NURA 6053 Do you believe you have the traits to be an effective leader?

Do you believe you have the traits to be an effective leader? Perhaps you are already in a supervisory role, but as has been discussed previously, appointment does not guarantee leadership skills.

How can you evaluate your own leadership skills and behaviors? You can start by analyzing your performance in specific areas of leadership. In this Discussion, you will complete Gallup’s StrengthsFinder assessment. This assessment will identify your personal strengths, which have been shown to improve motivation, engagement, and academic self-conference. Through this assessment, you will discover your top five themes—which you can reflect upon and use to leverage your talents for optimal success and examine how the results relate to your leadership traits.

Leadership is an important skill that nurses utilize to influence others. Leaders are either born with leadership skills or learn them from their environment. Health organizations that have effective leaders demonstrate excellence in their service provision. Healthcare providers should be provided with opportunities to explore their leadership abilities. This can be achieved through interventions that include delegation and utilization of inter-professional teams. Therefore, this essay examines my leadership philosophy

My Core Values

I believe that leaders should demonstrate specific leadership values in their organizations. One of the leadership values that one should possess is respect. Effective leaders respect others. They respect the ideas, views, diversity, and backgrounds of others in their organizations. Effective leaders also value transparency. They ensure that organizational tasks are undertaken in a manner that allows scrutiny and understanding of the use of resources (Alvinius, 2017). Effective leaders also strive to make a difference in those they lead. They transform others through instilling confidence and ensuring that they develop the right knowledge and skills for their success. The last value that I believe leaders should possess is integrity (Hassmiller & Pulcini, 2020). Leaders should demonstrate integrity in the ethical decisions that they make and fulfill their promises and expectations.

Personal Mission Statement

My mission statement as a leader is to promote the growth and development in those I lead. I wish to ensure that I transform positively the behaviors, knowledge, and attitudes of those I lead. I intend to achieve this goal by recognizing their abilities and providing them the opportunities to explore them. I also intend to lead the as their example. I wish to become their role model in adopting the needed professional behaviors that contribute to their growth and development.

CliftonStrenghts Assessment

The CliftonStrenghts Assessment revealed a number of strengths that describe my leadership abilities. The top two strengths that were identified from the assessment were that I am analytical and deliberative. People who are analytical explore situations before coming up with a conclusion. They collect facts about events to aid in the development of sound decisions. Analytical people are critical and creative thinkers. They do not consider events as they appear but seek to unearth the factors that might affect them. Analytical people also explore the existing alternatives and select one that is associated with optimum benefits to the involved parties. My other strength that became evident from the assessment is that I am deliberative. Deliberative people are careful in what they do. They are vigilant on the approaches to decision-making. They operate on the assumptions that their world is highly unpredictable. As a result, decisions should be made with a consideration of unforeseen events that might affect the situation (Grossman & Valiga, 2020). An effective use of these strengths will enable me to make ethical decisions in my leadership roles.

Developmental Plan

One of the behaviors that I wish to strengthen is effective communication skills. I wish to strengthen my ability to communicate effectively with others. I wish to learn effective communication styles that I can utilize to persuade those I lead. I also wish to learn more of the ways in which I can utilize both verbal and non-verbal communication skills to understand others better. The other area I wish to strengthen is time management. I wish to learn about the effective ways in which I can complete my tasks in a timely manner. I am always a procrastinator. Procrastination has often led to untimely completion of my assigned tasks. Therefore, I wish to explore the ways in which I can management my time effectively.

How Achieve Behaviors

The development plan that I intend to pursue to strengthen the above behaviors is enrolling for professional courses on effective communication skills and time management for leaders. The courses will impart me with the knowledge and skills that I need to be an effective leader. I will also attend seminars and training on effective leadership to build on my abilities in these areas. Therefore, I believe that an exploration of these alternatives will enable me to strengthen the above behaviors for my professional and personal development.

Conclusion

Leadership is an important trait for healthcare providers. Effective leadership knowledge and skills are essential for organizational success. Effective leaders understand their values and have a mission that guide their behaviors. They also engage in a regular assessment of their abilities to identify the areas of strengths, weakness, and opportunities to explore. Therefore, I will focus on addressing my leadership weaknesses to improve my abilities in leadership.

References

Alvinius, A. (2017). Contemporary Leadership Challenges. BoD – Books on Demand.

Grossman, S. C., & Valiga, T. M. (2020). The New Leadership Challenge: Creating the Future of Nursing. F.A. Davis.

Hassmiller, S. B., & Pulcini, J. (2020). Advanced Practice Nursing Leadership: A Global Perspective. Springer Nature.

To Prepare:

Complete the StrengthsFinder assessment instrument, per the instructions found in this Module’s Learning Resources.

Please Note: This Assessment will take roughly 30 minutes to complete.

Once you have completed your assessment, you will receive your “Top 5 Signature Themes of Talent” on your screen.
Click the Download button below Signature Theme Report, and then print and save the report. We also encourage you to select the Apply tab to review action items.

NOTE: Please keep your report. You will need your results for future courses. Technical Issues with Gallup:

If you have technical issues after registering, please contact the Gallup Education Support group by phone at +1.866-346-4408. Support is available 24 hours/day from 6:00 p.m. Sunday U.S. Central Time through 5:00 p.m. Friday U.S. Central Time.

