Understanding The Vulnerability, Perfectionism, And Shame From The Book Daring Greatly By Brene Brown

The article depicted the human side of nurses; it tells how nurses formulate that that bond with their patients and their families, nurturing them through life challenges to the end, while showing the emotional impact that is produced from that formed relationship. Through the entire article, it was very easy to see the

“Nursing is informed caring for the well-being of others” (Swanson, 1993, p. 352). Kristen Swanson’s relationship-based caring theory encompasses maintaining belief, knowing, being with, doing for, and enabling. Nursing is a profession with vast opportunities for growth and development. Each nurse has his or her individual passions; mine reside within obstetrics, women’s health, and nursing leadership. Nurse leaders play an integral role in the success of healthcare organizations. Nurse leaders shape the roles of nurses within their organizations. Nurse leaders seek methods to improve patient care. They also use innovation to gain efficiencies in care delivery and decrease healthcare cost. Many nurse leaders have an ultimate goal to aspire to be a chief nursing officer in a healthcare

This reflective essay is based on my strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities (SWOT) analysis (Appendix 1) in order to examine my leadership skills. Leadership is one of the essential component in nursing since all nurses are expected to demonstrate effective leadership skills to ensure patient’s well-being is protected and improve their experiences while receiving the care (Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2015). Firstly, leadership will be defined within the context of the NHS and particularly nursing. Furthermore, some of the current health issues and challenges faced by health care practice that are related to poor leadership will be discussed. The essay will be continued by exploring various relevant leadership theories in relation to nursing practice and working within the Multi-Disciplinary Teams (MDTs). Lastly, as mentioned earlier, I will also be reflecting on my strengths and weaknesses from practice, then develop a SMART (Specific, measureable, achievable, realistic and time-bound) action plan to improve my leadership skills which will be followed by a brief conclusion.

Workload was described to be heavy, stressful, increase in intensity and overtime hours. As a result 25.8% consider resigning, 20.2% consider retiring and 25.6% consider leaving profession. Another problem that was observed at individual level was poor commitment to care. One of the factors that often limited nurses to provide therapeutic care was the change in nurse to patient ratio. As nurses assignments increase with the increase in the number of patients (i.e. 1 nurse to 6-8 patients) the quality of care provided decreases. Nurses’ ability to maintain safe environment became challenging. As part of caring, nurses also showed decreased amount of time spent with their patient. This eventually led to nurses being less satisfied with their current job. Self – efficacy was often low. Nurses felt that they did not have enough knowledge and skills required for professional practice (Newhouse, Hoffman, & Hairston, 2007). This often led into stressful transition and the ability to care for a patient even harder. New graduate nurses often had difficulty maintaining leadership role. They often felt that they did not have the ability to self advocate and raise their voice to be heard by others. They often feared that they would be over heard and that no one would listen to them (Mooney, 2007).

The nursing profession can be a physically and emotionally challenging job on a daily basis for nurses. It can have an impact on nurse’s mental health, through workplace factors that contribute to stress. Stress is a response that affects people differently and can be a physical, social, economic, or any other factor that requires a specific response to a challenging situation (Harris, Nagy & Vardaxis, 2014, pp. 1638). Within the workplace there are many factors that can cause work related stress that can influence and impact on the mental health of a nurse, however there are also many mental health promotion strategies that can be implemented to improve and build a nurses self-resilience. For the purpose of the assignment, workplace factors that can have an impact on nurses mental health include high workload and exposure to death and dying, these topics will be discussed, as well as two evidence-based strategies of mindfulness and reflective practices or thinking, which nurses can implement to build self-resilience will also be discussed. Stress is a response to challenging situations, people can encounter it in many different parts of their life, including in the workplace.

This reflective essay is based on the personal SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threats) analysis, to examine my leadership potential. It will define leadership within context of the NHS leadership as well as highlight some of the current incidents relate to poor leadership. Additionally, it will briefly discuss some of the relevant leadership theories that can be applied to nursing practice whilst exploring my own leadership style. Lastly, this essay will reflect the scenario from practice to support my “strengths” and “weakness” whilst developing a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Bound) goal plan to address one of my weakness and then the conclusion will be drawn summarising the key points within the essay.

The world of nursing can be stressful yet fulfilling at the same time. After passing the licensure exam and securing a job, new nurses’ next journey is transitioning to practice. Mixed feelings and emotions are evident as they are about to enter a new phase in their careers and step out into the “real world”- Along these lines, new nurses will encounter colleagues who are helpful and who are not, as they transition to become competent nurses. The aim of this paper is to identify a stressful situation experienced by the author, provide examples of how this stressful situation affects nursing care, incorporate the use of Lazarus and Folkman’s stress theory, examine mindfulness as a psychosocial stress mediator, describe how mindfulness can help in the stressful situation mentioned, and consider how to incorporate this mediator in daily life.

It is essential that nurses are capable of incorporating theory into their practice. Recognizing fundamental concepts such as vulnerability is a crucial element to providing effective care. Vulnerability is an elusive concept that is described as part of the human condition (Sellman, 2005). The process of vulnerability itself is very individualized and may be presented differently for each person experiencing it (De Santis & Barroso, 2011). Within this paper, I will extensively explore the definition of vulnerability, the defining factors that embody the concept, and how the knowledge of this concept can influence nursing practice.

