title: Aesthetic Leadership: Its Place in the Clinical Nursing World.
abstract: Clinical leadership has been identified as crucial to positive patient/client outcomes, across all clinical settings. In the new millennium, transformational leadership has been the dominant leadership style and in more recent times, congruent leadership theory has emerged to explain clinical leadership in nursing. This article discusses these two leadership models and identifies some of the shortcomings of them as models for clinical leadership in nursing. As a way of overcoming some of these limitations, aesthetic leadership is proposed as a style of leadership that is not antithetical to either model and reflects nursing's recognition of the validity of art and aesthetics to nursing generally. Aesthetic leadership is also proposed as a way to identify an expert clinical leader from a less experienced clinical leader, taking a similar approach to the way Benner (1984) has theorised in her staging of novice to expert clinical nurse.
authors.affiliation: University of Western Sydney, School of Nursing and Midwifery , Penrith, New South Wales , Australia.
authors.forename: Judy
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mannix
authors.forename: Lesley
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wilkes
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Daly
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007857:Leadership; D016294:Models, Nursing; D011568:Psychiatric Nursing