Effective Leadership and Qualities

Today, increasing numbers of nurses are leaving the profession due to the burnout caused by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic as well as the rigorous and sometimes-overwhelming demands placed on nurses, especially those working in tertiary health care facilities. Consequently, the shortage of nursing staff across the country has intensified, and there is a clear need to better engage nurses in their workplace. These trends also underscore the need and importance of effective nursing leadership to address these issues in meaningful ways. The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the relevant literature to provide a definition of leadership, a comparison and contrast of the leader and manager roles, and a reflection of leadership and/or management styles in practice. In addition, an examination of my personal leadership and/or management style is followed by a salient example of preferred leadership and/or management application. Finally, the paper presents a summary of the findings that emerged from the research concerning the foregoing issues in the conclusion.

Definition of leadership

From a personal perspective, a definition of leadership would include the ability and the willingness to organize, motivate, and direct a group of people to achieve a common vision for an organization in which they would otherwise have little incentive to do so. This means that leadership also involves developing an appropriate and informed vision for an organization. In addition, leadership also involves creating the direction for an organization, communicating effectively, and inspiring and empowering others to work towards achieving the articulated vision. Likewise, leadership also includes making difficult decisions, accepting responsibility for the actions and outcomes of the people they lead, and serving as a role model for others to follow.

Taken together, this definition of leadership is consistent with the guidance provided by many organizational behaviorists, and it underscores the importance of professional nurses to develop these leadership qualities and characteristics throughout their careers. In this regard, Sims (2019) emphasizes that, In today's healthcare climate, there is a shortage of nurses and nursing faculty. We need effective leaderships to navigate through this crisis. Although all nurses are leaders, we must develop the necessary skills to be effective (p. 272).

While every effective leader and leadership style is unique to the individual, some common characteristics and qualities of effective leaders in health care settings include the following:

Effective leaders clarify expectations and direction. When people know the rules of the game, they are more likely to follow the playbook. We need to articulate exactly what we want and need from teams and every individual. In addition, all goals must be tied to organizational objectives.

Effective leaders model expected behaviors. Leaders need to orchestrate opportunities for people to see them behaving in alignment with expectations and behaviors. Let others see you interact with people and handle a challenging assignment or situation. Not only will they learn from your experience, they will gain respect for what you have to offer.

Effective leaders create desire and opportunities for learning. Skills such as communicating information, demonstrating empathy, listening, asking objective questions, providing feedback and dealing with challenging...

…staff. The director of quality assurance, an MPH, objected to addition of the patient days of care to calculate the medication error rate on his ward and demanded that the program specialist in charge stop using this method. The program specialist requested guidance from the nursing supervisor who investigated further and determined that the addition of the patient days of care highlighted the comparatively high number of errors made on the complainants ward. It was also determined that the nursing supervisor was best friends with the complainant and the change was demanded on his behalf to protect his professional reputation and prevent potential disciplinary actions. After determining the facts, the nursing supervisor was disciplined and the program specialist instructed to continue using the patient days of care calculation method to report medication errors through the hospital to identify opportunities to further improve patient care.

Conclusion

The research showed that while there may be some overlap between the two, leaders and managers perform fundamentally different tasks. While leaders set a vision for the organization, managers are responsible for achieving the step-by-step goals that will move the organization towards this vision. The examination of my personal leadership style involved an uncomfortably honest self-assessment that indicated there is room for improvement by focusing on improving my interpersonal communication skills and keeping the end goal in mind. Finally, the hypothetical vignette described a situation where patient care was compromised by a nurse manager but salvaged by a nursing supervisor who took the time to gather all the facts before making a…