overview
Nursing leadership has never been more complex. Healthcare organizations are rapidly adopting artificial intelligence while simultaneously facing unprecedented staffing shortages, burnout and turnover. Nurse managers navigate the expectations of frontline staff, executive leadership, physicians, patients and families while managing budgets, quality metrics and operational demands. First-year nurse managers report feeling unprepared for the scope of responsibility. Experienced leaders struggle with workforce retention as burnout drives talented nurses away from the profession. AI implementation happening in many organizations often bypasses nursing input, creating systems that don’t fit clinical workflow or worse, create additional burden rather than support.
Business Research Intelligence Network’s Nursing Leadership Summit brings together nurse leaders, educators, executives and innovators addressing these challenges head-on. Sessions explore building sustainable nursing leadership pipelines with structured development for new managers, integrating AI thoughtfully into nursing practice with nurses as full partners in design and governance, creating psychological safety and meaning in nursing work, developing communication and decision-making excellence, succession planning and talent development, and retaining nurses by addressing what actually matters to frontline staff.
Attendees will hear from nursing leaders building strong manager infrastructure, health systems implementing AI governance frameworks that protect safety, and nurse innovators driving practice change. This summit provides proven strategies for leading nursing through transformation while protecting patient care, clinical quality and the nurse workforce.
7:15am – 8:00am
Conference Registration & Networking Breakfast
8:00am – 8:15am
Chairperson's Opening Remarks
8:15am – 9:00am
The First Year: Building Infrastructure to Support New Nurse Managers
New nurse managers face overwhelming responsibility in their first year, managing safety, quality, patient experience and team building simultaneously. Many feel unprepared for the scope of the role. Organizations with structured transition-to-practice programs dramatically improve retention and performance of new managers. Learn how leading health systems provide comprehensive onboarding including competency-based projects, peer mentoring, structured curriculum covering manager fundamentals and early wins that build confidence. Hear about checklists and tools reducing decision fatigue and structured support during critical first 12 months. Topics to be discussed will include:
- Designing transition-to-practice curriculum addressing manager essentials
- Building peer mentoring and coaching infrastructure
- Measuring success through retention and performance metrics
- Creating psychological safety in leadership development
9:00am – 9:45am
AI in Nursing: Promise, Pitfalls and the Nurse's Role in Design
AI can free nurses from documentation burden and help identify patient deterioration earlier, but only if designed thoughtfully. AI systems trained on incomplete datasets can miss warning signs in certain populations. Black-box recommendations lacking transparency undermine trust. Many organizations adopt AI tools before developing governance frameworks or including nurses in design. Nurses must be partners in AI implementation, not just users. Learn how to establish governance frameworks ensuring safety before deployment, identify where AI should genuinely help versus where it adds burden, and build organizational capacity for AI literacy across nursing.
9:45am – 10:15am
Networking & Refreshments Break
10:15am – 11:00am
Communication Excellence: The Foundation of Effective Nursing Leadership
Nurse leaders navigate relationships across patients, families, physicians, staff, administrators and colleagues daily. Miscommunication cascades into patient safety issues, staff turnover and operational failures. Active listening, clear feedback and collaborative problem-solving are fundamental to effective leadership. This session explores developing communication mastery including difficult conversations, feedback that develops rather than damages, conflict resolution, and creating psychological safety where staff feel heard and valued. Learn techniques for communicating across diverse audiences and managing challenging interpersonal dynamics.
