Leadership Styles -- Mentor Observations Primary Form of Leadership

My mentor's leadership style is mostly democratic or participative. This form of leadership is particularly effective in a clinical setting as it encourages teamwork, collaboration and use of the collective experiences of multiple skilled staff members. This leadership style may also be described as democratic, where the leader encourages participation and input from other staff members and followers.

Participative leadership enables multiple members of a group or team to participate in the decision making process, which can strengthen a groups achievements, motivation and dedication (Clark, 1997). While ultimately the mentor has the authority to make final decisions, he or she does so guided or influenced by the wants, needs and desires of employees. This form of leadership is particularly useful when knowledgeable and skillful employees...

A laissez-faire or free reign type style encourages employees to make decisions. Other nurses in the field who had minimal licensure most often exhibited this type of leadership style. Their role was mainly to supervise the actions of others, in some cases nurses that had more experience and higher qualifications than they did, hence it makes sense that they would delegate certain decisions to other nurses in the field.
Very seldom was an autocratic leadership style used, except by an occasional field supervisor with much experience and advance practice nursing licensure, suggesting that this supervisor had both the knowledge and skills to make the decisions necessary…