From leadership research to district action: Levels and Predictors of Leaders' Humble Leadership, Participants' Psychological Safety, Knowledge Sharing in the Team, and Followers' Creativity in Nursing: A Cross-Sectional Online Survey

AI-assisted editorial implementation guide. Proposed district actions are separate from the original authors’ findings and recommendations. Independent peer review of this guide is not asserted.

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Evidence and transfer

Education-related source: verify which participants, institutions and outcomes were actually studied before district adoption. Source publication type: research-article. License and identity checks do not establish study quality or causality.

Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the source license:

Aim The current study investigated the levels and predictors of leaders' humble leadership, participants' psychological safety, knowledge sharing in the team, and followers' creativity in nursing. Background Humble leadership, psychological safety, knowledge sharing, and followers' creativity are non-nursing research fields, and humble leadership has recently been examined in nursing. Methods A cross-sectional research design was employed via an online survey. A nonprobability convenience snowball sample of 245 nursing academics (n = 85, 34.70%), nurses (n = 140, 57.10%), and nursing leaders (n = 20, 8.20%) was recruited from three universities and three hospitals. Results The participants rated “high” the leaders' humble leadership, knowledge sharing in the team, and followers' creativity in nursing. However, participants' psychological safety was precarious. The four variables' predictors were assessed based on the sample's characteristics. Leaders' humble leadership did not predict participants' psychological safety; the sole predictor of the variable was the organization's quality initiatives. The predictors of knowledge sharing in the team were leaders' humble leadership, age, level of education, and accreditation initiatives in the organizations. The predictors of followers' creativity were leaders' humble leadership, level of education, and quality initiatives in the organizations. The lowest means of the four variables should be immediately managed. Conclusion Quality initiatives in organizations and the number of tenures were the most influential predictors of the four variables evaluated. Leaders' humble leadership predicted knowledge sharing in the team and followers' creativity, but not participants' psychological safety. As followers' psychological safety contributes to trustful relationships within the team, workplace boundaries and conducive work environments should be promoted. Training programs are required to develop humble nurses and leaders' leadership.

Study methods

An online survey was used with a cross-sectional design. A nonprobability convenience snowball sample of 245 nursing academics (n = 85, 34.70%), nurses (n = 140, 57.10%), and nursing leaders (n = 20, 8.20%) who worked in three universities and three hospitals were collected, with a response rate of 70.00%. Facebook and WhatsApp were used to collect responses from participants for the online survey. The principal investigator started collecting data by recruiting convenience samples through which the study was announced, and participants were selected if they wished to participate. Other participants were referred to the researcher through snowball recruitment.

Limitations

When nurses reflect on their leaders' humble leadership, they focus solely on their strengths, creating a bias in rating humble leaders. Self-reporting of leaders' humble leadership, participants' psychological safety, knowledge sharing in the team, and followers' creativity in nursing suggest possible bias. The major concern is related to the use of self-reported creativity. Many variables are already reported in the literature to predict creativity, such as personality traits, openness to experience, and age [6, 60]. Thus, in future studies, substantive control factors must be employed to isolate the effect of potential variables that may affect creativity. After controlling for potential interfering variables, potential predictors of creativity should be found.

A 90-day district inquiry

Days 1–15 · Appraise. Read the source methods, recruitment, comparator, outcomes and limitations. Record how the study setting differs from your district and which claim the design can support.
Days 16–30 · Design. Pilot a structured team debrief in one voluntary staff team. Invite dissent, record a specific improvement action and assign responsibility without collecting identifiable criticism. Agree participation, privacy protections, baseline and stopping rules before starting.
Days 31–60 · Observe. Collect the pre-agreed measures, keep a log of implementation changes and invite confidential voluntary feedback. Preserve existing support for staff and learners.
Days 61–90 · Decide. Compare participation distribution, action completion, near-miss reporting and a consistent voluntary team-climate measure. Increased reporting may reflect greater openness rather than more errors. Make a dated decision to stop, revise or extend the inquiry.

Board decision brief

Present the local problem, source setting, evidence limits, intervention, responsible owner, total cost, measured changes and uncertainty. Separate staff perceptions, implementation measures and student learning outcomes.

Attribution and reuse

Majd T. Mrayyan; Saleem F. Al-Rjoub. Levels and Predictors of Leaders' Humble Leadership, Participants' Psychological Safety, Knowledge Sharing in the Team, and Followers' Creativity in Nursing: A Cross-Sectional Online Survey. Journal of Nursing Management (2024-06-12). https://doi.org/10.1155/2024/9660787

Prepared 2026-11-07. Source authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract and source passages are attributed extracts; this editorial guide is offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license.