Nurse Leadership Evaluation and Advocacy - Essay Example

Nurse Leadership Evaluation and Advocacy Upon download of the Nurse Manager Skills Inventory tool, I proceeded to evaluate myself in ‘the leader of’ section. I discovered the following strengths and weaknesses I have in the four content areas. I rated myself highly in the professional and accountability content area in the leadership section. However, I found my greatest strength in this field is my strong belief in upholding ethical behavior and standards that are in line with global nursing standards. I believe nurses have an ethical responsibility to uphold the integrity of patient records. For example, I would report on a patients file that does not have proper record information. Falsified or inerrant records risk the life of the patient. I find that my personal moral code is mostly in line with the nursing code of ethics with only a few gray areas. I agree with Naden and Erickson that the use of ethical behavior to manage situations is required in the provision of safe and legal care to patients (Naden and Erickson, 2004). I found out that my lack of professional certification or my involvement in professional nursing associations to be a weakness. Professional involvement in organizations and certification are necessary due to the out-of-school skill set a person can gain. They provide opportunities for networking and learning and I think to be a successful nurse manager would require expertise in my field. Fixing this weakness, would help in my eventual goal of being an expert leader in the nursing profession. The career planning area in the tool proved to be exceedingly informative. My life goal is to be occupying a director or chief of nursing position in a large hospital. I thus discovered that my strength in career planning is my knowledge of my career goals. I have jotted down my five to ten-year goals on what will be required to occupy the prior mentioned positions. Earning a bachelor’s degree in nursing within the ten years is an achievable career shaping goal I have. The degree will be mainly helpful in pursuing my nursing leadership career path. According to my experience, my skills in adaptation to technology are greatly lacking. I usually choose to stick to one path and ignore any other ways that may present themselves. My computer skills are restricted to the basics due to my wrongly held belief of its importance. This may be a challenge in the future as the nursing field is dynamic. This is true for almost all other areas in the modern world. Technology comes up with new ideas and tools on more efficient nursing management. If I am to be a competitive and successful manager, how much I am willing to embrace technology will be a determining factor. Also in terms of my personal journey disciplines, I try everything possible to learn from my experiences. I agree with Allen McConnell that the personal reflection is critical for self-improvement (McConnell, 2010). Personal goals often get unrealized due to the lack of self-awareness. I believe that by periodically monitoring my behavior, I can measure how far I am from achieving my goals. Reflection on my leadership behavior will help me grow my skills in leadership to an expert level. Reflections on my personal experiences also play a role in my continued acquisition of competencies and knowledge in the nursing field. A weakness I would rate in my own journey discipline is my imperfect knowledge in the action learning approach to solving problems I may encounter. Action learning has been shown to be instrumental in developing individual leadership and team building skills (Leornard and Marquadct, 2010). I lack sufficient knowledge and proficiency in new changes and challenges in the nursing profession. My choice in not gaining relevant knowledge in areas I remain ignorant in will present a problem. A change in attitude will be required if I am to be a successful leader in my profession. On my reflective practice reference behaviors, I discovered an appreciation of diversity to be my greatest strength. A person should not be disregarded in all forms of discrimination such as sexual orientation, religion or race. For example, I have a Muslim man I consider as a close friend. I do not believe in my friend being discriminated on due to his race. As a future leader in the modern American workplace, I believe in equal opportunities for all. A leader can tap into a larger talent pool and varying viewpoints to make better decisions and increase efficiency. As a nursing student in a largely multicultural institution, I hope to carry my views on diversity into the workplace. My inability to discover the potential in others has always been one of my weaknesses. It has proven quite challenging to know what qualities others may possess. For example in my discussion group, I cannot get the output I require from my team members. The key reason for not getting the required output is because I usually engage the wrong person on a particular task. This presents itself as a failure of my leadership skills. A successful nurse manager should be able to find the potential of others and channel this potential into achieving the overall goals of the hospital. If I were to use my current leadership skill set to advocate change in my workplace, I would focus on improving communication. Nursing practice presents as a complex problem to the organization. This is in large part to the complexities in ensuring effective and efficient care of the increasing number of patients in hospitals. These complexities coupled with inefficient communication channels present as major problems hampering the care of patients. I would reduce the number of verbal orders by ensuring all policies; tasks and standards in the workplace are documented. Doing this will help in remembering and clarifying what is likely in the workplace. I would also advocate change in the workplace through the use of my negotiation skills to support an increase in the number of nurses. There is a projected shortage of nurses while there is a rise in the need for healthcare within the American population. There has also been limited growth in nursing schools and inadequate health care reform to address this. In order to increase workplace productivity, I will negotiate with the main stakeholders on the most cost efficient methods of providing a safe, engaging and fulfilling workplace for healthcare providers. I will also advocate policy changes in order to reach the projected demand for nurses without compromising on the rights of nurses. As a nursing student, I have set one of my personal goals for my leadership growth to be a better motivator in the workplace. Motivation is an important management tool to achieve employee satisfaction. It also serves to improve the efficiency of workers in achieving organizational goals. I believe in order to improve my motivation skills would require finding a reliable mentor. My mentor should inspire me in my personal growth and offer advice, personal experience and support in helping me to be a better motivator. I learned that the Nurse Manager Skills Inventory tool can be a valuable tool for evaluating my performance in the key areas required to be a successful nurse manager. Evaluating myself allowed me to reflect on the qualities I have and on which areas lie room for improvement. References Allen R. McConnell (2010)Reflection Critical for self-improvement. Ph. D. in the Social self. Miami University, USA Marquadc, M., Leonard H., S., Freedman, A. and Hill C., (2010). Action learning for developing leaders and organizations: Principles, strategies and cases.American Psychology Association. Washington DC, USA Naden, D., Erikssion, K. (July, 1,2004). Understanding the importance of values and moral attitudes in nursing care in preserving human dignity.Nursing Science Quartely, 17, 86-91 Read More