Book/Article Summary - Essay Example

Running Head: The Leadership Challenge The Leadership Challenge s Chapter 9: Foster Collaboration Leaders in the organizations face challenge of taking responsibilities of others, thus they need to establish the relationship of trust with sub-ordinates, peers and senior management. Collaboration is highly significant to achieve and sustain high performance which can be attained through developing the environment of trust in the organization at all levels as this helps in keeping more clarity in keeping common goals and motivating the employees.

The most important aspect of collaboration is the sense of interdependence that results in developing further cooperation. Therefore, the leader of an organization should build trust by showing trust and make the people more participative. The leader should never say ‘I’ and rather believe in the philosophy of ‘We’. Chapter 10: Strengthen OthersLeaders play role in strengthening other members of the organization by ensuring that people decide should decide everything for themselves.

People with self-determination and self-confidence show fewer turnovers in the organizations. Employees who are provided with choices of latitude, job design and personal accountability are more self-determined and self-confident. Provision of adequate skills, knowledge, information and resources to the employees also help in strengthening them by making them competent. For this purpose, individual accountability needs to be enhanced while support to the employees at all levels must be visible.

More, conversations and coaching on monthly basis should be conducted to give confidence to the employees. Chapter 11: Recognize ContributionSuccessful leaders keep high expectation about their constituents and about themselves too. They play Pygmalian roles in developing frame of performance to fit the people accordingly by expecting the best. Recognition and rewards for individuals reveal the leadership and motivational mechanism of the organization. Sometimes words of appreciation work better than formal recognition or monetary rewards.

People must be given attention to raise their spirit and the right methods of motivation must also be adopted. The leaders need to develop winning attitude and communicate the same attitude with employees by believing in their tendencies and abilities. Chapter 12: Celebrate the Values and VictoriesA leader creates a sense of community in the organization and should respond according to the culture to celebrate the events and holidays. The victories and achievements are also celebrated to appreciate and relieve the workers which give renewed spirits and commitment.

Personal involvement of a leader in the matters generates connection between the leader and the constituents, like celebrating with employees and saying ‘thanks’ is a superb way to show them respect and earn personal credibility. The celebration can be planned at any gathering to celebrate any milestone achievement or to celebrate any cultural event to develop community spirit. Such celebrations should have pleasing environment to let the employees interact with each other and enjoy. These events become more effective if the corporate values are reinforced through these celebrations.

Transformational leadership and the nurse executive (Dunham & Klafehn)In current health care environment, efficient nursing executive leadership is quite dominant. This leadership has primarily the qualities of transformational leader and transactional leader to a small extent. The research conducted over the top nurse executive and other members of the staff revealed that all executives were keenly transformational leaders; however they possessed the skills of transactional leadership as well.

ReferencesKouzes, J.M. & Posner, B.Z. (2007). The leadership challenge (4th ed.). San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Dunham, J. & Klafehn, K.A. (1990). Transformational leadership and the nurse executive. Journal of Nursing Administration, 20(4), 28-33.