Mitigating the Impact of Nurse Manager Large Spans of Control

Abstract

Nurse managers are instrumental in achievement of organizational and unit performance goals. Greater spans of control for managers are associated with decreased satisfaction and performance. An interprofessional team measured one organization's nurse manager span of control, providing administrative assistant support and transformational leadership development to nurse managers with the largest spans of control. Nurse manager satisfaction and transformational leadership competency significantly improved following the implementation of large span of control mitigation strategies.