NUR-514 APA Assignment: Leadership Style Reflective Essay

NUR-514 APA Assignment: Leadership Style Reflective Essay

Workplace environments are becoming more diversified and so one must be able to interact with others and respect their value differences. Globalization has made it easy for people to move from one geographical setting to another. Furthermore, nurses interact with patients from different social, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. Socio-cultural factors affect the health outcomes of the patients in one way or the other. Therefore, the personality assessment helps one gauge their ability to work with others in harmony and handle different situations and emergencies in the workplace. The three most important self-assessments include emotional intelligence which refers to the ability to manage emotion and stress. The other two include personality assessment and diversity assessment. Emotional intelligence is important in this case because it shows one’s ability to handle stress and express their feelings in the weight without affecting their service delivery and abilities. On the other hand, personality and diversity assessment equip one with the skills to deal with workplace diversity which is common in the current world. The purpose of this paper is to asses

s my leadership skills and conduct a reflective assessment of the same.

The purpose of strategic planning in a health care environment is not only important in that setting but any business setting as this creates the foundation. It allows systematic approaches to any situation, especially with how complex or simple some procedures might be, this gives guidelines any of those situations. But as it can become more complex with each situation being different, there are planning committees that are available for each organization to help plan for any future issues. Factors that may affect future planning in an organization are budgeting, level of staff, time and level of care (Whitney, 2019). A useful tool in future planning is with the SWOT analysis, identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the the organization or the situation at hand. This can then help guide towards a decision that is needed to be made.

Assessment Results

The personality assessment results indicated that I am a protagonist. In terms of career, this means that I take genuine interests in people and approach them warmly. Also, the protagonists help other people learn and grow to be independent. Furthermore, I am always determined to succeed and so will keep important services organized and operational as well as manage the moment-to-moment crises. The other features depicted in my personality assessment include tolerance, reliability, and charisma. On the other hand, the weaknesses in the personality trait include overly realistic and too selfless. Also, the protagonist is vulnerable to fluctuation in their self-esteem.

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The score for the intelligence assessment was 69 for emotional identification, perception, and expression. The results indicate that I

have a reasonable ability to identify, perceive and express emotions. On the other hand, the results indicated an under-performance in the ability to identify and process how other people are feeling and effectively respond to their emotions. My score for emotional management was 83% indicating the ability to control and express my feelings accordingly. For instance, I am calm and reason deeply into the presenting situations rather than respond to them blindly.

Thirdly, the diversity assessment results indicated that I can interact with people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds. Furthermore, I respect other people’s values and practices; though, they may differ from what I value. I am open to learning more about other people’s cultures and so I interact with people of different backgrounds frequently. The score for the diversity assessment was high and recommendable.

Leadership Philosophy

According to Steinmann, Klug & Maier (2018), transformational leaders set the goals and the process to engage in their achievement. The leaders motivate their employees and empower them to commit themselves to the organization’s goal rather than imposing rules on them. In the process, it becomes easy to realize the goals and objectives set in the organization because of the shared values and beliefs. Resistance in organizations is mainly encountered when leaders fail to engage their followers in the change process but instead, subject them to tough conditions and rules (Eliyana & Ma’arif, 2019). In such cases, the employees feel unvalued and disrespected and so will not be willing to implement the rules and measures developed by the leaders.

The transformation leaders articulate the values and serve as role models rather than managers. They freely interact with their subject to understand their emotion and factors that could hamper their service delivery. Furthermore, they are charismatic and selfless. They empower their subjects in their interaction process and so can delegate some roles to them. According to Liu & Li, (2018), transformational leaders facilitate sharing of knowledge among their subjects through a team-directed mediation mechanism. Furthermore, Korejan & Shahbazi (2016) report that transformational leaders inspire and promote creativity in their followers rather than subjecting them to a give way of doing things. In so doing, they make the employees realize the value in their roles and responsibilities.

The interesting thing about the transformation leadership style is that the leader allows their followers to grow. Developing talents in an organization promotes innovation and high productivity (Borisova, et al., 2017). Also, the fact that leaders work closely with their subjects and identify with their needs and emotions. It is appealing to have such qualities and working under such leadership practice.

Reflection

The assessment results indicated that I am charismatic and selfless. Besides, I value diversity and I am willing to work with people of different social, religious, and ethnic backgrounds. Healthcare organization requires continuous quality improvement process and this means that the leader has to initiate various changes from time to time. Transformational leadership facilitates the change process because of the inclusivity of all the stakeholders in the organization’s daily activities. Therefore, as a transformational leader, I will regularly engage with the other staff in the organization and collect their views on identified issues in the healthcare delivery process. For example, we may review factors contributing to high burnout among the nurses and later develop a collective proposal and action plan to better the workplace environment. The approach will reduce the level of resistance from the members to the change process and enhance the sense of belonging and ownership in them.

Transformational leaders empower their followers; therefore, I will develop various avenues to empower my team. Regular training and team-building forums will help enhance the competencies among the staff. Furthermore, I will challenge the employees to have their portfolio improvement plan to be reviewed regularly to motivate the professional development process (Markey & Okantey, 2019). The strategy will help cultivate a goal-oriented, motivated, and competent group of employees. Also, I value diversity and so working closely with all people in the organization will enhance cohesion and team-work which is necessary for a quality healthcare delivery process.

Areas of Improvement

Finally, the assessment results indicated various strengths and weaknesses in the personality, diversity, and emotional intelligence aspect. Furthermore, my attributes were consistent with the transformational leadership traits. However, I need to improve on my ability to read and respond accordingly to other people’s emotions. Reading people’s emotions will allow them to respond and handle them appropriately and so reduce the likelihood of misunderstandings especially in the leadership execution. Improving the aspect of emotional intelligence will involve learning to listen and understand how other people are feeling about a given thing. Secondly, I will work to improve my cultural competency and ability to handle patients from different ethnic, cultural, and social backgrounds (Kaihlanen, Hietapakka, & Heponiemi, 2019). In this case, I will enroll in diversity courses to sharpen my skills in the area and improve my service delivery.

References

Borisova, O. N., Silayeva, A. A., Saburova, L. N., Belokhvostova, N. V., & Sokolova, A. P. (2017). Talent management is an essential element in a corporate personnel development strategy. Academy of strategic management journal, 16, 31.http://doi.org/ 10.37886/ruo.2020.015.

Eliyana, A., Ma’arif, S., & Muzakki. (2019). Job satisfaction and organizational commitment effect in the transformational leadership towards employee performance. European Research on Management and Business Economics, 25(3), 144-150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iedeen.2019.05.001

Kaihlanen, A., Hietapakka, L., & Heponiemi, T. (2019). Increasing cultural awareness: Qualitative study of nurses’ perceptions about cultural competence training. BMC Nursing, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-019-0363-x

Korejan, M., & Shahbazi, H. (2016). An analysis of the transformational leadership theory. Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences, 8(3), 452. https://doi.org/10.4314/jfas.v8i3s.192

Liu, H., & Li, G. (2018). Linking transformational leadership and knowledge sharing: The mediating roles of perceived team goal commitment and perceived team identification. Frontiers in Psychology, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01331

Markey, K., & Okantey, C. (2019). Nurturing cultural competence in nurse education through a values-based learning approach. Nurse Education in Practice, 38, 153-156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2019.06.011

Steinmann, B., Klug, H. J., & Maier, G. W. (2018). The path is the goal: How transformational leaders enhance followers’ job attitudes and proactive behavior. Frontiers in Psychology, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02338

 

 

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