Summary
Highlights
The model aims for radical change from apathy to spirituality. The servant leader formula involves a 'care complex primer,' a retreat workshop on servant leadership, and a seminar workshop on transformative teaching. Key terms include 'special expertise' (competence, commitment, collegiality), 'nursing leadership' (setting vision and influencing direction), 'transformative teaching' (thoughtful instruction, teacher research, narrative, and empowerment), and 'care complex' (nucleus of professional, maternal, and culture-based care experiences).
The theoretical framework highlights servant leadership spirituality running parallel to generic model elements. Self-mastery, rooted in a vibrant care complex, leads to special expertise demonstrated in faculty's creative, caring, critical, contemplative, and collegial teaching. The conceptual framework explains that well-being depends on the professional nurse's caring behavior, which is comprised of personal, folk, and professional care.
The model emphasizes nurses leading with care and compassion, with senior nurses educating new professionals. The servant leader formula is a tool for nurses to lead and educate according to Christ's principles. It encourages nursing educators to impart knowledge selflessly and passionately, aligning with the vision of empowered educators. The model helps form nurse leaders at the baccalaureate level and can be applied in other educational settings, not just nursing.
The model is useful for nurse educators facing modern challenges, centered on Jesus' teachings as a paradigm of peace. Its generalizability assures consistent leadership formation for nursing students. Simplicity is a complex aspect, as it requires seminars and retreats for a transformative servant leader ideal. Testability involved a study of 30 nursing faculty members divided into control and study groups for the servant leader formula.
Sister Carolina Esta Agravante, the theorist behind the CASAGRA transformative leadership model, holds various administrative positions at Saint Paul Colleges or universities in the Philippines and is active in national nursing organizations dedicated to advancing the nursing profession.
Dr. Agravante graduated with a BS in Nursing in 1964 from Saint Paul University, passing her licensure exam in the top ten the same year. She earned her Master's in Nursing Education in 1968 from Catholic University of America and her doctoral degree in philosophy from the University of the Philippines Manila in 2002, the year her theory was published. She served as president of Saint Paul University in her city, was a former president of the Association of Deans of Philippine Colleges of Nursing (ADPCN), and a founding member of the Integrated Registered Nurses of the Philippines.
The CASAGRA transformative leadership model, with the full title 'servant leader formula in the nursing faculty's transformative leadership behavior,' is a psycho-spiritual model designed to transform nursing faculty into better teachers and servant leaders. A noted weakness is its limitation to Roman Catholic and Christian nursing educators.