Linda Searle-Leach, PhD

Linda Searle-Leach, Ph.D., RN, NEA-BC is an associate professor in the School of Nursing Department of Graduate Healthcare Administration. She focuses on organizational and nursing leadership, healthy work environments, and well-being among clinicians in contemporary healthcare organizations. She has experience in acute care settings as a director of nursing, nurse manager, clinical nurse specialist, and nurse scientist. She has conducted research on leadership and effective care delivery investigating healthcare teams that include surgery teams and response teams. She was the principal investigator of three studies examining the implementation of rapid response teams in hospitals for patient safety. Her research on nursing leadership encompassed transformational leadership among nurse administrators, nursing leadership development for nurse executives, and determining priorities for nursing leadership research. Searle-Leach has carried out quantitative and qualitative research and provided consultation on shared governance, leadership development, implementing evidence-based practice, and a program of nursing research to advance a culture of inquiry in Magnet hospitals. She has extensive experience with professional nursing associations including serving on the Board of Directors of the Association for California Nurse Leaders, chairing the ACNL Research Committee, and as a President of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses and the AACN Certification Corporation.