Preparing Emotionally Intelligent Doctor of Nursing Practice Leaders

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) identified the need for interdisciplinary teams that collaborate, communicate, and integrate care across settings to improve health care delivery. Focusing on innovative strategies that address leadership skills in graduate nursing education could have an effect on interdisciplinary partnerships, transformation of patient care, and new styles of leadership to change current practice models. In response to the IOM guidelines, we incorporated emotional intelligence as a component in our Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) leadership curriculum. This article describes a new action-oriented leadership model that prepares the DNP graduate for leadership roles to serve the public and the nursing discipline during a time of radical changes in health care. Behavioral profile, nontraditional readings, and online discussions form the basis of the model. The principles and strategies in this article can be applied to nursing education in multiple arenas, at both the undergraduate and graduate settings.