Welcome to Leadership in the Literature, a roundup of recent articles/multimedia on leading and managing from Allina Health Library Services
- The impact of transformational leadership style on nurses' job satisfaction: An integrative review. | Gebreheart - 2023 | Sage Open Nursing
The argument about whether leadership style affects nurses’ job satisfaction is centered around the impact of different leadership styles on the work environment and the quality of care provided by nurses. Therefore, this review was primarily aimed at assessing the impact of transformational leadership style on the job satisfaction of hospital nurses.
- 'What matters to staff programme': Eight steps to improve staff well-being at work| Turner - 2025 | BMJ Lead
The What Matters to Staff programme was designed at the Royal Free Hospital to address a key priority of improving workforce well-being. The initial aim was to set up a programme that responded to what mattered to staff and could be spread to 70 teams across the hospital within 2 years. Over the past 2 years, the programme has given staff the opportunity to have their voice heard and has supported leaders to ask, listen and do what matters most for their teams. This has led to improved workforce metrics and the programme being widely scaled and spread.
- Leaders shouldn’t try to do it all | Lafley - 2025 | Harvard Business Review
(Available in MN only, email library@allina.com for a copy outside of MN)
The authors, a former CEO of Procter & Gamble and a former dean of the Rotman School, respectively, frequently find themselves sitting across the table from overwhelmed leaders. These executives are trying to improve or turn around an organization or the piece of it they head. They all face a long—and typically lengthening—list of important items on their to-do lists. They all understand that the job of a leader involves working intensely hard. But for many of them the current state feels like too much—and it's getting worse. The problem here is that whereas a company can always expand capacity to meet increasing demand, a leader's hours are constrained by nature: As the saying goes, there are only so many hours in a day. Many leaders think they can get more done if they simply work harder and longer. But in due course they tire, their overall productivity falls, and they risk burning themselves out and exiting. In this article the authors, drawing on their own experience and that of CEOs they have advised, explain how to escape that trap.
- Understanding what leaders can do to facilitate healthcare workers' feeling valued: Improving our knowledge of the strongest burnout mitigator| Stillman - 2024 | BMJ Lead
Feeling valued is a striking mitigator of burnout yet how to facilitate healthcare workers (HCWs) feeling valued has not been adequately studied. This study discovered factors relating to HCWs feeling valued so leaders can mitigate burnout and retain their workforce.
- What is the impact of leaders with emotional intelligence on proxy performance metrics in 21st century healthcare? -A systematic literature review | Chaudry - 2024 | International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
To manage the employee experience, leaders must deeply understand employees' perceptions, feelings, and desires and respond thoughtfully. This is particularly crucial when immense resources are invested in gathering employee feedback through pulse surveys, town halls, and data scraping from internal communications. But leaders are often overwhelmed by the data and struggle to translate it into actionable insights. The authors conducted detailed interviews with executives and HR leaders from more than 20 multinational companies in sectors such as technology, financial services, and consumer goods. Their work reveals that although technology has simplified the collection of data, the real challenge lies in making sense of it and integrating it into a coherent strategy.
- Guidance for successful healthcare transformation: A systematic review of change management practices and outcomes | Hastings- 2025 | Australian Journal of Management
The increasing pace of healthcare transformation places emphasis on how to enact it. However, there is a difference between healthcare commentators and policymakers regarding preferred change management practice; policy guidance is rooted in diagnostic practices, whereas commentators suggest that dialogic is a more appropriate practice for ensuring success. What is missing from this debate is evidence to inform whether commentators’ suggestions will increase the likelihood of successful transformation outcomes. This study presents a systematic review of change management practices and outcomes, identifying 10 papers that report on 292 cases of transformation. It finds broad support that dialogic increases the likelihood of successful transformation, providing supporting evidence for updating healthcare policy and practice.
- How to marry process management and AI | Davenport- 2025 | Harvard Business Review
(Available in MN only, email library@allina.com for a copy outside of MN)
Process management, which swept the business world in the 1990s and then fell out of favor, is experiencing a renaissance, thanks to AI. The two reinforce each other: AI helps firms significantly scale up improved processes, and well-managed processes make it easier to obtain the high-quality data needed to train AI. Combining them can generate huge productivity gains—but it requires a lot of change management. In this article the authors outline seven steps companies can follow to bring together people, data, analytics, and technology—in particular, AI—to revamp processes and achieve increasingly higher business performance
Multimedia
- Leading from within: Cultivating effective leadership and followership in health care | 2025 | NEJM Catalyst (article with audio)
This discussion highlights the importance of recognizing that everyone can engage in leading within their roles, while also addressing the crucial skills of followership and the need for clarity in leadership roles to foster effective teamwork and improve patient outcomes. - Addressing mental health disparities among racial and ethnic minorities | 2024 |American Hospital Association - Advancing Health (podcast)
We humans are a social species, and so it’s not surprising that we care a lot about what other people think of us. It’s also not surprising that many of us stumble when we try to manage others’ views of us. This week, organizational psychologist Alison Fragale explains why that is, and offers better ways to win friends and influence people.
Welcome to Leadership in the Literature, a roundup of recent articles/multimedia on leading and managing from Allina Health Library Services.
