Discuss leadership and leadership styles - Essay Example

`Running Head: Leadership and Leadership Styles Leadership and Leadership Styles: A Reflective Paper goes here Professional SpecializationName of you professor Leadership and Leadership Styles Leadership had always been a challenging undertaking; it demands a sublime vision and a passion of enabling and enriching people and processes. Leadership instigates the thirst for achieving visionary goals through passion. Leadership in nursing is even more demanding because it requires perfection in profession as well as management skills.

More often than not leadership is a mix and match of vision, passion, professionalism, management along with many others qualities which determine the mode and style of leadership. This leads to complexity and diversity of leadership and its styles. Leadership definitions have been attributed to well known personality traits wherein, styles of leadership evolves through practicing and blending leadership techniques in various combination. However, managing human and material resources to achieve the organizational objectives remains the prime measure in gauging the worth of a leadership.

But this trend of leadership assessment has undergone a major change in the recent past and now instead of looking for some specific qualities of leadership in leaders, leaders are judge by their own specific styles. “As leadership theory developed, researchers moved away from studying what traits the leader had and placed emphasis on what he or she did --- the leader’s style of leadership” (Marquis & Huston, 2009). The diversity and depth in leadership styles has abstained researchers from reaching a unanimous classification of leadership styles.

However some recurring styles that have emerged and deliberated since long, may qualify for standard leadership styles in nursing. These styles may include Authentic, Servant, Transformational, Charismatic, Autocratic, Democratic, Laissez-Faire, Bureaucratic leadership style etc. Moreover, it is important to note that the leadership is an emerging and dynamic phenomenon and must not be confined to these styles. These styles are only instrumental to some extent in measuring and assessing leadership styles in different professional settings.

Authentic Leaders have some distinct qualities as Shirey (2006) explains, “the authentic leaders have 5 key characteristics: the abilities to understand their own purpose, practice solid values, lead with heart, establish enduring relationships, and practice self-discipline.” The authentic leaders are reliable and confident in their pursuit of objectives, contrary to servant leaders who learn and improve through serving others. They are always ready to take responsibility and never lose a chance to praise followers.

They also display distinct characteristics when compared to transformational leaders who seek change in the system and people through use of personal influence and example. They introduce needful reforms in processes and behavioral changes in follower to accomplish organizational objectives. However transformational leadership style is more closely related to democratic style where leader tries to find out common grounds to incorporate the changes he deems needful while ensuring participation of followers and rest of the leadership hierarchy.

Leadership styles may have variant traits and characteristics but they are more concerned with practicing leadership instead of theoretical aspects of the phenomenon. These styles provide a wider platform for enhancing and implementing improved models of leadership. This is what Frankel (2008) observed in his article, “Leadership models are a useful tool for senior nurses and help to put the function of leadership activity into perspective.” References Frankel, A. (2008). What leadership styles should senior nurses develop?

Nursing Times, 104: 35, 23-24. Retrieved from http://www.nursingtimes.net/1811643.article Marquis, L. Bessie & Huston, J. Carol. (2009). Leadership Roles and Management Functions in Nursing: Theory and Application. 6th ed. China: Wolters Kluwer Health & Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Shirey, R. Maria.(2006). Authentic Leaders Creating Healthy Work Environments for Nursing Practice. American Journal of Critical Care, 15, 256-267. Retrieved from http://ajcc.aacnjournals.org/content/15/3/256.full.pdf+html