In recent years, healthcare, including nursing, has
turned to the aviation and nuclear power industries to
identify best practices in ways to improve safety and
quality outcomes.5 In much the same way, they have
turned to nonhealthcare business enterprises for best
practices in financial and supply chain management.6
There has not, however, been a similar practice around
models of successful leadership development in other
industries that might serve as examples for intentionally
developing nurse leaders over an entire career. This
article presents the military’s leadership development
programas a potential framework that may be useful
in the intentional development of nurses, beginning
with individual nurses at the most local level, for example,
shift charge nurses and moving through the
upper levels of corporate management, whether the
nurses are working in healthcare, academia, government,
or other large organizations. The military framework
and this proposal both assume the baccalaureate
level of education as the foundation on which to begin
the intentional development of leaders.