Leadership Style Reflection
Leadership Style Reflection
Leadership is an important aspect in the patient care setting as leaders use various strategies to motivate staff, enhance values, improve team cohesion and ensure that the organization achieves its objectives and goals (Wei & Horton-Deutsch, 2022). However, a nurse leader needs to be in the know of their strengths, weaknesses, and values to be able to lead effectively. As such, nurse leaders can use appropriate strategies to strengthen their areas of weakness and maximize their strengths to offer effective leadership. Fortunately, there are tools that can be used by leaders to assess their strengths, weaknesses, and values and take appropriate steps to improve on areas of weaknesses, enhance values and appropriately use their strengths to fulfill their leadership obligations. Therefore, the purpose of this assignment is to describe the results obtained from self-assessment, explore the leadership style that resonates with my care philosophy, discuss areas that need improvement, and discuss how leadership theories and styles can be applied in nursing leadership.
The Self-Assessment Selection and Results
The self-assessment covered various leadership traits. One of the tests conducted was on learning styles assessment which was done by conducting a Visual, Aural, and Read/Write and Kinesthetic (VARK) questionnaire. The test mainly entails how strategies through which a leader learns. The results from the VARK assessment revealed various scores, such as nine for visual, five for aural, seven for read/write, and six for kinesthetic. The visual had the highest core, and it is important to note that visual learners prefer learning through diagrams, charts, and graphs.
The next assessment taken was the value profile. This assessment was chosen since it is key for a leader to have an in-depth understanding of their dominant values as values substantially impact behaviors, interprofessional relationships, and how an individual regards or values work. This test divides values into minor, influencing, and dominant values. The results from the value profile show that the dominant values were realistic, social, and theoretical. On the other hand, the influencing values include aesthetic, political, and traditional.
The other assessment performed is the emotional intelligence test. The reason for choosing this assessment is that emotiona
l intelligence is key in helping nurse leaders to appreciate and be aware of other people’s psychological and emotional well-being. Hence, this test can provide a useful hint as to whether nurse leaders can strike a productive relationship with other professionals (Hughes, 2019). The results for the emotional intelligence test were one hundred and thirty-four out of the possible one hundred and fifty-five.
The Leadership Style that Aligns with My Care Philosophy
Healthcare philosophies are influenced by an individual’s worldviews and experiences obtained in the line of patient care. Various leadership styles exist, and in most cases, individuals have care philosophies aligned with particular leadership styles. My care philosophy is aligned with servant leadership. This style of leadership entails putting others’ needs first, with self-interest coming later (Kül & Sönmez, 2021). This alignment is informed by the fact that I have always believed that a nurse should do their best to ensure that patients get the best possible care to lead to appropriate care outcomes. Such a feat is achievable by considering the patient’s needs first. The implication is that a servant leader fast-tracks a patient’s needs and ensures that they are quickly addressed. In addition, the servant leader is more committed to serving others, communicating openly with those they lead, and enhancing their growth.
How the Leadership Elements Can be Incorporated
Various elements of servant leadership can be incorporated into healthcare settings to enhance outcomes. The servant attitude of servant leadership style can be incorporated to improve patient care and the development of other staff members. In deeds, a servant leader can assess the needs of the staff frequently hence ensuring that the employees obtain the needed support to help them grow in their roles as appropriate (Kül & Sönmez, 2021). A servant leader may also view patients as vulnerable and unable to help themselves, as such a servant leader can apply various strategies, knowledge, and experience to foster their treatment and healing process by assigning competent staff to offer care
Potential Areas of Improvement
The purpose of self-assessment is usually to reveal areas of strengths and weaknesses. As such, the performed self-assessment revealed various areas that can be improved. For example, I have to improve my kinesthetic and aural learning styles, which had low scores. In addition, while I fairly faired on in my emotional intelligence, there is still a need to improve so that I can handle situations better at work. It is important to come up with strategies that can be used to improve learning capabilities. One of them is taking more time in kinesthetic and aural learning and embracing other learnings styles. My emotional intelligence can be improved by focusing on better strategies for managing stress (Sarrionandia et al.,2018). I also need to improve on how I relate with other professionals in the care settings and outside it. This calls for becoming culturally sensitive and ensuring that I embrace other cultures.
The Characteristics of Effective Professional Nurse Leader
The responsibilities and obligations of nurse leaders mean that they should be effective in their roles. As such, they need to possess various characteristics such as problem-solving ability, inspirational, effective communication skills, empathetic, emotional intelligence, and supportive. Emotional intelligence is particularly important since it enables leaders to consider other people’s emotions and correctly interpret them, hence avoiding conflicts and promoting harmony in the group (Lambert, 2021). Effective communication helps a leader to effectively pass information regarding expectations, the organization’s goals, current trends in practice, and policy changes, if any.
Leadership Theories and Styles
Leadership styles and leadership theories are key in the patient care setting. One of the most effective leadership styles is the transformational leadership style. This leadership style is key or appropriate as it helps to inspire the staff and supports them in achieving the set goals (Jiatong et al.,2022). One of the strengths of transformational leadership is that it inspires other workers as part of the leadership strategy. In addition, transformational leaders influence and motivate those whom they lead positively hence leading to smoother operations with little tension and conflict, if any.
