1. What action by a nurse-manager best demonstrates servant leadership?
A. Cultivating a personal relationship with each subordinate
B. Prioritizing the
... [Show More] interests of others over the manager's own interests
C. Communicating a clear vision for the future and asking subordinates to share it
D. Making decisions on the basis of customer service
- B. Prioritizing the interests of others over the manager's own interests
Feedback: Managers who are servant leaders put serving others, including employees, customers, and the community, as the number one priority. This attitude is not dependent, however, on having a personal relationship with every subordinate. Customer service is valued, but the servant leader also emphasizes the needs of employees and the community. Servant leadership has a place for vision, but this is not a specific characteristic of this type of leadership.
2. The nurse manager who seeks to exemplify emotional intelligence should:
A. Effectively manipulate the emotions of others to achieve goals.
B. Prioritize emotion over reason when making decisions
C. Prioritize emotion over reason when making decisions
D. Regulate his or her own emotions and those of others
- D. Regulate his or her own emotions and those of others
Feedback: Theorists studying emotional intelligence posit that the ability to regulate the emotions of self and others is key to effective leadership. Emotional intelligence does not involve removing emotion from decision making; conversely, it does not claim that emotion should trump reason. Management of emotions is not the same as manipulating the emotions of others, which is unethical
3. The leader-manager provides oversight on a busy medical-surgical unit. There has recently been an incident where two nurses were not honest about neglecting a controversial new protocol and mislead the leader. How can the leader-manager best prevent similar episodes?
A. Support employees' right to disagree with proposed changes
B. Ensure that employees know the consequences of misleading the manager
C. Avoid making decisions that displease large numbers of employees
D. Identify allies who can be trusted to report employees who may mislead the manager
- A. Support employees' right to disagree with proposed changes
Feedback: There is no guarantee that followers will not mislead leaders, but adhering to certain principles, such as making sure that followers are allowed to disagree, will guard against this happening. The manager can often not avoid making unpopular decisions. Enacting punitive measures (consequences) has not been shown to encourage honesty. The use of "informants" is likely to cultivate mistrust and is likely to increase dishonesty
4. Which statement regarding the characteristics of a good leader is true?
A. Charisma is their strongest attribute
B. They are brave in all situations
C. They may have character flaws
D. They are by nature good-intentioned
- C. They may have character flaws
Feedback: Leaders may be deceitful and trustworthy, greedy and generous, and cowardly and brave. To assume that all good leaders are good people is foolhardy and makes us blind to the human condition. It is only when we recognize and manage our failings that leaders achieve greatness. No one can be brave in each and every situation. Many good leaders have strong charisma, but this is not always the case.
5. To decrease overtime, the manager of a surgical unit offers nurses who get their work finished on time for an entire 2-month period an extra day off with pay at regular time. The nurse is enacting what model of leadership?
A. Quantum leadership
B. Favoritism
C. Servant leadership
D. Principal agent theory
- D. Principal agent theory
Feedback: Principal agent theory suggests that followers may have an informational (expertise or knowledge) advantage over the leader as well as their own preferences, which may deviate from that of the principal. This may lead to a misalignment of goals. To influence the agent, the principal offers an incentive that corrects excessive overtime. This action is performance-based, so it would be difficult to characterize it as favoritism. Servant leadership prioritizes the interests of others; creating incentives to address the misalignment of goals is not central to servant leadership. Quantum leadership is a holistic theory of leadership that does not mainly focus on the alignment of disparate goals. [Show Less]