Examining the Relationship Between Nurse Leadership Competence and Team Performance in Hospital Units

Posted: Nov 25, 2007

• Skylar Mendoza
• Landon Becker
• Maddox Henry

Abstract

The critical role of nurse leadership in healthcare delivery has been widely acknowledged in clinical literature, yet the precise mechanisms through which leadership competence influences team performance remain inadequately understood. Traditional research approaches have predominantly employed cross-sectional surveys and observational studies that capture static snapshots of leadership effectiveness. These methods, while valuable, often fail to account for the dynamic, reciprocal relationships between leadership behaviors and team responses in complex healthcare environments. Hospital units represent complex adaptive systems where multiple agents—nurses, patients, support staff—interact in unpredictable ways, creating emergent patterns that cannot be fully explained through linear causal models. This study introduces a paradigm shift in examining nurse leadership by employing computational modeling techniques traditionally used in complex systems science. We conceptualize nurse leadership not as a fixed set of competencies but as an emergent property of ongoing interactions within the healthcare team ecosystem. Our approach recognizes that leadership effectiveness is context-dependent and evolves through feedback loops between leaders, team members, and environmental factors. This perspective challenges conventional leadership development models that emphasize standardized competency checklists without accounting for systemic complexity.