Conclusion
Leadership theories are vital in explaining and understanding various leadership styles which nurse leaders employ or use in the patient care setting. The leadership style or strategy used in the patient care setting substantially dictates the nature of outcomes and how the staff fulfills their obligations and responsibilities. Therefore, it is key that a leader knows their strengths and weaknesses. Various assessments were taken to determine learning styles, value profiles, and emotional intelligence. While the scores were good, it is important to note that there are areas that still need improvement. As such, strategies for improving weak areas have also been explored. In addition, leadership styles and theories appropriate for a care setting have been discussed.
References
Hughes, V. (2019). Nurse leader impact: A review. Nursing Management, 50(4), 42–49. Doi: 10.1097/01.NUMA.0000554338.47637.23
Jiatong, W., Wang, Z., Alam, M., Murad, M., Gul, F., & Gill, S. A. (2022). The impact of transformational leadership on affective organizational commitment and job performance: the mediating role of employee engagement. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 831060. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.831060
Kül, S., & Sönmez, B. (2021). The effect of nurse managers’ servant leadership on nurses’ innovative behaviors and job performances. Leadership & Organization Development Journal. https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-07-2020-0318
Lambert, S. (2021). Role of emotional intelligence in effective nurse leadership. Nurs Stand, 36(12), 45–49. doi: 10.7748/ns.2021.e11782
Sarrionandia, A., Ramos-Díaz, E., & Fernández-Lasarte, O. (2018). Resilience as a mediator of emotional intelligence and perceived stress: A cross-country study. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2653. DOI: 10.1037/str0000028
Wei, H., & Horton-Deutsch, S. (2022). Visionary Leadership In Healthcare. Sigma Theta Tau.
Leadership Style Reflective Essay
Leadership is the capability to influence an individual or group towards achieving common goals. It involves aligning individuals towards a common goal and empowering them to take the measures needed to attain them (Cope & Murray, 2017). This paper includes a reflection of my leadership self-assessment and will discuss the leadership style consistent with my philosophy of care, characteristics of an effective nurse leader, and leadership styles that support the leader.
Summary of Self-Assessment Selections and Results
The self-assessment tests selected for this assignment included a Personality Test, Learning style using the VARK questionnaire, and Value Assessment. The aim of taking the personality test was to help me comprehend how my personality impacts various aspects of my life. Besides, I took the learning styles test to get insight into how I process new information and identify my preferred learning strategy. The VARK questionnaire suggests the learning strategies that individuals should utilize to improve their understanding capacity and perform learning activities more effectively. The purpose of taking the Value Assessment was to understand my values, primary work needs and motivations, and identify the things I consider important. In addition, I wanted to gain insight into who I am, what I treasure, what distresses me, and what guides my decisions since they are all related to my values.
In the Personality Test, I scored 34. The results denoted that I am mostly introverted with some extroverted tendencies. The Personality test results also revealed that I enjoy others’ company but am opposed to spending time on my own. Besides, I can handle teamwork to some degree, have no difficulties attending social gatherings, and prefer to spend most of my time alone or with small groups. The results of the Learning style assessment were as follows: Visual-5, Aural-8, Read/write-13, and Kinesthetic-10. The Read/write learning style was the most prominent. The results showed that I prefer to learn using formats such as graphs, diagrams, maps, listening, discussing, talking, questioning, handouts, and taking notes. Lastly, the Value Assessment test results showed that my dominant values are traditional, social, and theoretical. My influencing values are realistic, political, and aesthetic, and I have no minor values.
Leadership Style That Aligns With Philosophy of Care
My philosophy emphasizes treating everyone like I would like to be treated. It incorporates the 5 C’s in nursing: compassion, confidence, conscience, competence, and commitment. A nurse should demonstrate compassion by empathizing with the patient and family to demonstrate that they are aware of what the patient and the family are experiencing and feeling in their situation. In my nursing practice, I show compassion by trying to understand what illness means to a patient and getting prepared to assist and view the difficult situation as the patient does. I believe that nurses should give faith and hope to the patients by reassuring them that the treatment and care provided and their caregivers are essential for their physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
The Transformational leadership style best aligns with my philosophy of care. A transformational leader shows commitment, has a vision and empowers others with this vision. Vision is the fundamental nature of transformational leadership (Lai et al., 2020). It refers to the ability to envision some future state and illustrate it to others so they can start to share the dream. By sharing the vision, the transformational leader empowers followers to get to a mutual understanding and create a sense of connection (Lai et al., 2020). Transformational leadership style matches my philosophy since I am able to bring change due to my futuristic focus, creativity, values, and innovations. When caring for patients, I picture the health state I would want to see my patients, create patient goals, and research evidence to guide my interventions in achieving these goals.
