Actionable companion · Leadership practice and organizational learning
From leadership research to district action: A Complexity‐Informed Phenomenologic Study of Canadian Academic Nursing Leadership: Leading Through the Pandemic With Lessons Learned for Managing Future Crises
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.
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:
Background The leadership challenges in the Canadian healthcare system became more complex during the global pandemic. Major disruptions in nursing education programs occurred simultaneously, creating an acute adaptive crisis. Academic nursing leaders were required to respond to rapidly changing public health directives and institutional policies while ensuring the safety and continuity of their nursing program. Aim The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore higher education nursing leadership experiences, including leader styles, interactions, risk management, decision‐making, changes to education programs, daily operations, and team dynamics. Methods The study used an interpretative phenomenologically informed design, which was informed by complexity leadership theory. Semistructured, in‐depth interviews were conducted with 20 academic nursing leaders across Canada. Recruitment and data collection occurred from spring 2023 to fall 2024 during the final phases of the COVID pandemic. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed following the principles of content analysis. Results Content analysis of the 20 interviews revealed three main themes: maintaining quality nursing education programs; administrative decision challenges; and communication during a crisis. Conclusions Study findings provide insights into the often invisible work of academic nursing leaders navigating the intersection of educational continuity, regulatory requirements, student progression, faculty workload, clinical placement disruption, institutional policy, and public health directives. Ensuring effective organizational adaptation was the major focus of complexity nursing leadership. In preparation for potential future crises, succession planning and preparation of future leaders are a priority.
Study methods
This study was informed by phenomenological principles and complexity leadership theory to explore how academic nursing leaders made meaning of their leadership experiences during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Rather than treating leadership as a fixed set of individual traits or actions, this study conceptualized leadership as situated, relational, and emergent within complex academic, professional, regulatory, and healthcare system contexts.
Limitations
This study contributes to the additional understanding of a pandemic‐induced crisis affecting nursing education leadership, which has received little attention. The results represent the views of a mixed group of senior nurse administrators whose role responsibilities varied. Some held more senior positions than others, but the only focus of the study was on their experiences with the undergraduate programs. Some variability in the findings is expected due to different levels of knowledge and types of administrative experiences, the size and geographical location of the programs, and the composition of faculty and staff. The transferability of the results should be considered in the context of the type of curriculum in Canadian undergraduate nursing programs.
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. Choose one recurring leadership practice described in the source. Map its participants, incentives and constraints to a district setting, then design a small reversible staff pilot with an accountable owner. 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. Record implementation fidelity, staff review time, task quality and unintended burdens against a baseline. Use a comparison team where feasible and document alternative explanations before expanding. 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
Lillie Lum; Liza L. S. Choi. A Complexity‐Informed Phenomenologic Study of Canadian Academic Nursing Leadership: Leading Through the Pandemic With Lessons Learned for Managing Future Crises. Journal of Nursing Management (2026-01-01). https://doi.org/10.1155/jonm/5076028
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.