We recently shared our top takeaways from the 2024 American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL) survey¹, which reported on the overall state of the nursing workforce. Along with the quantitative results, the survey included responses from nurse leaders on their top concerns regarding the future of nursing.

To uncover the most impactful and relevant insights, we reviewed the responses from the AONL survey of nursing executives (CNEs and CNOs) and compared them to a systematic sample of comments left by nurse managers and directors. First, we grouped the remarks by overall sentiment, then broke down the meaning of each comment to find patterns within and across thematic categories.

Our research team examined the survey’s comments to identify four core concerns of nursing leaders that C-suite leaders need to be aware of: