Abstract
Background and Aims: With ever-changing innovations in health care, nurses need a proactive approach to patient care management from the perspectives of both patient and the health care team. Like any other allied health professions, nursing entails adaptive leadership approaches which judiciously explore the multifaceted aspects of management. This review explored the concept of how staff nurses and nurse managers utilize adaptive leadership behaviors in hospital and community settings.

Methods: A systematic review of literature was performed on nine electronic databases, namely, i) CINAHL, (ii) Med- line, (iii) ProQuest: Nursing and Allied Health, (iv) DOAJ, (v) Springer, (vi) Wolters Kluwer, (vii) Taylor and Francis, (viii) Web of Science, and (ix) Google Scholar, with no year restrictions. English language and peer-reviewed journal articles were included. Joanna Briggs Institute Qualitative Assessment and Review Instrument (JBI-QARI) was used as a critical appraisal instrument to assess the articles for methodological validity.

Results: Nine research articles were selected for the review. There were three main themes generated in presenting nurse’s adaptive leadership. This includes leadership qualities, leadership challenges and leadership capacities.

Conclusion: The review findings provide valuable insights on the complex issues of how staff nurses and nurse man- agers utilize adaptive leadership behaviors in hospital and community settings.

Key words: Adaptive leadership, Community, Hospital, Meta-synthesis, Nurse, Qualitative