الفهرس 
• IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Soft skills are necessary to live a good life and succeed in head nurse’s career; head nurse needs various soft skills at work every day because it’s very important in their leadership practices. Soft skills have positive impact on head nurse’s professional growth (Patel, 2021). The soft skills are vital skills for leadership practice in the 21st century. Soft skills have become a new area of leadership now and in the future and it is a priority for high practice since it considers being an important and effective element in the success of any organization(Sadq, 2019).
A leadership practice can be defined as head nurse practice that offers direction to a group or organization. Leadership practice approach is its underlying belief that leadership occurs as a practice rather than reside in the traits or behaviors of head nurses (Raelin, 2018). A soft skill is the competence to organize head nurses leadership practices properly and the ability to build relation effectively. Soft skills allow head nurses to more effectively use leadership practices abilities and knowledge pleasingly; soft skills are a prerequisite in nursing profession where human interaction and teamwork are needed to succeed (Laari, 2021).
The study was aimed to assess the effect of soft skills training program on leadership practice of head nurses through; Assessing head nurses’ knowledge toward soft skills throughout training phases, assessing head nurses’ attitude toward soft skills throughout training phases, assessing head nurses’ performance of soft skills throughout training phases, assessing head nurses ’leadership practice throughout training phases and evaluating the effect of soft skills training program on leadership practice of head nurses throughout training phases.
A quasi-experimental study design was used at pre, immediately post and follow up (after 3 months) for conducting this study. This study was conducted at the medical and surgical departments/ units at Benha University in medical and surgical units, the total beds capacity was 880 beds disturbed as following; 478 beds at medical building, 384 beds at surgical building, and 18 beds at ophthalmology building. Included all 50 head nurses who are available in above mentioned study setting were participated in the study.
Tools of data collection were collected through four tools were used to collect data for this study that includes: Soft skills knowledge questionnaire, soft skills attitude scale, soft skills observational checklist and leadership practice questionnaire.
I-Soft skills knowledge questionnaire: It aimed to assess head nurses knowledge about soft skills, it consisted of two parts:- Part 1: It included personal characteristics about head nurses including: (age, gender, marital status, educational qualification, years of experience, years of working in your department as head nurse and attending training courses about soft skills), Part 2: It consisted of (30) questions divided into 20 MCQ, 10 true or false questions.
II. Soft skills attitude scale: It aimed to assess head nurses’ attitude about soft skills that includes 7 questions.
III. Soft skills observational checklist : It aimed to assess head nurses’ performance related to soft skills, it consists of (48) items of (7) dimensions as following: communication (7) items, leadership skills (7) items, influencing skills (4) items, interpersonal skills (12) items, personal skills (5) items, critical thinking skills (7) items and professional skills (6) items.
IV Leadership practice questionnaire: aimed to assess head nurses’ leadership practice, it consists of (79) items, contains (9) dimension as follows: relational leadership (16) items, impartial leadership (16) items, technical leadership (7) items, creative leadership (8) items, directive leadership (6) items, tenacious leadership (8) items, empowering leadership (4) items, influential leadership (6) items and strategic leadership (8) items.
The results of the study revealed that:
• The highest percent of the studies subject (96.0% & 74.0%) had adequate knowledge level regarding soft skills at immediately post and follow up (after 3 months) respectively than preprogram (28.0%).
• The majority of the studied subjects (88.0%& 64.0%) had positive attitude level regarding soft skills at immediately post and follow up(after 3 months) respectively than preprogram (32%).
• The highest percent of the studied subject (94.0% & 82.0%) had satisfactory level of performance regarding soft skills at immediately post and follow up (after 3 months) than preprogram (2.0%).
• The highest total mean score of the studied subject (129.06 17.36) related to total soft skills performance at immediately post of program. The highest dimensions mean score (33.20±4.155& 29.46±5.58) at immediately post and follow up program (after 3 months) respectively related to interpersonal skills than preprogram (14.68±2.43).
• Majority of the studied subject (96.0%& 84.0%