What was interesting about the findings from this study is that nursing leadership, as perceived by nurse executives,differed from general leadership because of its emphasis on nurses assuming responsibility for influencing and improving the practice environment.These findings are not dissimilar to those reported by Antrobus and Kitson (1999), who suggested that ‘all leaders in whatever position they were in combined their sphere of influence with clinical practice’. In other words, nursing knowledge derived from nursing practice was instrumental in influencing their leadership. Other terms used to describe nursing leadership include ‘empowering others, facilitating learning, developing nursing knowledge, working with and through others to achieve success’ (Antrobus and Kitson, 1999). La Monica (1994) stated that ‘anytime a person is a recognised authority and has followers who counts on this person’s expertise to carry out their objectives, the person is a leader’. She further suggests that a person is a leader if they provide assistance to others.Therefore,a student nurse is a leader to patients and clients,a staff nurse is also a leader to patients and clients,and a ward manager is a leader to all team members. In addition to defining leadership, it is useful to draw attention to the fact that although they are sometimes used interchangeably, the terms ‘leadership’and ‘management’ are quite different.