Samenvatting

Talk by members of executive hospital boards influences the organizational
positioning of nurses. Talk is a relational leadership practice. Using a qualitative‐
interpretive design we organized focus group meetings wherein members of
executive hospital boards (7), nurses (14), physicians (7), and managers (6), from
15 Dutch hospitals, discussed the organizational positioning of nursing during
COVID crisis. We found that members of executive hospital boards consider
the positioning of nursing in crisis a task of nurses themselves and not as a collective,
interdependent, and/or specific board responsibility. Furthermore, members of
executive hospital boards talk about the nursing profession as (1) more practical than
strategic, (2) ambiguous in positioning, and (3) distinctive from the medical
profession. Such talk seemingly contrasts with the notion of interdependence that
highlights how actors depend on each other in interaction. Interdependence is
central to collaboration in hospital crises. In this paper, therefore, we depart from the
members of executive hospital boards as leader and “positioner,” and focus on talk—
as a discursive leadership practice—to illuminate leadership and governance in
hospitals in crisis, as social, interdependent processes.