11:00am – 11:45am
Decision-Making Under Uncertainty: Building Confidence and Clarity
Nurse leaders make consequential decisions daily with incomplete information and competing priorities. Staffing decisions, quality improvements, clinical practice changes and operational adjustments require thoughtful analysis and decisive action. Learn frameworks for structured decision-making, gathering the right information, evaluating options and committing to action even amid uncertainty. Hear how experienced leaders build confidence through deliberate practice and how to develop decision-making capabilities in your team. Explore using data to inform decisions while maintaining clinical judgment and intuition. Topics to be discussed will include:
- Decision frameworks for different decision types and urgency levels
- Gathering input versus deciding independently
- Managing decision regret and learning from outcomes
- Developing decision-making confidence in leaders you supervise
11:45am – 12:30pm
Succession Planning and Talent Development: Growing the Bench
Nursing shortages mean every experienced leader represents irreplaceable expertise. Organizations that systematically identify, develop and retain nursing talent build resilient operations while departments that lose leaders to retirement or burnout struggle for years. This session examines succession planning as strategic priority including identifying high-potential nurses early, creating development pathways preparing them for advancement, and retaining talented leaders through meaningful work and growth opportunities. Learn about coaching and mentoring that develops capability faster than experience alone and how to balance individual growth with organizational needs.
12:30pm – 1:30pm
Networking Lunch
1:30pm – 2:15pm
Retaining Nurses: What Actually Matters to Your Staff
Nursing turnover continues rising despite increased wages and sign-on bonuses. Exit interviews reveal the real drivers of departure: lack of psychological safety, feeling undervalued, unclear expectations, poor manager relationships and absence of meaning. Leaders cannot fix systemic healthcare pressures but can create units where nurses feel heard, supported and know their work matters. Learn what research reveals about nurse satisfaction and retention, how to assess your unit culture honestly, and specific actions creating meaningful work environments. Hear about recognition programs that actually resonate, supporting work-life balance and building team cohesion that sustains people through difficult periods.
2:15pm – 3:15pm
Panel Discussion: Nursing Leadership in Times of Crisis and Transformation
Nursing leaders have navigated unprecedented challenges in recent years and continue facing shifting demands. Panelists bring diverse experience leading through COVID, managing AI integration, addressing staffing crises, and transforming care models. The discussion covers building resilience in yourself and your teams, maintaining morale amid constant change, making tough calls when resources are insufficient, and knowing when to push back versus when to adapt. Hear candid reflections on mistakes, lessons learned and what got leaders and their teams through the hardest periods. Topics to be discussed will include:
- Building personal resilience and managing leadership stress
- Maintaining team cohesion during uncertainty and change
- Making ethical decisions with insufficient resources
- Advocating for your team while supporting organizational goals
3:15pm – 3:45pm
Networking & Refreshments Break
3:45pm – 4:30pm
Leading Change: Moving Your Unit from Where You Are to Where You Need to Be
Nursing leaders drive change daily — new protocols, workflow improvements, technology implementation, practice changes — yet many staff resist. Change is hard, even when necessary. Leaders who understand change psychology, involve staff in designing solutions and provide support through transition achieve better outcomes and maintain morale. This session explores change leadership including how to build urgency without creating panic, bringing resistant staff along rather than forcing compliance and sustaining momentum after initial enthusiasm wanes. Learn about common pitfalls in change implementation and how to recover when change efforts stall. Hear from leaders who successfully transformed practice despite skepticism and resource constraints. Topics to be discussed will include:
- Building staff engagement and buy-in for change initiatives
- Communicating change vision clearly and repeatedly
- Supporting people through discomfort of learning new ways
- Measuring success and celebrating progress along the way
4:30pm – 5:15pm
Nursing Innovation: Empowering Frontline Nurses to Shape Practice
Frontline nurses see opportunities for improvement daily yet many lack pathways to develop and implement ideas. Organizations supporting nurse innovation unlock tremendous capability while building engagement and retention. This session explores creating innovation cultures, identifying and developing nurse inventors, protecting time and resources for improvement work, and scaling successful innovations across the organization. Hear from nurse inventors about what enabled their success and how organizational support accelerated impact.
