Curbing the urge to care: A Bourdieusian analysis of the effect of the caring disposition on nurse middle managers' clinical leadership in patient safety practices

The dispositions of the nurse middle managers' habitus influenced their clinical leadership in patient safety practices. A dominance of the caring disposition, which meant 'always' answering calls for help and reactive and ad hoc reactions, did not support the clinical leadership role of nurse middle managers. By perceiving the team of staff nurses as pseudo-patients, patient safety practice was jeopardized because of erosion of the clinical disposition. The nurse middle managers' clinical leadership was enhanced by leadership behaviour based on the clinical and scientific dispositions that was manifested through an investigative, non-judging, analytic stance, a focus on evidence-based practice and a curbed caring disposition.