Leadership occurs when an individual is able to affect the behaviour or actions of others without having to make threats or use violence to implement changes (Ellis & Abbott, 2013). Nursing leadership involves all roles and aspects of nursing practice. It revolves around the ability to use critical thinking related to patient care, act upon those decisions and advocate for change whenever necessary. Nursing leadership has an important role in the lives of nurses’, influences the entire health care systems and the delivery of care (Canadian Nurses Association, 2009). Values and beliefs are what form and guide an individual’s thought processes and actions in everyday life. Being open, honest and sensitive are my values that guide my behaviour in my everyday life. I value openness because it allows me to feel comfortable to express my feelings and ideas. This value became important to me in my previous clinical setting. I was always afraid to openly inform my clinical instructor about whenever I did not agrees with changes that were being made on the unit. I was always scared that if I did voice my opinion and she did not agree with me, it would lead to failure of clinical. Honesty and being sensitive to one’s emotions is a value I believe are important. This value is imperative because the truth is known, but at the same time, it allows for one to be aware of individual feelings in relation to how to deliver this truth. This creates the knowledge of which tone of voice to use

A weakness that may come from working as a nurse for so long is to become unbalanced, hardened, or impersonal in my personal views because of negative experiences that I may experience as a nurse. Examples of this would be when we work shorthanded or a favorite patient dies. I want to remain an individual nurse with my own individual thoughts and feelings for my patients and his or her individual situation. I do not want to treat everyone the same. I want to remain positive and enthusiastic and not allow experiences with personal or professional practices to take away from the rewards of my job as a nurse.

Compassion fatigue and burnout is a burgeoning area of interest primarily due to its adverse effects on a nurses’ health, productivity, and patient care. Despite the literature on nursing burnout and compassion fatigue, the lived experiences of nurses have virtually been ignored. According to Thomas & Wilson (2004), compassion fatigue is the stress, strain, and weariness of caring for others who are suffering from a medical illness or psychological problem” (p. 82). In contrast, burnout is a accumulation of stress due to the repetitive demands of daily life, a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion caused by a depletion of the ability to cope with one’s environment, particularty the work environment (Maslach, 1982). Burnout more often point to environment stressors, whereas definitions of compassion fatigue address the relational nature of the condition.Increasing and unresolved stress leads to compassion fatigue, it is the accumulation of fatigue that leads to a state of exhaustion and

Beginning in Ancient Greece, philosophers, authors, and researchers have been exploring authenticity. It was not until 2003 when author Bill George discussed and incorporated authenticity as a leadership theory in his book Authentic Leadership (Kruse, 2013). This paper will discuss authentic leadership and its application to nursing practice. It will combine and relate a number of peer-reviewed journals, articles, and Brené Brown’s professional development book, Daring Greatly, to substantiate why this leadership theory is effective in the nursing profession. Authentic leadership and vulnerability greatly enhance a leader’s influence and has the ability to strengthen the nursing profession overall.

Integrity is a deeply individualized phenomenon. It is the correlation between a person’s actions and their beliefs, principles, or convictions. Additionally, integrity correlates an individual’s actions and their self-understanding. When an individual identifies himself or herself as a nurse, there are often underlying personal characteristics that accompany. For example, most nurses identify themselves as caring individuals far before they become a practicing nurse. Ultimately, acting within an individual’s self-understanding is a demonstration of integrity (Nelson & Gordon, 2006). The integrity of the nursing profession has been challenged as the goals of healthcare delivery have shifted to improving the bottom line, leaving one to question if nursing has lost sight of its foundation, caring. In her reflection of the Caring Conference, Lou Reida’s expressed, “… I have been challenged to reflect on how I, as a future leader, will be able to find a balance between nurturing the caring spirit of nurses and the business component of healthcare,” (Reida, BSN, 2009). The purpose of this paper is to discuss how integrity of nursing may be compromised and the importance of leadership in the persistence of integrity throughout the profession.

By recognizing that burnout is a serious problem that impacts an organization’s viability, an assembly of staff nurses, nursing supervisors, human resource staff, social services, nurse administrators, and a physician champion will be arranged to construct mission, objectives and strategies to help ameliorate the issues at hand. Researching literature on nursing burnout is essential so that the members of the task force has a solid grasp on potential underlying hardships contributing to nursing burnout within the facility as well as the financial effects on the organization. Furthermore, in order to determine a solution, the nurse’s work environment should be assessed (Nedd, 2006) and measured using the 26-item Brisbane Practice Environment Measure (B-PEM) (Flint, Farrugia, Courtney, & Webster, 2010). The B-PEM instrument was developed to measure nursing satisfaction within the work environment and the perceived facilities inadequacies (Flint et al. 2010; Hayes et al., 2014; Nedd, 2006). Next, the Conditions of Work Effectiveness - Questionnaire-II (CWEQ-II) will also be utilized to measure the nurses’ perceived access to the four job related empowerment structures: opportunity, information, support, and resources will be administered (Laschinger et al., 2003). Then nursing burnout will be assessed and analyzed by using the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) which is a widely used instrument to assess burnout and is considered the gold standard due to its established

Nurses that listen to their patients, not only notice that they are physically hurt, but they can also notice their emotional wounds. The empathy of knowing that the patient is emotionally hurt is part of the spirituality connection. Therefore, they might need comfort. O’Brien (2001) states that, “ No other profession provides the opportunity to touch and be touched by the human spirit as does the practice of nursing. It is this intimacy that calls us to reverence: reverence for God as our creator and Lord…” (pg.110). Nurses have the privilege to connect with people in ways that no other profession may be able to provide. Since nurses are patients advocate, our duty is to connect them with their spiritual beliefs and