Nursing leadership to me is leading by example. It is a combination of democratic/autocratic and Lassiez-faire style of leadership. The Autocratic style is for that person who does not want to work, and is verbally abusive. I have had staff cuss at me, these people need an autocratic style of leadership. These people are fare and few, but they can turn a good unit into a bad one. Lassez-faire is for the vast majority of people where I work. Most people want to do their job, these people you want on your staff. Lastly I like using a democratic style for those people who wish to learn, by asking them if they want to do new tasks. Has this assigned reading changed my opinion of leadership. No it has just reinforced my belief of true leadership. What I have observed is mostly an autocratic leadership from my supervisors. My peers are mostly a Lassez=faire leadership. Could a leadership be modified? Yes if they were willing to listen, and not take it out on the nurses. For example, we have to make 4 copies of 1 report. I say lets just put it on the O-drive, and let the nursing supervisors access it there.
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I’m sorry to hear you have mostly experienced autocratic leadership from your supervisors. It is unfortunate that those who should be in positions to make nurses the best they possibly can be choose to practice that type of leadership. Due to the nature of their positions, I understand that supervisors need to be assertive and have control of certain situations, however, I think it is so important to involve staff members and others input when making changes or decisions.
In my current position, we have lead nurses but the majority of our clinic managers have no clinical experience or any type of healthcare degree. We are fortunate that they do a great job involving us in decisions and getting our input on how things would actually work from a clinical standpoint. I think many nurses would agree that it is extremely frustrating when those who have zero clinical experience try to make clinical decisions.
Leading by example is very important for leaders. A good leader is a positive role model for their coworkers and patients. A leader’s own success motivates other people to strive to become better. The leader’s credibility is demonstrated on a daily basis by how they act and manage and this credibility increases the respect and trust for them. A nurse leader has a few strategies they can utilize to increase their personal credibility among their coworkers. A nurse leader could expand their expertise by studying the most recent literature in their specialty or honor all their commitments to other employees. All nurses can increase their credibility as well by joining professional organizations, mentoring new nurses, and volunteering their time to promote change on their unit. (Duffy 2017)
Source
Duffy, N. (2017, November 03). Leading at the bedside and beyond. Retrieved March 18, 2018, from https://www.americannursetoday.com/leading-at-the-bedside-and-beyond/
I completely understand having to make four copies of one reports. We use meditech for our charting and we were charting in THREE DIFFERENT places what DVT prophylaxis our patient was using. We just convinced our department to eliminate the extra two. I firmly believe in working smarter not harder.
My current unit seems to believe in more of the do what I say not what I do style of leadership. I’ve seen a lot of people that I used to respect and admire not giving 100% to their patients but yell at another nurse during shift report for doing the same thing. It’s been a very weird dynamic on my unit the last few months.