PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to review journal articles, master's theses, and doctoral dissertations on self-leadership in nurses in order to identify overall trends in nursing self-leadership and to suggest strategies to improve self-leadership. METHODS: Twenty-six papers on self-leadership in nurses were reviewed. RESULTS: These papers were journal articles, master's theses, and doctoral dissertations regarding nurses who worked in general hospitals, university hospitals, and public health centers. Self-leadership was measured by using instruments developed by Manz (1983), Prussia, Anderson, & Manz (1998), and Houghton & Neck (2002). The instrument was composed of 18 items, with a 5-point Likert scale developed by Manz (1983) and modified by Kim (2002). Nurses' self-leadership was found to be related to job satisfaction, organizational commitment, nursing performance, and citizenship behavior. General characteristics of nurses, including age, education, marital status, position, and career, were also associated with self-leadership. CONCLUSION: The study findings provide data on recent trends in nurses' self-leadership. These results serve as basic data to provide a standard for developing self-leadership and indicate directions for further research.
Hospitals, General ; Hospitals, University ; Job Satisfaction ; Marital Status ; Neck ; Prussia ; Public Health