The True Meaning of Nursing Leadership By understanding the differences between the broad spectrums of leadership and the underlying styles that can be used to better facilitate the care setting; we can comprehend what nursing leadership truly is. Through the comparison of clinical and nursing leadership we can better distinguish what really makes up nursing leadership and the specific leadership styles that facilitate these types of leadership. Through personal accounts and research, these forms of leadership will be displayed and broken down and the importance for without it “there will be no order, only chaos” (Robertson, n.d.)
To fully understand what nursing leadership is you first need to understand what it isn’t, and the
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By understanding what is considered to be a clinical leader, and recognising that they do exist, we are better able to fully comprehend what a nursing leader truly is. In comparison to from clinical leadership, nursing leadership is a more appointed position, usually given to someone like a nurse manager (NM), whose goal is to motivate staff in new and innovative ways to better the care of patients. This position usually leaves the NM slightly removed from patient care, as they sort through problems on their floor and direct the nurses under their guidance; leaving only a portion of their time to be dedicated to working with patients. Recently it has also been found, that the majority of nursing education that is centered on leadership is focused on the political, academic, and management areas (Stanley & Sherratt, 2010). This focus has then been gearing towards the production of leadership within higher up positions and appointed placements of management. As a nursing leader it is your job to open the door of communication between you, your colleagues, and themselves, so that they might be able to generate new modes of care and boost morale. The role of a nurse leader is to guide and maintain a competent and productive floor, and positively motivate colleagues through goals. Though both of these broad spectrums of leadership, we are then better able to pin-point leadership styles that work within
This paper aims to address and discuss about the leadership and management of the nurse leader interviewed. This experience was a great opportunity to witness first hand how a nurse leader cultivate and manage their staffs in real life setting. Moreover, it provides a great access to gain insight and knowledge about nurse leaders’ vital responsibilities and role diversities in the organizations they work with. Nurse leaders pay more specific and close attention in handling the staffs and most importantly, patient care.
American Association of College of Nursing (2012).White Paper on The Role of the Clinical Nurse Leader Retrived from: http://www.aacn.nche.edu/publications/white-papers/cnl
Nursing leaders are crucial to any nursing organization. They motivate, empower, influence, and communicate the organization’s vision to create change within the organization. Great nursing leadership depends on great nursing leaders. This paper will define nursing leadership and describe leadership characteristics. It will further depict the democratic style and transformational theory of nursing leadership. While exploring leadership in action, this paper will illustrate the aspects of nursing.
Leadership is all about having the right amount of heart and determination to help make a difference in someone’s life. It takes certain qualities to be considered a good leader. A leader should want to help inspire others to make a change and to be the best that they can be. A true leader does not need to feel powerful, instead they empower those around them. Throughout my life I have come across various leaders who have made an impact on my life. It takes a very special person to inspire and touch people’s lives. Leadership is so much deeper than having power and bossing people around.
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
Leadership is encountered in every occupation and in everyday life. In nursing, leadership is not only prevalent; it is crucial to patient care and employee satisfaction. The nurse leader that was interviewed was a nurse at the Newport Hospital in Newport, Washington. This is a small hospital in a rural community. She is a charge nurse in the acute care unit, as well as in charge of leading infection control in the hospital. With these roles comes a lot of responsibility, and tasks that must be completed in a timely manner to create a workflow for the rest of the staff. There is a lot of juggling and balancing everything that is included in all of those positions.
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.
In healthcare it is very important to have strong leaders, especially in the nursing profession. A nurse leader typically uses several styles of leadership depending on the situation presented; this is known as situational leadership. It is important that the professional nurse choose the right style of leadership for any given situation to ensure their employees are performing at their highest potential. Depending on which leadership style a nurse leader uses, it can affect staff retention and the morale of the employees as well as nurse job satisfaction (Azaare & Gross, 2011.) “Nursing leaders have the responsibility to create and maintain a work environment which not only promotes positive patient outcomes but also
Leadership and management are essential to any health care organization, balancing patient care, employees, physicians, and the organization. Nursing is founded on interpersonal relationships. As a people-oriented profession, nursing leadership styles are influenced by humanism. The mission, attitude, and behaviors of a health care organization begins with its leadership, which creates the direction and purpose of the organization. The purpose of this paper is to differentiate between leadership and management, describe views of leadership, and explain the
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.
Nurse leaders are faced with issues or problems on a daily basis that are often expected and sometimes unexpected. It “comes with the territory” so to speak. If there were no issues to solve or hurdles to overcome the necessity of designating a leader would not seem quite as important. Nurse leaders can tackle issues that occur in their work environment using nursing theory to guide them. Nursing theory provides a framework that nurse leaders can use to implement interventions or changes to positively impact the staff they lead. This framework of the theory will set the standards for achieving the desired outcomes and is based on knowledge that is gleaned from practice and/or research.
“Managers with leadership styles that seek and value contributions from staff, promote a climate in which information is shared effectively, promote decision making at the staff nurse level, exert position power, and influence coordination of work to provide a milieu that maintains a stable cadre of nurses”, (Boyle, Bott, Hansen, Woods & Taunton, 2009). This statement describes the large impact a leadership style can make on the work environment, and the morale of the team. In nursing history, several theories and leadership
Leadership may mean different things to different people, the consensus opinion of experts in this field is that leadership is using power to direct and influence activities of people to achieve set goals or targets. Nursing leadership is all about every nurse providing, facilitating and promoting the best healthcare services to client and to the public. Leadership is a shared responsibility. (CNO 2012). The nursing profession need leaders that can build the capacity of nurses through mentoring, coaching, supporting, developing the expertise and management skills of nurses to make a difference to the quality of patient care at all levels of the profession ( McIntyre & McDonald, 2014 ). At the core of every leadership either political or managerial is power and how the leader uses it. While it is practically impossible to lead without power, how the nurse leader uses this power not only determine the leadership style but also the results or outcomes of what is achieved through the process.
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.
Before I started this leadership/management coarse I had no idea what qualities a good leader manager needs to hold. I had no idea a registered nurse was considered a leader/manager. Now that I have reviewed all the chapters in the Leadership Roles and Management Functions in Nursing (Marquis & Huston, 2015) I have a full understanding of how important leadership/management functions play in a nurse’s career. Chapters 12-25 describe roles and functions that are needed for a nurse to become a successful leader/manager. These chapters discussed the roles and functioning of organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling.