care team members, organizations, systems and health-care policy, research and education. Leadership practices that help create a healthy work environment can ultimately improve patient and client experiences and outcomes.

This best practice guideline has been developed for nurses in a variety of roles, domains of practice and practice settings. It identifies and describes:

• leadership practices that result in healthy outcomes for patients/clients, organizations and systems;
• system resources that support effective leadership practices;
• organizational culture, values and resources that support effective leadership practices;
• personal resources that support effective leadership practices; and
• anticipated outcomes of effective nursing leadership.

This guideline addresses:

• knowledge, competencies and behaviour of effective leaders, in both formal and informal nursing leadership roles;
• educational requirements and strategies that can be used by formal and informal nursing leaders;
• policy changes at both the organizational and system levels needed to support and sustain leadership practices, including those at the point-of-care;
• implementation strategies and tools;
• evaluation criteria and tools; and
• future research opportunities.

2nd Edition, 2013