5:15pm
End of Day One
7:15am – 8:00am
Networking Breakfast
8:00am – 8:15am
Chairperson's Remarks
8:15am – 9:00am
AI Literacy for Nurses: Understanding Capabilities and Limitations
AI literacy doesn't mean every nurse needs computer science expertise — it means understanding what AI can and cannot do, recognizing bias and unreliability risks, and asking critical questions about systems affecting patient care. Nurses need to understand where recommendations come from, whether systems were validated in populations similar to their patients, and when outputs might be wrong. This session builds AI literacy across the nursing workforce helping staff confidently work alongside technology while protecting patient safety. Learn about types of AI bias, how to identify potentially unreliable outputs and red flags triggering escalation.
9:00am – 9:45am
Quality and Safety Leadership: Building a Culture of Excellence
Nurse leaders are accountable for patient safety, care quality and outcomes on their units yet often lack formal training in quality improvement methodology or safety leadership. High-reliability organizations embed safety thinking into daily work through clear protocols, transparent communication about errors, psychological safety enabling staff to speak up about risks, and continuous improvement mindset. This session explores frameworks for quality and safety leadership including how to respond when errors occur, building safety culture across your team and using data to identify and address risks before they harm patients. Learn about leading after adverse events, supporting staff when things go wrong and building systems catching problems early.
9:45am – 10:15am
Networking & Refreshments Break
10:15am – 11:00am
Navigating Healthcare Complexity: Understanding Systems and Politics
Nurse leaders must understand how healthcare organizations function including budgeting, contracting, regulatory compliance and relationships with physicians and other departments. Political savvy — understanding power dynamics and stakeholder interests — determines whether good ideas become reality or die. This session demystifies healthcare operations and organizational dynamics helping leaders navigate complexity more effectively. Learn about aligning your initiatives with organizational priorities, building coalitions for change and recognizing when you're in over your head needing executive support.
11:00am – 11:45am
Building Your Leadership Team: Delegation and Empowerment
Nurse leaders cannot succeed alone. Effective delegation and empowerment of your team multiplies impact while developing future leaders. Yet many leaders either delegate too little fearing loss of control or too much creating chaos. Learn how to delegate appropriately matching tasks to capability, providing support while allowing autonomy, and holding people accountable without micromanaging. Hear about creating shared governance structures where staff contribute to decisions affecting them and building leadership bench strength across your team.
11:45am – 12:30pm
Your Leadership Journey: Reflection and Next Steps
This closing session provides time for reflection on what you've learned and how to apply it in your context. Leaders reflect on their leadership philosophy, strengths and development areas, and create accountability for implementing change. Hear about executive coaching, peer accountability groups and ongoing learning opportunities sustaining leadership development beyond the conference.
12:30pm
Conference Concludes
12:45pm – 2:45pm
Workshop: Assessing Your Leadership and Building Your Development Plan
This workshop guides you through honest assessment of your leadership strengths and development areas using frameworks from the conference. You'll identify your leadership philosophy, clarify what matters most to you as a leader and determine specific actions building strength in priority areas. Hear about resources supporting ongoing development including executive coaching, peer groups and professional organizations. You'll leave with a personal leadership development plan and accountability structures sustaining progress beyond the summit. Learning objectives:
- Assess your leadership strengths and development areas
- Clarify your leadership philosophy and what matters most
- Identify specific actions building strength in priority areas
- Create accountability plan for implementing your leadership development
From Hospitals/Health Systems/Long-Term Care Facilities
Chief Nursing Officers
Chief Nursing Executive
Chief Operating Officer
Patient Care
Patient Services
Nursing Directors
Nursing Administration
Clinical Operations
Patient Experience
Patient Safety
Patient Engagement
Chief Nursing Information Officer
Telehealth Director
Operations Director
Staffing
Nurse Leaders
Nurse Manager
Medical Directors
Chief of Staff
ICU Nurse
Clinical Care
Also of Interest to Vendors/Consultants/Staffing Agencies/Recruitment
Featured Speakers
Hyatt Regency Austin
208 Barton Springs Road
Austin, TX 78704
512-477-1234