title: The clinical nurse educator as leader.
abstract: The National League for Nursing recognizes leadership as an important aspect of the educator role. The purpose of this article is to describe leadership in the context of clinical nursing education and how clinical nurse educators enact leadership. The article identifies particular nursing practice skills and strengths that clinicians bring to nursing education that enhance leadership knowledge, skills, and abilities. After review of several leadership models, we identified five overarching themes that demonstrate how clinical nurse educators exemplify the various models including role modeling, providing vision, helping students to learn, challenging the system or status quo, and seeking relational integrity. We explicate the themes with examples affirming the leadership potential of clinical nurse educators, and suggest ways in which nursing faculty members and administrators might draw on the leadership capital of clinical nurse educators.
authors.affiliation: Bradley University, Department of Nursing, Peoria, IL 61625, USA. tadelman@bradley.edu
authors.forename: Theresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Adelman-Mullally
authors.forename: Cindy K
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Mulder
authors.forename: Deborah E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: McCarter-Spalding
authors.forename: Debra A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Hagler
authors.forename: Kathleen B
authors.initials: KB
authors.lastname: Gaberson
authors.forename: Mary Beth
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Hanner
authors.forename: Marilyn H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Oermann
authors.forename: Elizabeth T
authors.initials: ET
authors.lastname: Speakman
authors.forename: Patricia S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Yoder-Wise
authors.forename: Patricia K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Young
mesh_terms: D005181:Faculty, Nursing; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D007857:Leadership; D024802:Nurse's Role; D015402:Nursing Education Research; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research