In The Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) has charged educators with ensuring student competence across 10 domains.1 Domains 1, 9, and 10 focus on Quality and Safety, Professionalism, and Personal and Professional Leadership Development. In a prelicensure leadership course, students gain competence in these 3 domains through a leadership tool kit. Assignments in the tool kit include completing a personal leadership inventory using The Student Leadership Challenge2 framework, using Crucial Conversations3 to rewrite an interpersonal conflict, performing a mini root-cause analysis, and interviewing a nurse leader. By completing the personal leadership inventory, students assess their strengths and opportunities for improvement. Students complete the inventory at the beginning and end of the semester and reflect on any changes in their scores, showing that leadership development is not static but dynamic. Applying strategies from Crucial Conversations3 provides tools to navigate a conflict-laden practice environment. For a mini root-cause analysis, students read a poignant tale of events that befell a pediatric patient with burn injury. Students submit their personal reaction to the story and identify active and latent errors and evidence-based recommendations for prevention of similar future events. Interviewing a nurse leader allows students to gain insights into effective leadership styles in a real-world setting.

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