How to Incorporate Elements of the Leadership Style
Transformational leadership is characterized by an interactive relationship founded on trust that positively impacts leaders and followers. I can integrate elements of transformational leadership when exercising leadership in a health care organization setting by engaging stakeholders, including employees, from when a change intervention is proposed so that we can go through the change journey together. I can begin by identifying common values among the employees in the organization and then creating a vision that will steer change in the organization. After developing the vision, I will communicate it to the employees, inspire them with the vision, and empower them to achieve it. Lastly, I have a major role in creating a supportive and informal culture within the organization that will support creativity and innovation among the employees.
Areas for Self-Improvement
Areas of improvement based on the self-assessment tests include increasing my ability to welcome and respect others’ opinions even if I do not fully agree with them. To be a transformational leader, I will need to inspire people to be creative and give them opportunities to be innovative and execute their ideas. In addition, I realized that I have a challenge acknowledging that I was wrong. Therefore, I need to improve by accepting and acknowledging my shortcomings to motivate others to take similar actions. Furthermore, I identified that I have a stubborn trait, which I need to improve on to embrace new ideas, especially those I disagree with.
Characteristics of Effective Professional Nurse Leader
An effective nurse leader should demonstrate the following characteristics, excellent communication skills, commitment to excellence, integrity, emotional intelligence, and critical thinking skills. Excellent communication skills are vital for a leader to effectively interact with interdisciplinary care teams and give directions to nurses in the organization. A nurse leader should be committed to excellence in patient care to inspire other nurses to put more effort towards providing high-quality care (Al Khajeh, 2018). In addition, they should exhibit integrity by being honest and trustworthy in their acts and upholding ethical standards. Integrity is vital for leadership since it motivates other nurses to serve patients with integrity and uphold ethics when making patient care decisions. Emotional intelligence is crucial for nurse leaders as it enables them to appreciate nurses’ contributions to the organization and cultivate a healthy environment (Coladonato & Manning, 2017). Lastly, a nurse leader should be a critical thinker to make complex patient care and managerial decisions. Critical thinking skills are essential in the interdisciplinary collaboration of patient care.
Application of Leadership Theory and Style Different Personal Style
Transactional theory and democratic leadership style are effective for nursing leadership. A transactional leader is a traditional manager concerned with everyday operations. The leader focuses on management tasks and uses contingency rewards (Hussain et al., 2017). Transactional theory shapes the leader in collaboration, conflict resolution, and decision making as the leader learns to use organizational policies and rewards and punishments to foster collaboration and negotiate with employees.
In the democratic style, employees are encouraged to take part in decision-making. The democratic leader keeps the employees up to date on every issue affecting their work and shares responsibilities in decision-making and problem-solving (Cope & Murray, 2017). The democratic style shapes the nurse leader in collaboration, decision making, and conflict resolution since the leader employs cooperative decision approaches to get ideas from the employees. Besides, it motivates employees and instills confidence which promotes collaboration.
Conclusion
The self-assessment results revealed that I am introverted, have a read/write learning style, and my dominant values are traditional, social, and theoretical. My philosophy of care aligns with transformational leadership. Visioning is the highlight of a transformational leader and enables nurses to create an image of an ultimate future. An effective nurse leader should have excellent communication skills, commitment to excellence, integrity, emotional intelligence, and critical thinking skills. Transactional theory and democratic leadership style shape the nurse leader in collaboration, decision making, and conflict resolution.
References
Al Khajeh, E. H. (2018). Impact of leadership styles on organizational performance. Journal of Human Resources Management Research, 2018, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.5171/2018.687849
Coladonato, A. R., & Manning, M. L. (2017). Nurse leader emotional intelligence: How does it affect clinical nurse job satisfaction?. Nursing Management, 48(9), 26-32. https://doi.org/ 10.1097/01.NUMA.0000522174.00393.f2
Cope, V., & Murray, M. (2017). Leadership Styles in Nursing. Nursing standard (Royal College of Nursing (Great Britain): 1987), 31(43), 61-70. https://doi.org/10.7748/ns.2017.e10836
Hussain, S. T., & Abbas, J. Lei., Haider, MJ, and Tayyaba Akram, T. (2017). Transactional leadership and organizational creativity: Examining the mediating role of knowledge sharing behavior. Cogent Business and Management, 4(1), 1-25. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2017.1361663
Lai, F. Y., Tang, H. C., Lu, S. C., Lee, Y. C., & Lin, C. C. (2020). Transformational leadership and job performance: the mediating role of work engagement. SAGE Open, 10(1), 2158244019899085. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019899085
Click here to ORDER an A++ paper from our Verified MASTERS and DOCTORATE WRITERS: APA Assignment: Leadership Style Reflective Essay
Lopes Write Policy
For assignments that need to be submitted to Lopes Write, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy
The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication
Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.
Important information for writing discussion questions and participation
Welcome to class
Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to
I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.
Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.
If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.
Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.
Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.
I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!
Hi Class,
Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.
Contact me if you have any questions.
Important information on Writing a Discussion Question
- Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
- There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
- Include in-text citations in your response
- Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
- Follow APA-7th edition
- Points will be deducted if the above is not followed
Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor
- A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
- Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
- Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
- Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
- Follow APA 7th edition
- Points will be deducted if the above is not followed
- Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
- Here are some helpful links
- Student paper example
- Citing Sources
- The Writing Center is a great resource