BOOK REVIEWS

Conversations With Leaders: Frank Talk From Nurses (and Others) on the Front Lines of Leadership

Edited by Tine Hansen-Turton, BA, MGA, JD; Susan Sherman, RN, MA; and Vernice Ferguson, RN, MA, FAAN, FRCN

Reviewed by M. Elaine Tagliareni

At first glance, Conversations With Leaders appears to be an easy, uncomplicated read. Engrossing, practical and straightforward, it provides insight into the personal journeys of leaders—predominantly nurses and women—who have distinguished themselves regionally and nationally in health, law and human services. Upon reflection—and that is the point of this series of discussions—the book is so much more.

Presented in conversational style, each chapter provides insight into the thoughts of these leaders, who speak to a shared mission of making a difference, recognition of the power of relationships, and the learning—often transforming and always exciting—that comes with reflection and life review.

Susan Sherman, president and CEO of the Independence Foundation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, and Vernice Ferguson, professor emeritus, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, together with Tine Hansen-Turton, executive director of the National Nursing Center Consortium in Philadelphia, conceptualized the book following a series of seminars, held at the Independence Foundation between 1999 and 2005, to assist local nurse executives and nurse educators in building leadership skills.

How fortunate for nurses in the Philadelphia area to meet and dialogue in an informal and interactive setting with Sally Peck Lundeen, Afaf Meleis, Beverly Malone, Veneta Masson, Marla Salmon and Jean Watson, to name just a few, and to realize that leadership is, essentially, a personal journey that requires reflection, determination, strategic planning and vision.

These “conversations” about leadership highlighted the notions that learning from experience is compelling and that success is not achieved without failures and bumps in the road. It’s a journey that involves endurance, humor and willingness to be re-energized and inspired by opportunity. What makes the book unique is the way each story unfolds, inviting the reader to join the authors in thinking about how, as emerging and potential leaders, they see themselves.

As the authors reflect on key times early in their careers when they acted as leaders—often with uncertainty and trepidation, but never without resolve to influence, achieve goals and realize dreams—their journeys become real and personal to the reader. This, I believe, is the core message of these conversations: Leadership is not static or easily achieved, and to inspire others to take action and achieve common goals, one must know one’s self.

The book is a powerful teaching tool that can be used to generate important discussions with pre-licensure nursing students as well as graduate students in master’s and doctoral programs, and to foster reflection and dialogue with nurse colleagues. How powerful it would be to engage in conversations about leadership, using these stories as the foundation and the following questions to guide discussion: 1) What can be learned from these personal stories of leadership? 2) What aspects of leadership are surprises to you? 3) What components of leadership are most meaningful and most influential? 4) How does leadership contribute to realizing personal and professional dreams?

The opportunities for discourse are endless and enduring. Conversations With Leaders is a valuable and meaningful addition to the literature on leadership development. Moving between their professional and personal stories, the authors call upon us to embrace commitment to achieving, doing good for others, being mentors and risk takers, and telling our own stories of leadership so others can learn from us and be transformed.

M. Elaine Tagliareni, RN, EdD, professor of nursing and Independence Foundation Chair in Community Health Nursing Education at Community College of Philadelphia, is president-elect of the National League for Nursing.

The W. K. Kellogg Foundation and the Nursing Profession: Shared Values, Shared Legacy

by Joan E. Lynaugh, PhD, RN, FAAN; Helen K. Grace, PhD, MPH, FAAN; Gloria R. Smith, PhD, MPH; Roseni R. Sena, PhD, María Mercedes Durán de Villalobos, MNS; and Mary Malehloka Hlale, MD

Reviewed by Angela Barron McBride

Kellogg book cover There are many reasons to read this book: to learn about the W.K. Kellogg Foundation which, historically, supported the nursing profession more generously than any other nongovernmental agency (more than $58 million between 1930 and 1983); to understand the context of key developments in modern nursing, from clustering patients by care needs to the “ladder” concept of educational progression espoused by Kellogg Foundation President Emory Morris; to appreciate the balancing act of nurses working for the foundation (e.g., Helen M. Grace, RN, PhD, FAAN, and Gloria R. Smith, RN, PhD, FAAN), as they sought to implement changing priorities of the organization while being sensitive to the needs of their profession; to have a better sense of international issues in nursing; and to consider lessons learned from “unintended consequences” of innovations.

The book begins with the historian’s perspective. In Part I, Joan Lynaugh describes the foundation’s shaping of American nursing between 1930 and 1980. She recounts, for example, the exemplary role of public health nurses known as the “Flying Squadron” in the Michigan Community Health Project (1931 to 1948); the foundation’s longstanding concern for an adequate workforce in times of war and conditions of shortage; and attempts to encourage greater collaboration between physicians and nurses.

Grace and Smith then describe pivotal moments during the years when they provided the chief nursing sensibility within the foundation. Grace began her career in the organization in 1982 as a program director and retired in 1998 as special assistant to the president. Smith came to the foundation in 1991 as coordinator for health programming and retired as vice president for health programming in 2001.

In Part III, lessons learned in Latin America and in South Africa are summarized by key players from those regions. The book ends with Grace and Smith reprieving earlier themes and pondering the exigencies of sustainability planning, a relevant focus since many of the foundation’s innovations—particularly those meant to strengthen the community-health focus of nursing—were not institutionalized after grant funding ended.

For them and us—the readers—there remains some uncertainty about the organization’s sum total of achievements. Sure, there were many successes, from the role the foundation played in developing intensive-care nursing to its development of a regional-level infrastructure for strengthening faculty competencies. To cite some examples of the latter, Western Inter-institutional Compact on Higher Education and Nursing (WICHEN), Southern Regional Educational Board (SREB) and Midwest Alliance in Nursing (MAIN), which gave birth to Midwest Nursing Research Society (MNRS). Nevertheless, one is left sensing a discrepancy between how much nursing could have profited from foundation support and actual outcomes. W.K. Kellogg believed in “helping people to help themselves,” and the nursing profession emphasizes similar values in its very definition, so why wasn’t nursing more transformed than it was by the many sponsored projects?

There are no easy answers to the thoughtful questions posed by the authors, but the book does remind us that we are doomed to be unsuccessful when we tackle complicated questions with simple answers. It describes, for example, the foundation’s support of the Associate Degree in Nursing—to move beyond apprenticeship learning and to upgrade practical nursing—but also noted is the fact that this support was given without paying sufficient attention to the functions of the professional nurse (see p. 67).

The book ends without much discussion of the future, but leaves the reader with niggling worries that nurses still won’t get their fair share of resources when grant-funding priorities shift from a discipline-specific approach to a solution-focused approach that supports programs on the basis of priority health problems. Are we prepared to take the lead in designing new structures that lead to sustainable change, or are we fated to staff the organizations others create?

— Angela Barron McBride, RN, PhD, FAAN, is distinguished professor and university dean emerita at Indiana University School of Nursing and past president of the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International (1987-89).