Introduction
There are increasing demands for nursing services from a limited workforce. Yet nurses and their leadership are required, among other things, to provide evidencebased quality care, adjust to a multicultural environ
ment, control costs and demonstrate accountability for their performance (Nonaka & Takeuchi 1995, McGrath & MacMillan 2000, Sullivan & Decker 2005). Several researchers have explored the strategic role of leadership and how to employ leadership paradigms to improve organizational performance (Drucker 2001, De Hoogh et al. 2004, Sullivan & Decker 2005, Aarons 2006, Jing & Avery 2008, Kaiser et al. 2008).