Leadership Style Reflective Essay

Leadership Style Reflective Essay

Leadership Style Reflective Essay

Leadership plays a critical role in organizational success and the attainment of set goals, especially in healthcare delivery. Healthcare organizations seek talented individuals to steer their operations and leaders in such positions should always reflect on their roles, enhance self-awareness and identify effective leadership models. While studies show that most individuals are born leaders, many organizations have established different programs aimed at incubating and nurturing potential persons to meet their desired leadership attributes and skills (Sanchez-Gomez & Breso, 2019). Different assessment programs and evaluations exist to help individuals recognize their leadership strengths, values, and styles. Through these assessments, leaders can understand their level of emotional intelligence and develop appropriate leadership styles to become effective leaders. The purpose of this paper is to offer a leadership reflection based on assessment tests and identify a style that aligns with my care philosophy and areas that need improvement.

Selected Assessments and Outcomes

The three assessment tools I employed include emotional intelligence, learning style, and personality assessment. Emotional intelligence tests one’s ability to control themselves. Leaders should have the characteristics of control over themselves and skills to manage others. Self-awareness is founded on the analysis of emotions and their influence on how leaders interact with people. Emotions also determine how leaders manage anger issues and help them to solve conflicts. Emotional intelligence also explores the ability to communicate effectively with team members (Alshammari et al., 2020). The test results from the assessment show that my emotional intelligence is 120 rate or score. This implies that I am flawless or I am a keen perfectionist in attaining outcomes of any task given to me. The score also demonstrates that I strive to ascertain that all activities and tasks are done based on the plan. I also avoid mistakes in my duties and responsibilities.

The second test is learning style which evaluates one’s learning preferences when they need new knowledge. The results show that my preferred style is multimodal with visual scoring 15, kinesthetic 16, and aural 17. Leaders who possess a multimodal learning style are flexible and fast to get new information. The results also demonstrate that I learn best using similar approaches since altering to new approaches is difficult as it requires adjustment. I stick to the same style and materials like books, instruction, and records to improve my learning. The results are a true depiction of my learning style and inspire me to be more conscious. I possess the requisite traits that include humility, love, inspiration, and loyalty. Possession of these skills will allow me to become a more conscious leader and enable others to succeed.

The third assessment was personality assessment which focuses on analyzing individual traits to ascertain if an individual is fit for leadership. Personality traits like confidence make one stand out as a good leader, especially in situations that need tough choices(Sanchez-Gomez & Breso, 2019). The results from the personality tests show that I am an advocate as I tend to evaluate situations before making a substantive judgment. I also use intuition to direct my mental ability and energy in solving pertinent issues that may emerge in the workplace. I am also confident in decision-making situations.

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Leadership Style and Philosophy of Care

My philosophy of care revolves around a holistic approach to treating patients and health populations. I believe that all people are equal and entitled to better health, irrespective of their socioeconomic situations. Therefore, my philosophy of care is about equity and equality for all patients as individuals with inherent human dignity and the right to medical care. My focus is to serve these individuals and populations. Therefore, the leadership style that aligns with my philosophy of care is servant leadership. Nurses are advocates not just for patients but also colleagues and health populations that require better welfare, right from healthcare provision. Imperatively, a servant leader’s main purpose is to serve and prioritize the interests of others before them. As an advocate and flawless leader with a multimodal learning style, I must ensure that patients and colleagues interact in a safe environment with minimal errors, non-existence of incivility events, and optimal care delivery and better welfare.

Incorporating the Elements of the Style

Servant leaders focus on serving others and putting their interests last. Servant leaders listen, empathize, provide a healing environment, have high levels of self-awareness, and use persuasion to implore others to accomplish certain tasks. The other attributes include conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, a commitment to people’s growth, and building community (Best, 2020). The implication is that an effective servant leader must possess all these attributes and incorporate them into their practice environment. Nurses are patient advocates and focus on optimal health wellness. They are servant leaders who prioritize better patient outcomes, flawlessness in medical and health procedures, and a common goal of attaining quality care delivery to patients (Sanchez-Gomez & Breso, 2019). I will incorporate these aspects in practice by listening to colleagues, providing a healing environment to patients through engaging them, and enhancing my levels of self-awareness when interacting with people; right from the managers to patients.

Areas of Improvement

The assessments helped identify some areas that I need to improve. These include effective communication, having a flexible attitude on mistakes and errors, and accommodating diverse views. The personality test results shows that I am flawless, which is idealistic and not reality. Individuals make mistakes and it’s important to acknowledge for better training and learning to avoid their occurrence in the future.  Secondly, effective interactions and getting diverse opinions are essential to enhance one’s leadership capabilities. The results require me to improve on these areas by altering my attitude and embracing a wide perspective for better outcomes.