Reflect on the results of your Assessment, and consider how the results relate to your leadership traits.
Download your Signature Theme Report to submit for this Discussion.

By Day 3 of Week 5

Post a brief description of your results from the StrengthsFinder assessment. Then, briefly describe two core values, two strengths, and two characteristics that you would like to strengthen based on the results of your StrengthsFinder assessment. Be specific. Note: Be sure to attach your Signature Theme Report to your Discussion post.

By Day 6 of Week 5

Respond to at least two of your colleagues on two different days by making recommendations for how they might strengthen the leadership behaviors profiled in their StrengthsFinder assessment, or by commenting on lessons to be learned from the results that can be applied to personal leadership philosophies and behaviors.

Submission and Grading Information

Grading Criteria

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I have completed the Gallup Clifton Strengths in a previous leadership role. The report attached is from my November 2019 survey.

My top 5 signature themes are Achiever, Responsibility, Restorative, Input, and Strategic. According to Gallup, these themes represent my top 5 talents and are my dominant traits as a leader (Gallup, 2019).

According to my Signature Theme Report, my Achiever theme means that I am a person who feels the need to accomplish something tangible every day (Gallup, 2019). This theme identifies my innate drive for accomplishments and fits me with great accuracy. The Achiever theme means I rarely rest on my laurels, relish challenges, and have a great deal of energy and drive.

My second theme was identified as responsibility, and this also fits me accurately. According to Gallup, this theme means that I take ownership of anything I commit myself to, and that this is the reason I always complete projects or tasks (Gallup, 2019). Conscientious adherence to ethics and a drive for completing tasks the right way defines this trait (Gallup, 2019). My report says that this theme creates my reputation for being someone that can be counted on to get things done (Gallup, 2019).

My third theme of Restorative means that I enjoy solving problems (Gallup, 2019). According to Gallup, I am energized by challenges, and this theme embodies that trait (p. 3). The Restorative theme identifies me as a person who enjoys restoring things by identifying underlying problems and resolving them (Gallup, 2019). It identifies me as a fixer (Gallup, 2019).

Theme four in my report was identified as Input. Gallup says this theme represents my innate curiosity and inquisitiveness (Gallup, 2019). I believe that this theme is directly correlated to my earlier themes and is foundational to my energy and drive. According to my report, my Input theme means that I find the world complex and fascinating (Gallup, 2019). My Input theme means I collect things that fascinate me (Gallup, 2019).

My fifth theme, Strategic, is described as a skill that cannot be taught (Gallup, 2019). I believe this is reflected in my ability to think critically. Gallup says this theme allows me, “…to see patterns where others simply see complexity” (p. 4). According to Gallup, this theme also helps me to arrive at decisions rapidly to move forward into solutions (Gallup, 2019).

It was quite easy for me to see how these themes reflect my personal values and the characteristics of myself that I take pride in manifesting. I feel that some of these characteristics are my greatest strengths. However, it has been my experience that my greatest strengths are also my greatest weaknesses.

Two of my core values that are clearly represented in my results are responsibility and helping. I feel strongly about commitment, whether that is to a relationship, a job, a friend, a pet, or a project. I take responsibility for whatever I commit to and feel a strong sense of pride about this. I feel significant distress when I feel I have let anyone down. My value of being helpful is directly related to this and ultimately is what drove me to the profession of nursing. I feel a strong drive to be helpful, and feel an obligation to share my energy, motivation, and knowledge to help others. Broome & Marshall state that motivation inspires others in an organization (p. 185). I aspire to be a transformational leader. In one cross-sectional study published in the International Journal of Caring Sciences, the transformational leadership style of inspirational motivation was able to increase the quality of nursing work life by 28% (Suratno et al., 2018).

Two strengths that this report identified are my strong critical thinking skills, and my innate inquisitiveness. These strengths combine to make me a problem solver. I naturally look for solutions. I am able to strategize, prioritize, and take action to resolve problems.

Characteristics that I would like to strengthen based upon my results fall within my themes of Responsibility and Achiever. But it is not strengthening these traits that I think I need to work on. Rather, I need to be better about recognizing when these drives override my ability to say no when there are too many demands on my time. I am not always good at saying no. My drive to achieve goals and my strong sense of responsibility for things contribute to this. I would like to focus on setting achievable goals and setting clear boundaries that are best for me and my wellbeing. I want to always demonstrate good boundaries. I want to learn to recognize that I do not have to set myself on fire to keep others warm so to speak. I want to embody and model my value of wholeness through self-care.

The most productive people I have known are good at prioritizing and setting boundaries. This enables them to focus on the things and projects that matter the most to them. They accomplish more and feel better about themselves because they act in congruence with their values. To always make choices that are congruent with my priorities and values is important to me, and sometimes saying no is necessary. I want to learn not to let my sense of responsibility and constant drive to achieve influence my choices when it comes to focusing on my priorities. I want to be better about learning when to say no rather than always saying yes.

References

Broome, M., & Marshall, E. S. (2021). Transformational leadership in nursing: From expert clinician to influential leader (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Springer.

Gallup. (November 27, 2019). Darcy ruffo. Your signature theme report [Report]. Clifton Strengths, 63012165 (DARCY RUFFO).

Suratno, K., Ariyanti, S., & Kadar, K. S. (2018). The Relationship between Transformational Leadership and Quality of Nursing Work Life in Hospital. International Journal of Caring Sciences, 11(3), 1416–1422.

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