(Available in MN only, email library@allina.com for a copy outside of MN)
When people around the world are asked to reflect on both inspiring leaders and infuriating leaders, they point to three factors that distinguish the former from the latter. Inspiring leaders are visionary: They see the big picture and offer an optimistic, meaningful view of the future. This fulfills the human need for meaning and purpose. Inspiring leaders are exemplars of desired behavior: They are calm and courageous protectors, authentically passionate, extremely competent but also humble. This fulfills the human need for protection and passion. Finally, inspiring leaders are great mentors: They empower, encourage, and are empathetic toward others, but they also challenge others to be the best version of themselves. This fulfills the human need for support and status. Each of us can develop the capacity to be inspiring in all three dimensions of leadership.
The role of kindness in healthcare is receiving increased attention. Indeed, international research shows that a culture of kindness has a positive impact on healthcare organizations, healthcare staff members, and patients. Benefits include better patient outcomes, as well as a humanized work environment, which helps to prevent stress and burnout among healthcare workers. Studies across different settings suggest that healthcare managers need to foster not only technical and organizational skills, but also social skills such as empathy and kindness. The purpose of this scoping review is to provide an overview of the current research landscape regarding initiatives based on acts of kindness in healthcare organizations. We will also explore whether this is a topic of interest to academics, which countries have conducted the most research on the subject, the practical implications for healthcare management, and potential directions for future research.
(Available in MN only, email library@allina.com for a copy outside of MN)
Social scientists have recently developed a new appreciation for how your conception of yourself can affect your professional and personal lives. The good news is that recent research has shown that you can curate your identity in the workplace in ways that will improve your performance as a leader, the trust you're able to inspire in others, and even your overall well-being. The author discusses this research, including some of his own, and presents best practices for curating a multifaceted identity that will serve you well professionally and personally. At the center of this approach is the construction of what Ingram calls the identity map—a simple device that allows people to identify, visualize, and ultimately leverage the many interconnected elements that make up their sense of who they are.
A health care system in the Southeastern United States explored the impact of nursing education, recruitment, and strategic initiatives focusing on Black newly licensed registered nurses (BNLRNs). Strategies included recruiting from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, cultivating academic-practice partnerships, infusing diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging into the Nurse Residency Program curriculum, creating formal mentoring programs, and health system inclusion council initiatives. Outcomes included an increase in the number of BNLRN hires and first-year retention rates. Leadership implications are vast; understanding workforce trends will innovate the future of nursing education and support for BNLRNs.
(Available in MN only, email library@allina.com for a copy outside of MN)
The article focuses on the increasing prevalence of specialty drugs, with three-quarters of FDA-approved drugs in 2023 falling into this category. Topics include the rising cost of gene therapies, the challenges healthcare providers face in improving access to these expensive treatments, and creative solutions like partnerships to reduce costs and improve patient care.
Emergency care has been in the spotlight since patient volume in emergency departments expanded in 2020 with Covid-19 patients, then waned as other ill and injured people avoided hospitals rather than risk exposure to the virus. As the public health emergency eased, ED volumes rebounded with patients who had delayed care in prior years or whose mental health suffered during the stress and isolation of the pandemic. For a current look at emergency care, NEJM Catalyst in November 2024 surveyed its Insights Council, a global group of clinicians, clinical leaders, and executives at health care delivery organizations.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize nursing practice and care delivery by streamlining workflows, enhancing patient insights, and reducing cognitive burden. However, leaders must recognize that the adoption of AI introduces both promise and uncertainty. Nurse leaders must navigate the tension between driving innovation and addressing concerns about ethical implications, reliability, and the need to preserve high-quality, person-centered care. This article examines how leaders can thoughtfully integrate AI to support the core mission of nursing: to protect, promote, and optimize health for patients and communities.
There is growing recognition in the literature of the ‘Herculean’ efforts required to bring about change in healthcare processes and systems. Leadership is recognised as a critical lever for implementation of quality improvement (QI) and other complex team-level interventions; however, the processes by which leaders facilitate change are not well understood. The aim of this study is to examine ‘how’ leadership influences implementation of QI interventions.
(Available in MN only, email library@allina.com for a copy outside of MN)
Bosses often sense that something is missing in an employee's tool kit but can't put a finger on what it is. They say something like "You need certain important intangibles" or "You don't have enough gravitas," but they fail to provide advice or guidance. What they're talking about is leadership style. In every interaction, we send signals to others that fall into two categories: power and attractiveness. Powerful markers are associated with confidence, competence, charisma, and influence but also arrogance, abrasiveness, and intimidation. Attractiveness markers are related to agreeableness, approachability, and likability but also diffidence, lack of confidence, and submissiveness. The more consistent our signals, the more distinctive our style. This practical guide offers concrete advice for developing a dynamic and effective leadership style that draws from both types of markers for maximum impact.
Multimedia
Are you looking at the right data when making big decisions? Data deconstructor Sharon Zicherman challenges our reliance on averages, showing how they can be misleading — especially in life-changing moments. By rethinking the way we interpret data, he reveals a smarter approach to assessing risk and making better choices.
Commenting on blog posts requires an account.
Login is required to interact with this comment. Please and try again.
If you do not have an account, Register Now.