Nursing Leadership Reflection Paper

3). In this relationship, each must work through phases including conflict resolution and negotiation as part of the process. Transformational theory further explains leadership must include exhibiting a degree of emotional intelligence. This occurs when perceiving how others feel, understanding how the feelings lead to thinking, understanding the emotions, and managing emotions internally. In respects to this theory, emotional intelligence enhances this bi-directional relationship between the leader and the followers (Spears, 2002).

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.

Nurse leaders play a vital role in establishing standards and leading organizational change. The effects of the Affordable care Act (ACA) on the healthcare industry is characterized by change (Delmatoff & Lazarus, 2014). Given this ACA paradigm transformation, I believe today’s nursing leaders must adapt quickly and assist new leaders to develop the skills necessary to envision and evaluate new healthcare delivery systems. According to Chism (2009), the roles of the doctor of nursing practice (DNP) prepared nurse graduates may be incorporated to meet the transformation of today’s contemporary healthcare. After reading the assigned material, I gained confidence that the DNP program will prepare me for eligible leadership roles within the healthcare industry.

The American Association of Colleges for Nurses [AACN], (2006) in 'The Essentials of Doctoral Education for Advanced Nursing Practice ' Essential II: Organizational and Systems Leadership for Quality Improvement and Systems Thinking, affirms "advanced nursing practice (APN) includes an organizational and systems leadership component that emphasizes practice, ongoing improvement of health outcomes, and ensuring patient safety. APNs should be prepared with sophisticated expertise in assessing organizations, identifying systems’ issues, and facilitating organization-wide changes in practice delivery". (p.10) Hameric, Hanson, and Tracy ( 2014) indicates that APN must assess the clinical microsystems in which they perform nursing practices, have knowledge of the medical organizations that impact their specialties, assist with establishing patient centered care reforms to enhance quality of nursing care, improve patient safety, and provide nursing indicators that evaluates nursing performance. (p.266) APNs perform leadership capabilities in four chief areas including clinical practice settings, in the nursing career, within organizations, and in healthcare politics at regional and national levels. (Hameric et al, 2014, p. 266)

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 retrospect, what I learned in collaborative healthcare will be a solid foundation on which I will build my nursing leadership. To render care to the sick irrespective of their values, preferences, age, socioeconomic status, culture respect and dignity, demonstrate that the nurse leader is exhibiting compassion, ethics and knowledge. These aquacades must be continuously incorporated and utilized with professional clinical judgement and evidenced-based knowledge to yield the best patient outcomes (Finkelman, 2012).

Leadership is a core competency in the field of advanced practice nursing (Hamric, Hanson, Tracy, & O’Grady, 2014). Graduate level nurses exercise leadership across four major spheres including nursing profession, clinical practice environments, health policy, and at the system level. This paper provides and analysis of the author’s leadership style and attributes, a description of the attributes of leadership pertaining to graduate level nurses, and a discussion of the attribute that the writer feels need development with regard to the role of an advanced practice nurse.

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.

Nowadays, LVN and LPN are communicative more leadership roles, mostly in the skilled nursing facility. The leadership is based on general research of academic and practitioner on leader ship. Susan de wit (2014) said that there are many identified styles of leadership and laissez-faire is a style in which the leader provide little or none direction or supervisor, and prefer to take a hand off approach. That leadership style is not effective in day-to-day management of patient care. The autocratic leadership style is demonstrated when the leader makes all the decision without considering input form staff. That leadership style goal is accomplishment of task efficiently without regard to people. The democratic leadership style is who encourages

There are many skills, traits, and behaviors one must possess in order to be an effective leader. The American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE) has compiled a list of competencies and skills that nurse leaders should be proficient in. The five competency domains identified by AONE (2011) are “communication and relationship building, knowledge of health care environment, leadership skills, professionalism, and business skills” (p. 3). The competency domain I believe is essential for one to possess in order to be an effective executive nurse leader is communication and relationship building. The competencies AONE (2011) listed under the domain communication and relationship building are “effective communication, relationship management, influence of behavior, ability to work with diversity, shared decision-making, community involvement, medical staff relationship, and academic relationships” (p.3). I will discuss how Tom (nurse manager of a psychiatric unit) did not meet these specific characteristics under that domain.

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.

If the healthcare system wants to be relieved, then strong leadership is needed. To do this, the nursing profession must create leaders who can cooperate with other experts who are skilled in other nursing professions. We must train the younger generation of nurses by leadership training, continuous planned mentoring, and we should give them opportunities to grow in the civilization so we can align ourselves. All nurses must become leaders. To do this, we must train hard, be mentored, and we should have a very safe place to fail. Home health nursing leaders have to create chances to teach certain skills and competencies so there will be more leaders for the home healthcare profession, the nursing profession, and the healthcare spectrum. To