Nursing leadership to me is when an individual can rise up and influence the majority to provide not only exceptional care for their patients but also professional respect to their co-workers. I also feel that this requires someone with a strong personality to influence the whole to act in a fashion that respectfully maintains order, too. In my six years of nursing, I have came across various leaders that have done this; however, I have also viewed nursing leadership at its finest behind a desk and popping in for a meeting from time to time or sending an e-mail out to either inform, encourage or reprimand. In the reading Management and Leadership in Nursing and Health Care: An Experimental Approach, 2nd Edition (2015), leadership is defined as “using communication processes to influence the activities of an individual or of a group to attainment of a goal or goals in a given situation.” I too believe after reading this and watching leadership in motion that it definitely matters how leadership is carried out and what is said, because if one isn’t tactful in their words and fails to show follow-through then the leader is not going to be effective or respected.
In my own observation at work, I would have to say that my direct superiors are fairly good leaders; however, it’s the department heads that make me wonder. From watching everything happen on the outside, I would have to say that too often, emotions and favorites have played their part. Don’t get me wrong, my organization is a great place to be; however, there are policies that are far too often overlooked and it makes me wonder if the organization would be much better off had they enforced these policies. Ultimately, I don’t know if this behavior could be changed, primarily because I truly don’t think every person is intended to be a leader.
Reference:
Rigolosi, Elaine La Monica, EdD, JD, FAAN. Management and Leadership in Nursing and Health Care : An Experiential Approach, 2nd Edition, Springer Publishing Company, 2005. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.fhsu.edu/lib/fhsu/detail.action?docID=423601.
Yes, what will it be without followers, in fact most of the time most of us are followers, members of team and so on. Occasionally you will encounter a leader or a manger who can confuse, frustrate and even distress with certain actions. The poor performance of the one who synchronizes and balances all the nurses, patients, and their families, and other health care professionals can lead to substandard patient outcomes. Actually, it puts adverse effects on the morale and productivity of the staff members which results into poor performance of the whole clinical setting.
https://www.topnursing.org/leadership-styles-in-nursing/
I definitely agree that leadership can have a huge role on not only how the unit functions but the general morale. We have a lot of unacceptable things going on in my unit right now in regards to the unit director. Some of the directors on the other units want her fired and she was recently gone for three weeks because her mother died and the other unit directors held a lot of meetings behind her back. I don’t really like the way it’s being handled. It’s put a dark cloud over the unit and a lot of people aren’t following the rules because they feel like our boss isn’t going to be in charge for long. It’s caused a lot of chaos.