Antrobus and Kitson (1999) claim that potential nurse leaders should be identified early in their careers to expose them to people and situations that would help them develop leadership skills. However, if these roles are not attractive to newly qualified
staff, early career succession planning will be problematic. Wendler et al (2009) argue that the lack of potential leaders is due to the increasing age of ‘baby boomers’ and a large proportion of the nursing profession retiring, as well as the often-traumatic transition from clinical nurse to nurse manager (Blouin et al 2006).