Abstract
The nursing leader role can have widespread impact on an organization, from staffing retention to patient satisfaction scores. As wide reaching as this role is, not all hospitals place the same emphasis in developing nursing leadership skills. Some hospitals develop nurse leadership programs while other tend to hire nurses into the leadership role with the expectation of learning on the job. Nurses interested in pursuing a nurse leadership role can either earn advanced degrees or hope to receive some training at their employer. The purpose of this scholarly project is to conduct a comprehensive review of literature to define leadership, understand the influence of nurse leaders, describe how nurse leaders are currently trained, and explain why leadership development programs build prepared and resilient nurse leaders.