Nursing Vision: Educational Strategies to Transform Students Into Leaders

Whitehead, D. K., Weiss, S. A., & Tappen, R. M. (2007). Essentials of Nursing Leadership and

Slide 1: The expectations of nurses today are higher than ever with goals such as achieving top percentiles in nursing and patient satisfaction, to being among the top leaders in quality outcomes, and to build productive work relationships and environments. Nursing leaders serve as the primary link between staff, physicians, and the community. They are expected to be innovative, highly skilled, possess a certain degree of nursing knowledge, and produce qualified individuals to care for the growing population. According to Lorber, Treven, and Mumel (2016) “nursing leadership is pivotal because nurses represent the most extensive discipline in health care”. Because of this growing need for diversity in leadership and my background in the military, I decided to focus on the MSN Executive Track at Chamberlain College of Nursing.

In nursing, leadership does not only consist of being in a higher position but in all aspects of nursing, whether one is a staff nurse or a unit manager. A nurse must be able to lead patients, family, or a community, to a higher level of understanding in regards to the over all aspects of people’s health. However, primary degrees in general do not prepare nurses for

Now, the graduate level nurse’s leadership attributes have been described in scholarly sources. Based on the documents of the American Association of College of Nursing (AACN) (2013), essentials of graduate nursing must be skilled in organizational and systems leadership role. Specifically, they are supposed to assume leadership roles in quality improvement and patient safety initiatives while working in the interprofessional team context. APN must use communication in an effective way, with regards to speaking, scholarly writing, and group interaction. Nurse leaders should also demonstrate the working knowledge of the current healthcare system and its essential components, including delivery and payment models, sites of care, roles of various stakeholders in the process of care delivery (AACN, 2013).

Leadership at times can be a complex topic to delve into and may appear to be a simple and graspable concept for a certain few. Leadership skills are not simply acquired through position, seniority, pay scale, or the amount of titles an individual holds but is a characteristic acquired or is an innate trait for the fortunate few who possess it. Leadership can be misconstrued with management; a manager “manages” the daily operations of a company’s work while a leader envisions, influences, and empowers the individuals around them.

Good leadership is demonstrated through educating future nurses, leading within the workplace, and being part of a nursing groups and organizations. Nurses should be working together to improve the care for all patients.

To foster strong leaders, nurses need to take responsibility of their own personal and professional growth. Nurses must seek opportunities through nursing associations and education programs to develop and exercise their leadership skills. Strong leadership skills warrant the federal government to ensure that leadership positions are available for nurses so that future health care needs of the changing population can be met effectively.

Nursing career is one of the few fastest growing fields in the health care industry not only in the United States but also in the world. Nurse practice has drastically changed in the last decade and as a result the need for changes in nursing practice is becoming more and more important. The Institute of Medicine report discusses so many aspects in nursing but this paper requires detailing the impacts on Nursing Practice (Transforming Practice), Nursing Education (Transforming Education), and the Nurse’s role as a Leader (Transforming Leadership). These three key aspects are discussed in the following pages.

Not all nurses go into the profession with leadership ideas. The nursing profession must produce leaders throughout the health care system. Leaders must function as workers, and administrators with leadership qualities, while still meeting their budgets and running effective units with high functioning and happy staff members. They need to trouble shoot necessary and work with the medical faculty while pleasing their staff and the administers.

In the increasingly complex, ever changing environment of today’s healthcare, effective leaders are essential to help drive positive change resulting in increased access to care with positive outcomes for as many as possible. In its 2010 report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recognized that nurses are well positioned to play a key role in the transformation of our healthcare system in the United States (U.S.) (Institute of Medicine [IOM], 2010). In The Essentials of Doctoral Education for Advanced Nursing Practice, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) specifically identifies organizational and systems leadership as a core competency for advanced

The four major components of nursing leadership are decision-making ability, influencing and directing others, facilitating process and relationship building (Paul, Day, & Williams, 2016).Very closely associated with leadership is the concept of management and though many people use the two terms interchangeably, it’s very important to know that leading is one of the key functions of management; the others are planning, organizing and controlling activities to pursue

Leadership does not always come with a title or prestige. Every nurse has within themselves qualities that make them a great leader. Leadership by definition, “is a combination of intrinsic personality traits, learned leadership skills, and characteristics of the situation (Cherry& Jacob (2013 p. 335). A leader is one who has the capacity and skills to direct or encourage others in efforts to achieve an outcome. I recently completed a self-assessment on my perceived leadership abilities. The survey was called the Nurse Manager Skills Inventory (Nurse Manager Leadership Partnership, 2008). It consists of four content areas of which I will address and identify my strengths and weaknesses.

2. Graduates will be able to examine the components of management and leadership within health care organizations.

The world is experiencing a shortage of nurses’ leaders, according to the Institute of Medicine 2010 study (Berman, 2015). According to Berman, only 613 of Americas nursing schools reported a little over 1300 full-time faculty vacancies, an average of 2 nurses yearly per the American Association of Colleges of Nursing in 2013 thru 2014 academic year. This study examined leadership development programs at a private health sciences institution for lower-level to mid-level career minded nursing practitioners (Berman, 2015). The hypotheses studied included eight faculty members who had expressed interest in assuming a leadership role or who have been recommended by their managers as having high leadership potential. School administrators included

Management and leadership skills in nursing and other healthcare professions are becoming a more and more widely spoken of subject, as they are essential skills for everyday practice in delivering care (Gopee and Galloway, 2009). Effective management requires the nurse to be able to draw on evidence based knowledge and experience to develop the ability to manage competently during practice. Skills without knowledge, appropriate attitude and understanding will not equate to competency (Watson, 2002).