Leadership and Political Skill Preparedness of the Doctoral Prepared Nurse

The Institute of Medicine Future of Nursing report recommended the development of more nurse leaders at every level and across all settings. The Accountable Care Act has led to a reformed healthcare system, placing a growing demand for nurse leaders. The doctoral prepared nurse must be able to fulfill leadership roles to educate future generations of nurses, translate research into practice, and influence organization-level research to meet federal performance indicators. Study Aim: To analyze the mentoring elements provided in the mentoring elements provided in the mentoring relationship of doctorate nurses and their correlation to leadership and political skill development. Methods: A population-based web-based retrospective cross-sectional design was used to measure the correlation between mentoring functions provided to guide leadership and political skill development in PhD and DNP prepared nurses (n=222) identified as Jonas Nurse Scholars. Results: A response rate of 52% (n=115) was attained; 86 (75%) were PhD and 29 (25%) were DNP prepared nurses. The respondents were predominately female (87%) with 21% in the 25-34 age range and 57% in the 35-44 age range and 70% were Caucasian and 29% were minority. Of the 115 respondents, 64% (n=74) had a mentor of which 62% (n=46) reported being in an informal mentoring relationship. This cadre of PhD and DNP prepared nurses were highly experienced with 49.6 % having > 16 years of experience and 67% working either full-time or part-time regardless of graduation status. The most frequent psychosocial mentoring functions were role modeling and learning facilitation. The most frequent career mentoring functions were coaching and advocacy closely followed by career development facilitation and strategies and systems advice. Leadership skill development was correlated with the coaching mentoring function (r=.30, p. < 0.05). Political skill development was correlated with the career development mentoring function (r=.34, p. < 0.005). PhD and DNP nurses were similar on the leadership scale with a mean score of 7.92 (scale range 1-10) and political skill scale with a mean score of 5.73 (scale range 1-7). Conclusion: Both PhD and DNP prepared nurses identified as Jonas Nurse Scholars possess leadership and political skill as measured by industry standard instruments. Mentoring is one strategy to support and further develop leadership and political skill in the doctoral prepared nurse.