Role of Nursing Leadership
Leadership in nursing requires careful observation, management and full dedication to greatness. Clinical nurse leaders oversee that patients are well-taken care. Leadership in nursing requires personal mastery. According to Lewis & Cunningham (2016), Personal mastery is a way of living by an individual based on a specific set of practices and principles to enable a person work towards their vision in line with their values; therefore, leadership in nursing starts with understanding oneself. Personal mastery in leadership involves leaders understanding themselves and having self-confident to be able to empower the people who are under them and create a climate of trust and fairness. Personal mastery enables leaders to look at their mistakes and learn from them. Leadership in nursing also require values. Values are things that a person believes are of importance in the way they live. In nursing, the core values are all about delivering the best in taking care of patients. A good leader in nursing puts most of their focus in ensuring that any decision they make has a positive result on the patients.
Service in nursing leadership is essential in ensuring that nurse’s leaders build a good relationship with the other nurses. Nurse leaders should be able to ensure that things are better leading because they care and want the best for the patients. Leaders grow and learn from their service to others. People and relationship is an aspect of nursing leadership. Nursing leaders should ensure an effective with those who work to ensure the welfare of the patients. When there is a healthy relationship, the staff are motivated and engage themselves fully in ensuring that patients are well taken care of and ensures cooperation among the staff members and the leader( Rodwell, McWilliams & Gulyas 2017). Leaders must provide context when in leadership. The leaders need to evolve from the traditional ways of leadership to the modern networked approaches such as complexity leadership. Complexity leadership views leadership as a collaboration where leaders work together with the staff to ensure an overall performance rather than leaders giving directives to their junior team. Leaders in the nursing system should make changes that support the values of their staff.
Nursing leaders need to ensure proper management. Nurses in leadership positions are expected to make important decisions to help in the care of patients. Management decisions include how to manage staff, planning of treatment, recruitment of new staff, budgeting, scheduling, discharge planning, as well as records management. Nursing leaders should have a strong communication skill to enable them to manage the staff effectively. As nurse leaders, the needs and welfare of the patients should be the most important goal. It is also equally important to ensure that the needs of the staff are not neglected to avoid errors in the job but ensure that patients care is improved. The balancing can be inform of creating time for a social life for the nurses, and this can be done by providing flexible working hours and providing work leaves for the nurses. The work balancing help reduce fatigue and ensures that nurses offer excellent services to the patients. Nurse leaders should ensure their continuous learning and development to improve their leadership skills. Nursing leaders should pursue additional training and education, finding mentors, developing self-confidence and self-esteem, improving their communication skills and involved in leadership development activities( Lewis & Cunningham 2016).
Nursing leaders should make decisions which have visible outcomes of their management process. Due to the changes in the health care environment leaders are required to make changes to make effective decisions. Nursing in the modern world has led to the implementation of government policies and laws that protect the rights of nurses and patients. Nursing leaders should act as role models in ways that they influence other nurses in the professional roles that they perform to enable the growth and development of other nurses (Liang et al., 2016). Integrity ensures the development of a code of morals, ethics, honesty and justice; hence nursing leaders need to have the integrity to ensure that they offer effective leadership. To ensure that nursing activities are productive and patients are well taken care of nursing leaders should have the mentioned characteristics.
References
Lewis, H. S., & Cunningham, C. J. (2016). Linking nurse leadership and work characteristics to nurse burnout and engagement. Nursing Research, 65(1), 13-23.
Liang, H. Y., Tang, F. I., Wang, T. F., Lin, K. C., & Yu, S. (2016). Nurse characteristics, leadership, safety climate, emotional labour and intention to stay for nurses: a structural equation modelling approach. Journal of advanced nursing, 72(12), 3068-3080.
Rodwell, J., McWilliams, J., & Gulyas, A. (2017). The impact of characteristics of nurses’ relationships with their supervisor, engagement and trust, on performance behaviours and intent to quit. Journal of advanced nursing, 73(1), 190-200.