Leadership style has been studied from various perspectives including transformational leadership and the components of leadership competencies needed to exhibit transformational styles. However, there was a gap in the literature on the influence of leadership style on nursing professional behaviors and overall professionalism. The purpose of this descriptive, phenomenological study was to understand and explore the beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions of staff nurses on leadership style and its influence on professional nursing behaviors working in an inpatient care unit at a tertiary care center. The theory of transformational leadership was the conceptual framework for the study. A phenomenological approach was used for the qualitative interview with data analysis using a descriptive method. A total of 8 nursing participants were interviewed revealing that nurses had similar thoughts on their perceptions of professional characteristics and leadership driving professional socialization. Nurses articulated a practical knowledge of professional activities with little to no connection to a larger sense of professional identity, theory in practice, and ethical obligations to the future of the profession of nursing. There is a noted lack of professionalism seen in the discipline of nursing. Professional registered nurses and heath care leaders in nursing can benefit from this study. Understanding how leadership style can influence nursing not only impacts positive social change and shapes the future of the discipline of nursing, but can also potentially impact patient care outcomes and patient.

Page 251 is missing from original but content appears complete. / Beginning with the question, "what are the forces and voices influencing the meaning of the concept, and the development of advanced nursing practice in New Zealand in the 1990s”, this thesis uses an historical sociological approach to explore what New Zealand nursing is becoming and what it is ceasing to be. Through the examination of New Zealand nursing history from 1860 through the first years of the 21st century, seven historical understandings of the meaning of 'advanced' nursing practice emerged: nurses with higher education; nurses with more than one type of registration; community nurses; nurse educators and administrators; specialty nursing; a career hierarchy based on further education, experience and clinical focus; and the contemporary Nurse Practitioner. The thesis argues that each of the earlier historical connotations of advanced nursing practice is reflected in the Nurse Practitioner. The analysis of this broad scope of New Zealand nursing history, including a case study of the interpretation and implementation of contemporary advanced nursing practice, reveals essential themes of profession and professionalisation; politics and political sophistication. Drawing on theoretical perspectives from sociology, political science, and nursing, these concepts are further analysed, and developed into a representational framework. This conceptualisation depicts critical factors for nursing to achieve its preferred position in the context of time. Therefore, this study is also an exploration of New Zealand nursing's professional project A professional project is the process through which an occupational group gains control over the education and entry to practice of practitioners; secures legitimacy through the state and the public; achieves self-regulation over its practice; and secures, maintains and extends a market, or jurisdiction for itself. This thesis illustrates that while the course of action of a professional project is not always clear or deliberate for all the members of the profession, it nevertheless has a coherence that may be seen ex post facto. It is argued that what became the drive for the development of New Zealand's Nurse Practitioner and the expansion of nursing's jurisdiction at the turn of the 21st century, began long before the 1990s. The importance of history to understanding the past, the relevance of history to the shape of the present, and the significance of history's influence on the future are affirmed.