Informal Leaders and Cultural Change

A review of the business and management literature also found a number of articles that dealt directly with leadership types related to change and teams but likewise did not discuss the role of informal leaders. The literature in both nursing and business describe the role of the “follower,” which displays attributes of the informal leader.

Nursing leaders at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center tapped into the valuable resource of informal leaders when implementing a new professional practice model, which ultimately transitioned to a theoretical basis for our model of care.

Role of the informal leader

Before we could implement a change that significantly impacted nursing culture, we had to understand the nature of informal leadership. Teams may operate without explicitly assigned roles or established authority and as a result are classed as "informal." Informal leaders in nursing are often nurses with a high level of clinical competency who are recognized as experts. This type of leader influences the group, comes from the team, and is chosen by the team.

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