NURS 8302 Assignment Leaders in healthcare Assessment

 
Leaders in healthcare need to capitalize on the diversity of the profession so as to effectively deploy available resources to meet patient needs, enhance quality and promote safety. However, healthcare leaders can only attain these goals when they are effective leaders. Being an effective leader in health care implies that one is self-aware about their strengths and weaknesses. In his article, Gavin (2019) observes that building self-awareness and understanding one’s tendencies and drivers of motivation allows a leader to unlock their potential and the team’s capabilities to attain set goals. Self-assessment allows leaders to enhance their self-awareness and understand both their strengths and weaknesses.  The purpose of this paper is to identify personal leadership styles, theories, and skills that can impact patient outcomes (positively or negatively) by conducting a self-assessment, applying concepts learned and Quality Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) principle.

The IOM report has significant influence on nursing education and leadership. Firstly, as equal partners, nurses are leaders and have increased power to advocate change and revise restrictive barriers to practice. Nurses are recognized as primary care providers in certain states and can lead in care provision among inter-professional and multidisciplinary teams (Shelton et al., 2020). The IOM report has improved nurses access to better and advanced education as it recommended an increase in Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) prepared-nurses to respond to the changing nature of healthcare provision. Through the recommendation and evidence-based practice (EBP) findings, many facilities introduced tuition reimbursement, instituted continuing education plans and promotions to incentivize nurses to attain higher educational qualifications.

Self-Assessment to Identify Strengths and Weaknesses of Personal Leadership Skills

Self-assessment of a leader is essential, especially in healthcare, where nurse leaders deal and interact with different stakeholders and players. Leaders can assess their strengths and areas that need improvement using a host of tools or techniques like reflective journaling technique to 360-degree feedback surveys and tests like Myer-Briggs and emotional intelligence assessment (Gavin, 2019). Leaders should have emotional intelligence to understand their subordinates in their areas of expertise and use effective leadership theories to fulfill their roles. Tools like leadership blind-spot assessment survey are ideal for leaders that seek to not just understand themselves but also their influence on those around them.

Effective leaders have five qualities that include cognitive abilities, competence, stability, motivation and emotional intelligence. Based on the self-assessment test by Galford Maruca survey tool, my leadership strengths include being an advocate, a people’s mover implying that I am concerned about my subordinates and can spot their talent, help them build their careers, motivate them and being a parent and nurturer. As a truth seeker, my strengths include being fair, possessing good judgment, focusing on people and seeking neutrality and being objective. As a creative builder, I am visionary and provide guidance since I possess experience, information and expertise (Galford & Maruca, n.d). The implication is that as leaders in health care should possess attributes that endure them to subordinates and allow them to offer inspiration, especially in health care for better patient care delivery and quality outcomes.

Conversely, areas that need improvement include being effective in communicating, enhancing personal attributes like interpersonal interactions, and improving collaboration as healthcare sector requires different professionals working together in multidisciplinary and inter-professional collaboration n teams. Self-awareness, situational awareness and effective negotiation skills and cultural competence are essential attributes of effective healthcare leaders. Therefore, as a leader, I should improve by intercultural sensitivity skills to enhance care provision.

Leadership Theory

Effective leaders have characteristics and attributes that align with certain theoretical perspectives. For instance, competent leaders are hardworking and serve as role models for their subordinates. They also inspire their team and focus on achieving set objectives (Alilyyani et al., 2018). Therefore, the leadership theories that align with my personal leadership assessment are relationship theories and behavioral leadership theory. According to relationship theory of leadership, effective leaders are transformational and motivate and inspire their subordinates to enhance productivity and achieve their goals. The personal leadership assessment demonstrates that relationship-focused leaders are concerned about their interactions with others and are mentors for their employees. These leaders’ focus is to make work enjoyable for many employees and fostering of a positive work environment.

Behavioral theory in leadership advances that great leaders are made and not born as they learn attributes and skills that make them effective. Based on behaviorism, this theory focuses on a leader’s actions and not the mental qualities or internal status. The theory asserts that individuals can learn to become leaders by teaching and observation. As demonstrated through the personal assessment, effective leaders are people-oriented and help to nurture the subordinates so that they can also assume leadership roles and perform in their duties and responsibilities.

Quality Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) Principles

The Quality Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) is an essential component of enhancing nursing profession with the aim of aligning nursing education and best practices in quality and safety standards. QSEN addresses the need to prepare nurses with the necessary competencies to continuously improve the quality and safety of health care systems where they work for better care and quality outcomes. The initiative implores nurses to possess specific competencies to attain patient quality and safety standards and improve them through advanced education, learning, experience and use of scientific evidence in care practice (Bleich et al., 2020). According to the American Nurses Association, there are six QSEN competencies. These include patient-centered care, evidence-based practice, teamwork and collaboration, safety, informatics, and quality improvement.

The leadership assessment illustrates the need to work in teams and create a collaborative approach to nursing care. Therefore, two QSEN competencies that my leadership attributes align with are teamwork and collaboration and quality improvement. The American Nurses Association is categorical that QSEN competencies are not only applicable to individual treatment but represent areas where nurses should think about improvements of systems and use of collaborative teams to enhance quality of care (Gigliotti, 2019). System thinking allows nurse leaders to engage subordinates and other professionals and leaders to develop mechanisms that will allow them to work together and focus on one common goal.

Difference Between Leadership and Management

Leadership and management are related but different. Most leaders are managers but not all managers are leaders. Leadership is about dealing with people and focusing on attainment of long term goals. management focuses on maintaining the status quos that include polices and completion of short term goals. Managers seek to attain maximum benefits from people by setting systems that should be followed (Lovett & Robertson, 2017). However, leaders inspire people to enhance their situations and attain their goals. managers use their positions to influence individuals to follow rules in the workplace but leaders utilize their personal power to influence change. Leaders seek change for the benefit of the majority while managers are concerned more about stability and maintenance of status quo.

Suggestion in Applying Concepts with Workplace

One concept that can be applied in the workplace is leadership theory and style based on personal assessment. The leadership theories of relationship and behavior are important in the workplace as they demonstrate that leaders should focus on people and learn ways to be effective and better to enhance productivity and performance (Gigliotti, 019). Nurse leaders should focus on enhancing their interactions with nurses and other professionals in health care for better and effective care delivery.

Conclusion

The need for personal assessment is essential for nurse leaders to understand their strengths and areas that need improvement. The personal assessment reveals that while I possess certain strengths, there are areas that need improvement. More fundamentally, leadership style affects interactions with other nurses and attainment of frameworks like Quality Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) competencies to improve quality care and patient safety. The implication is that nurse leaders should distinguish leadership from management and apply learned concepts in the workplace to improve safety and quality.