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Global nursing leadership.

The theme of this issue is ‘Global Nursing Leadership’. The terms ‘global’ or ‘globalisation’ are not new, but have been used increasingly since the mid-1980s, for example, in the newspapers and media. How often do we stop and think: what do these really mean? What is globalisation? Today it is easy to ‘Google’ everything and find from the internet that... ‘Globalisation is the process of international integration arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture... Advances in transportation and telecommunications infrastructure, including the rise of the telegraph and its posterity the internet, are major factors in globalisation, generating further interdependence of economic and cultural activities... In 2000, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) identified four basic aspects of globalisation: trade and transactions, capital and investment movements, migration and movement of people and the dissemination of knowledge...’ Globalisation has been an unfolding trend for over three decades, as our communities and cultures become both closer via the internet and also more diverse, as people migrate, move and travel for different reasons. Nurses and nurse leaders are in the fore front of their communities and increasingly face the need to understand and take initiatives in responding to this rapidly changing world. Today health services, including nursing, are undergoing fast changes. Health reforms are occurring in many parts of the world and this trend is accelerating. The ‘wake-up’ call is that health care reforms are also many times part of a much wider process of social and political restructuring. How ready and prepared are we, as nurse leaders, for being part of this change, restructuring and reform processes? Those of us who are or will be in key leadership and management positions need to be well prepared to work effectively in interdisciplinary teams, plan and manage effective and cost-efficient services, involve communities and key stakeholders in health care planning and delivery, formulate policies and prepare and empower nurses, nurse managers, leaders, educators, and staff for the future. Our biggest challenge in the 21st century is the transformation of nursing. Global nursing leadership requires active participation and leadership in practice, education, research, and policy/political arenas. To participate in this transformation process and innovative development of new health care systems, nurse leaders must be ‘super’ active within the national, but also multinational and multidisciplinary decision processes that discern health care at home and abroad. For this to happen we need to provide our nurse leaders with new tools and knowledge. In other words, we need to ensure that our global nurse leaders have a good understanding of the health care system, social and political context, purposes of health reform, a vision of how health and nursing services may be developed in their countries, the ability to plan strategically for and manage change, and the strength and confidence to be proactive in a challenging and often stressful change environment. Global nursing leadership has been increasingly highlighted in the literature, for example, from workforce (Douglas 2011, Rollins Gantz et al. 2012), educational and capacity building (Nichols et al. 2011, Blaney 2012, Clark Callister 2012, Zittel et al. 2012) and quality/excellence perspectives (Ferguson 2013). An important remark here is that global nursing leadership is based on – and needs to draw from – the expertise of international scholars, researchers who can expand our perspectives with new knowledge to review and enhance our understanding on leadership and skills within a collaborative and stimulating learning culture and networking across borders. When we compiled this issue, our starting point was an assumption that global nursing leadership can be enhanced by sharing the selected articles and research from authors all over the world. We are convinced that every reader and leader can find remarkable similarities with their own experiences and in the topics studied and discussed despite cultural differences. We strongly believe that global nursing leadership, evidence-based practices and high quality health care services are promoted by connecting nurses worldwide to share ideas, innovations and new knowledge through the articles of this issue. This issue illuminates the theme from the following perspectives: empowerment, competency development, effective leadership including workforce and patient care safety issues and excellence of global leadership.