Leadership is one of the most important skills that every nurse should obtain. Nurses need to be able to adopt various leadership behaviors to be effective in their work. The purpose of this essay is to define my leadership role and assess how it is applied to the nursing practice. Apart from that, I compare my traits and skills to the those of an effective leader whom I know to analyze the strengths we have in common and increase my self-awareness.
A common inventory for personal assessment, the DiSC assesses and describes a person’s communication skills and helps enhance teamwork and productivity at work (A free DiSC personality test, 2016). According to my score, I am an S/C type at work, which means that I have a blend of supportive and cautious traits, and I am characterized as a logical, methodical and helpful person. The results show that I have a democratic leadership style, which implies “a relationship and person orientation” (Huber, 2014, p. 10). It is characteristic of democratic leaders to involve staff in discussions and encourage communication within the organization. The main strength of this type of leader is their trust in the team and ability to reinforce their responsibility at work. Moreover, the leader focuses on qualitative changes and improvements. However, one potential disadvantage is that the output usually takes longer to appear, and it can be challenging to reach group consensus. Regarding my nursing practice, my democratic style enables me to bring people with various professional backgrounds and different biases together. Despite this useful skill, it is often rather difficult to motivate the team, and I would like to further develop my professional competence in this direction.
I consider Ms. Annette Johnson to be an effective leader. She has been working in long-term care for ten years and is currently the director of nursing in my home city. During her work, she always shows a distinctive set of skills and personal qualities such as courage, resistance to stress and the ability to think critically. She communicates goals well and motivates her team to work efficiently because she navigates the organizational culture well. Beyond these leadership skills, Ms. Johnson is empathetic while showing the proper direction to the team. It seems that she is able to integrate authoritarian and democratic leadership styles and utilize each as necessary to produce positive changes in the organization (Witges & Scanlan, 2014).
Like Ms. Johnson, I am able to promote a conflict-free environment in which team members consider each other’s opinions despite their personal or professional backgrounds, and I am trying to enhance cooperative goal setting. These strengths demonstrate mastery of the ANA’s nursing standards, as I am able to show critical thinking, implement planned decisions with due respect to colleagues, engage actively in professional activities and take responsibility for my actions. Moreover, I am able to act effectively according to the current situation and demonstrate leadership in a professional setting to achieve quality improvements.
Leadership is undoubtedly an integral aspect of professional nursing, and obtaining leadership skills is crucial for all nurses, as they need to be able to inspire people to achieve shared goals. Effective leaders should be able to act flexibly according to changing situations, treat everyone with fairness and set attainable goals that can be communicated clearly to every member of the team. Nurses with strong leadership skills can inspire and encourage colleagues to provide care at a high level and create a healthy work environment.
References
A free DiSC personality test. (2016). Web.
Huber, D. (2014). Leadership and nursing care management. In D. L. Huber (Ed.), Leadership (pp. 1-37). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Health Sciences.
Witges, K. A., & Scanlan, J. M. (2014). Understanding the role of the nurse manager: The full-range leadership theory perspective. Nurse Leader, 12(6), 67-70.