NR 351 Week 6 Discussion: Best Leaders
Purpose: This week’s graded topics relate to the following Course Outcomes (COs).
CO1: Propose individualized
... [Show More] comprehensive care by integrating theories and principles of nursing and related disciplines when planning comprehensive patient-centered care. (PO1)
CO2: Demonstrate leadership strategies that promote safety and improve quality in nursing practice and increase collaboration with other disciplines when planning patient-centered care within systems-based practice. (PO2)
The Assignment
Think of the best leader or manager you have ever known (or your ideal leader or manager) in nursing or another field. How did this person lead others? How did you feel working with this leader? What impact did this person’s leadership style have on your future leadership?
ANSWER
The best leader is someone who is devoted to an organization, not only a person who can be counted on to make good boardroom decisions that promote safety and improve quality on a good day, but also a person who can manage difficult and challenging situations at odd hours on holiday weekends. A leader must possess good temperament, integrity, creativity and interpersonal skills (Dartey-Baah, 2015). To be the driving force behind hundreds of employees, a person who exhibits all these traits can instill confidence and motivate subordinates to function at their full potential. This is the type of person who can be considered a role models for future nurse leaders.
I have known only one charismatic leader throughout the course of my career. Her name is Lourdes Camps, a co-worker who left the bedside to manage outpatient services and then returned to the same facility as the Director of Telemetry and then Chief Nursing Officer. When I first met Lourdes Camps, she was a preceptor, but not my preceptor. I felt Lourdes was a very capable nurse, one of the few who was working on a graduate degree in the 1990’s. Lourdes was a confident individual who could connect with the staff and patients and de-escalate potential conflicts as situations unraveled as they normally do in a fast-paced and stressful work environment. She was emotionally in tune with the needs of those around her. I credited her upbringing, education and experience to be what allowed Lourdes to demonstrate such excellent nursing care values. What I never saw coming is that she had the drive to one day become the second biggest boss of the facility in which we were employed.
Lourdes was promoted to Chief Nursing Officer in perhaps less than a year after taking her first leadership role in the facility, an acute care hospital with almost eight-hundred employees. During her ascension, I had the pleasure of interacting with her in a number of committees. Lourdes, as nurturing as always, sat at the head of the table and worked hard to foster communication and teamwork in an inherited environment of conflicting opinions and uncomfortable emotional responses. She navigated through dark waters trying to maintain group cohesiveness and stayed on a solution-focused track. Although very high on the pecking order, instead of flexing her authoritative muscle, Lourdes walked a democratic path in which she sought the input of department heads to support new projects and adjustments to old ones (Amanchukwu, Stanley & Ololube, 2015). Not everyone embraces change in the same way, especially if it means extra work or stretching out already thin resources. Therefore, the practice of boardroom diplomacy can be by way of soliciting the counsel of other leaders to embrace changes worked for Lourdes. I viewed this as a personal best practice to ensure that the task at hand was understood and the necessary changes were achievable through collaboration.
I particularly enjoyed the monthly Performance Improvement Committee Meetings because of the wide range of issues and topics that it covered. Twenty years ago, in Hialeah Hospital, we called these gatherings “brown bag table-top meetings.” This meant participants brought their lunch or snacks with them and laid ideas out on the top of the table. I felt that bringing the unique viewpoints, skills and talents of different disciplines together in this type of laid-back method was sure to maintain a healthy, facility-wide working environment. Like Camelot, everyone was given a seat at the large, round table and encouraged to enter the free-flowing discussion. I recall thinking that the only drawback to this democratic approach of problem-solving in the group decision-making process would be that Lourdes Camps would not be absolved of failure in case of costly error; the top dog cannot deflect the blame when things go wrong. Nonetheless, other leadership styles would similarly not be an effective shield. The best that could be expected, as with all aspects of life and business, is to get it right as possible on the first round making the most out of the interdisciplinary collaborative approach.
One can surmise that a hospital, whether independent or corporate-owned, is a dynamic environment with changes and adjustments driven by factors such as economics, patient safety, bureaucratic laws, regulatory agencies, epidemics and perhaps even global warming. When it comes to providing healthcare services, therefore, it can be said that change is the only constant. And due to these complexities, it can be quite easy to fall out of date with the tides of change unless there is a commitment to improving the quality of care and optimizing patient outcomes. In order to accomplish all goals, leaders must encourage one another to share their ideas and then synthesize the collective data to benefit the organization. Therefore, if I am ever blessed to sit in the big chair, without trepidation I will try my best to set the direction of the group by implementing the Lourdes Camps democratic style of leadership. I want all the disciplines to feel comfortable chiming in. This method is the ultimate open exchange of opinions and ideas geared toward achieving a collective purpose to benefit the employing organization. I believe the Lourdes Camps approach will stimulate participation and produce desirable outcomes that can be effectively managed and continuously improved.
References
Amanchukwu RN, Stanley GJ & Ololube NP. (2015). A review of leadership theories, principles and styles and their relevance to educational management. Management. (5)1, pp. 6-14. DOI: 10.5923/j.mm.20150501.02.
Dartey-Baah K. (2015). Resilient leadership: A transformational-transactional leadership mix. Journal of Global Responsibility. (6)1, pp. 99-112. DOI: 10.1108/JGR-07-2014-0026.
Frankel A. (2008). What leadership styles should senior nurses develop? Nursing Times. (104)35, pp. 23-24.
Hood LJ. (2018). Leddy & Pepper's Professional Nursing (9th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer Health, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Iqbal N, Anwar S & Haider N. (2015). Effect of leadership style on employee performance. Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review. (5)5, pp. 1-6. DOI: 10.4172/2223-5833.1000146. [Show Less]