Customer Reviews

Management and Leadership for Nurse Administrators

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It is an excellent book to prepare for the ANCC's Nurse Executive Exam.This is the only book I read and I passed the exam. The way the book is written is very simple and easy to understand. I would strongly recommend this book to all nurses in management positions.

This is a book that was almost good, but unfortunately seemed to lack an editor that cared. Much of the information was too commonsensical. For example, a company run by a transformational leader will be on the forefront of evidence-based practice. A leader who involves his or her staff in the leadership process will have a staff with a higher morale. Being trustworthy is important. You get the idea. One major problem I have with this book is almost all of the book tells me what will happen if I employ listening skills, integrity, etc. etc. etc. but almost no information on how to actually obtain these skills.
Next is the issue of redundancy. If one eliminated the repetitive nature of the information, one would probably wind up with a 150-page book.
However, my major gripe is the fact that the book has MANY errors. Incorrect and/or irrelevant charts have been inserted into the text. Formulas don't work. One list of proportions for staffing arrangements only adds up to 99% (meaning 1% of your staff is unaccounted for; all proportions must add up to 100%). I don't remember the exact numbers on one formula, but it suggested something like 1910/1910 * 100 and getting 92.13% or other such completely incorrect outcome. I counted a good 13 errors of this magnitude in the 12 or so chapters I read before I gave up counting. Considering many of these formulas and charts are the little direct practical information available in this book (that is, something that tells me how to do something and not telling me what doing something ambiguous will do for me), it is unforgivable that they should be incorrect. Note that many of the errors actually render the information useless. Furthermore, many of the errors appear to be simply typos and/or bad copies and pastes, meaning they were totally avoidable at any point during the creation and editing processes.

I rated this as 3 stars instead of the tempting 2 stars, simply because it is one of apparently very few references specific to nursing management. This book enters "uncharted waters" and does not utterly fail. It actually has some positive points. It provides some decent information hidden in much unnecessary flotsam. It does provide an exhaustive reference list at the end of each chapter. This means that, should a particular formula or chart be needed but is hacked beyond recognition, one can look it up from its original source. It also, of course, allows the reader to research a particular aspect of interest in more depth.

So, in conclusion, the book is unnecessarily wordy, chooses to tell you how wonderful your company will be if you're a great leader or manager in lieu of telling you how to go about being a good leader/manager, and what unique information it DOES give has many errors that render them unusable. It provides good reference lists and at least some useful information. Overall, I feel that with some TLC, edition 6 could very well be wonderful.