THE EXERCISING OF LEADERSHIP IN THE VIEW OF EMERGENCY ROOM NURSES

Abstract

This descriptive study with a qualitative approach aimed to identify how nurses from an Emergency Room perceive the exercising of leadership in their professional practice. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with nine nurses from a teaching hospital in Curitiba in the State of Paraná, in May – July 2011. Following the interviews’ transcription, the data were submitted to content analysis, which produced the three categories. The first describes the concept of leadership in the view of the nurses; the second addresses the leadership’s characteristics to be practised in Emergency Room and the third discusses the attributes of the nurse leader in the hospital emergency setting. It is concluded that leadership is an essential management competency for the nurse’s practice in the emergency department and that, for the nurse’s effective mobilization, she must keep herself up-to-date and make use of the skills of communication, negotiation, autonomy, creativity, and valorization of the team members.

Keywords

• Emergency nursing
• Leadership
• Research in nursing administration