Nursing Leadership to me has a focus on servitude, building others up, and using those skills to create change. I have a more detailed understanding of leadership after reading the Module content. The reading reaffirmed for me that leadership and management are two separate things. The reading and the video affirmed that leadership is not about the leader, it is about the followers and that a good leader knows to support his or her followers and to encourage professional growth in them.

I exhibited very basic leadership behaviors when I was a charge nurse on a long term care unit working with three CNAs. I gathered from comments that the previous charge nurse had been self centered and ineffective in improving care and staff moral on the unit. Over time I proved through my actions that improving resident care was the most important thing to me and that I was glad to take input from the CNAs and to give them credit for all they did as part of our time working to achieve our most important thing. I also advocated for the residents and the CNAs as often as needed to ensure they enjoyed the best outcomes in care and morale.
I now work with a great nurse leader who exhibits the leadership qualities described in the reading. She encourages shared leadership on the unit and supports the many committees in locating issues or areas for improvement and taking steps to resolve them. She rounds on the patients as often as she can to ensure quality of care and makes herself as visible and accessible as possible to staff to show her support of the staff.
I think a behavior that could be modified by many leaders is the lack of support for their staff. I have worked under people in leadership positions who attempted to lead by barking orders and never assessing for areas of improvement or attempting to obtain input from staff on problems and ideas on how to solve them.