Bridging the Gap: The Roles of Legacy Leadership and Psychological Safety in Nurse Interns' Readiness for Practice.

AIM: To examine the relationship between legacy leadership and nurse interns' readiness for clinical practice and to test the moderating role of psychological safety.

BACKGROUND

The transition from nursing education to clinical practice is a critical period marked by gaps in readiness, limited self-regulation, and increased patient safety risks. Leadership within clinical settings remains a key modifiable factor shaping this transition. Legacy leadership, grounded in mentorship, ethical modeling, long-term professional development, and psychological safety have been proposed as facilitators of intern readiness. Their combined role remains underexplored in Saudi Arabia.

METHODS

A cross-sectional predictive correlational design was used. A convenience sample of 178 nurse interns was recruited from four Saudi universities. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire including the Legacy Leadership Scale, Nursing Practice Readiness Scale, and Psychological Safety Scale. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, an independent samples t-test, and hierarchical regression. All instruments demonstrated strong internal consistency.

RESULTS

Most participants (82.5%) reported high perceptions of legacy leadership (M = 107.34, SD = 15.76; 85.9%). Readiness for practice was high (M = 117.80, SD = 18.06; 84.1%); self-regulation was the lowest domain (82.9%). Psychological safety was moderate-to-high (M = 37.55, SD = 9.47; 76.6%). Legacy leadership showed a significant association with readiness for practice (β = 0.757, R2 = 0.573, p < 0.001). Psychological safety did not significantly moderate this relationship.

CONCLUSION

Legacy leadership showed the strongest association with readiness for practice and accounted for the largest proportion of explained variance within the regression model. Psychological safety did not function as a moderator. Its role within the leadership readiness relationship may warrant further investigation using alternative explanatory models.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Nursing managers should institutionalize structured mentorship development, ethical role modeling, and collaborative empowerment as core legacy leadership competencies within clinical internship frameworks to improve readiness outcomes.