Characteristics of an Effective Nurse Leader

Nurse leaders are essential in motivating nurses to deliver quality care to patients under their care. Nurse leaders should possess certain characteristics that set them apart from others. An effective nurse leader should have the capability to lead oneself and others based on their characteristics. These include high levels of self-awareness and self-management, self-motivation and knowledge, and critical thinking skills. Effective nurse leaders should be confident in themselves, their skills, intellect, and abilities. They should have the integrity to enhance their overall acceptance and credibility (Sanchez-Gomez & Breso, 2019). They must show dedication and commitment to others, compassion and empathy, listening, possess conflict resolution and management skills, and effective communication to enhance feedback with subordinates and the management. Effective nurse leaders should embrace diversity, especially due to the need for culturally competent care, and build relationships as well as possess employee development skills to get optimal interactions with the nurses.

Leadership Theory and Style

The transformational leadership theory advances that effective leaders focus on creating change and encouraging their subordinates to attain better outcomes. Transformational theory of leadership is categorical that transformational leaders focus on changing the status quo and improving overall interactions with their subordinates (Jambawo, 2018). They view subordinates as innovative and support their ideas to bring change.

The transformational leadership theory and style support a professional nurse leader to focus on improving the overall capacity of their subordinates, bringing innovations to enhance care delivery, and allowing them to generate ideas to improve care provision and quality outcomes. The theory shapes nurse leaders in collaboration, conflict resolution, negotiations, and decision-making in several ways (Setyaningrum et al., 2020). For instance, transformational leaders collaborate with others to attain common goals and ensure that all people participate when a conflict emerges. They enable subordinates to contribute their ideas for change in an organization focused on optimal care delivery to patients (Krepia et al., 2018). They also get diverse views to solve conflicts when they occur and negotiate effectively to reach a consensus.

Conclusion

Nurse leaders require appropriate leadership styles to attain set goals and objectives as well as help their organizations to improve care delivery. Evaluation of leadership style is important for leaders to know their approach and develop requisite characteristics to achieve set goals. The reflective essay shows that leadership attributes enable organizational leaders to attain better performance through team involvement and practicing appropriate leadership style.

References

Alshammari, F., Pasay-An, E., Gonzales, F., & Torres, S. (2020). Emotional intelligence and

authentic leadership among Saudi nursing leaders in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Journal of Professional Nursing, 36(6), 503-509. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2020.04.003.

Best, C. (2020). Is there a place for servant leadership in nursing? Practice Nursing, 31(3), 128-

132. https://doi.org/10.12968/pnur.2020.31.3.128

Jambawo, S. (2018). Transformational leadership and ethical leadership: their significance in the

mental healthcare system. British Journal of Nursing, 27(17), 998-1001.

https://doi.org/10.12968/bjon.2018.27.17.998.

Krepia, V., Katsaragakis, S., Kaitelidou, D., & Prezerakos, P. (2018). Transformational

leadership and its evolution in nursing. Progress in Health Sciences, 8, 185-190.

https://doi.org/10.5604/01.3001.0012.1114

Sanchez-Gomez, M., & Breso, E. (2019). The Mobile Emotional Intelligence Test (MEIT): An

ability test to assess emotional intelligence at work. Sustainability, 11(3), 827. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11030827

Setyaningrum, R. P., Setiawan, M., & Irawanto, D. W. (2020). Servant Leadership

Characteristics, Organisational Commitment, Followers’ Trust, Employees’ Performance Outcomes: A Literature Review. European Research Studies, 23(4), 902-911.RePEc:ers:journl:v:xxiii:y:2020:i:4:p:902-911

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2. Identify the leadership style that closely aligns to your philosophy of care and explain what appeals to you about that style.
3. Reflect on how you might incorporate elements of that particular style as you exercise leadership in a practice or health care organization setting.
4. Discuss any particular areas for improvement the assessments helped you identify and some steps for improving your leadership capabilities.
5. Analyze the characteristics of an effective professional nurse leader, or individuals in nursing leadership. Discuss the characteristics and explain why they are effective for leadership in nursing.
6. Analyze different leadership theories and leadership styles. Select one theory and leadership style, different from your own, and explain how they each support a professional nurse leader or individual in nursing leadership. Consider how the theory shapes the nurse leader in such things as collaboration, conflict resolution, decision making, and negotiation.