Authentic Leadership in Nursing From 2006 to 2022: A Bibliometric Analysis and Visualization Analysis

Objectives: In this study, we analyzed the structure of publications on authentic leadership in nursing through bibliometric analysis. Methods: This is a descriptive bibliometric study. We collected date on August 15, 2023 from the Web of Science and used Excel and VOSviewer for analysis. Results: The search strategy yielded 136 documents authored by 363 researchers from 37 countries, published by 54 journals spanning 2006 to 2022. Research on authentic leadership in the nursing field has exhibited several key trends: (1) significant growth, particularly in the last 5 years; (2) primary contributions from scholars in a select number of countries; (3) limited collaboration among countries, institutions and authors; and (4) a predominant focus on nurse-centered topics such as job satisfaction and burnout, which have held a prominent place in the field. Conclusions: The number of publications on authentic leadership in the nursing field is limited. Future research should encourage greater collaboration among countries and authors. Simultaneously, there is a need to explore patient-centered topics, especially in fundamental care, within authentic leadership research in the nursing field.