Nurse Manager Shadowing Experience

One of the most important elements towards developing necessary skills and competencies in the nursing field is shadowing a practitioner in a healthcare setting or unit. The shadowing experience helps in observing how a nurse practitioner applies nursing concepts in daily activities that focus on delivery of high quality patient care. As a nursing leadership and management student, my shadowing experience involved observing WW, a nurse manager of a cardiac progressive unit. This paper provides a discussion of the shadowing experience with this nurse manager, which focused on identifying leadership styles she utilized to accomplish daily activities in the unit and enhance patient care. The discussion includes a review of the position, credentials, and leadership styles of the nurse manager. This paper also includes an explanation of how the nurse manager handled a conflict using the leadership style. An explanation regarding how the shadowing experience has changed my impression of the Nurse Manager's role will be included as well as the effectiveness of my leadership style in the organization.

During the span of this course on nursing leadership and management, I have been shadowing WW, the nurse manager for Cardiac Progressive Unit. WW has worked as a nurse on the unit for a decade and became the nurse manager for this unit 3 years ago. Prior to becoming the nurse manager, WW worked in supervisory roles in the unit, which entailed examining whether the nurses were meeting the specific goals for the day and any need for improvement. The other nurses in the unit recognize WW as a friend and mentor whose main motivation is to enhance the quality of patient care. She has received recognition from other members of the Cardiac Progressive Unit and the organization's top leadership for her commitment to excellent patient care services.

The shadowing experience involved arriving at the healthcare organization at 7:00 am and meeting with the nurse manager before she commenced her activities of the day. Given the busy nature of her role in the organization, the shadowing took place once a week for at least five hours. When commencing her duties for the day, WW would meet with her colleagues for at least 30 minutes to set goals for the day and identify ways of meeting these goals. During the day, she would always talk to her juniors and take time to sit down and talk to patients in the unit. Additionally, she ensured that all nurses in the unit perform their respective roles and reminded them of their roles and the specific goals for day. Her constant talks with patients were geared towards obtaining their feedback regarding the kind of service they received and identifying how to improve service delivery.

Based on my observations during shadowing, WW was an active listener and empathetic communicator, especially when spending time with the unit's patients. Through this, she would learn things regarding patients that they may not have shared with other nurses or healthcare professionals. She also focused on establishing a healthcare environment characterized by increased physician-nurse collaboration, nurse-nurse collaboration, and nurse-leader collaboration. This helped in enhancing the quality of patient care since the various care providers in the unit worked as a team during delivery of patient care. For instance, physicians received complete information from nurses relating to patient issues because of the increased collaboration between these professionals. At the end of the nursing shift, WW would sit down with the nurses to review the activities of the day and assess the effectiveness of care delivery processes. The reviewed helped in identifying areas of improvement and the nurses' experiences when delivering patient care in order to enhance the overall effectiveness of the unit in meeting the needs of patients.

As previously indicated, the nurse leader I worked with to meet the shadowing requirements of the course is the nurse manager of the Cardiac Progressive Unit (2s) at the healthcare organization. While she has worked in supervisory roles in the unit before, WW has held the position of Nurse Manager of the unit for the last 3 years. She holds a Masters of Science in Nursing Administration from the University of Texas Arlington and a Bachelor of Science in Healthcare Management from Walden University. She has more than 10 years of clinical experience and has worked in middle management positions in different nursing facilities before. Prior to being appointed the nurse manager of the Cardiac Progressive Unit (2s) at the hospital, WW was a nurse supervisor in the same unit for more than 3 years.

WW's leadership style as the nurse manager can be described as transformational leadership style, which she utilized to ensure that the nursing staff in the unit performed their respective duties as expected and met the desired goals. According to Perez (2014), transformational leadership style involves motivating subordinates or juniors through appealing to higher moral values and ideals. WW's use of this leadership style is evident in the fact that she gave the subordinates individualized attention when discussing the goals and responsibilities of the nurses. Additionally, her use of this leadership style is evident in her focus and commitment to the vision and mission of the healthcare organization with regards to delivery of excellent patient care services that result in better outcomes. The major characteristics of WW's transformational leadership approach when working with her juniors include individualized consideration/attention, idealized influence, and motivation.

Moreover, her empathetic communication and active listening was an indicator of transformational leadership that is geared towards creating a highly motivating healthcare environment. In this case, WW focused on developing relationships with her juniors and patients and motivating staff members towards accomplishment of the established departmental goals and objectives. She demonstrated confidence, respect, and loyalty, which inspired her subordinates to work towards enhancing the quality of patient care and contributing towards the accomplishment of organizational vision and mission.

WW did not only use her transformational leadership style to motivate her juniors but also in conflict resolution. An example of a conflict that she handled using this leadership approach was the increased cases of medication errors in the unit. WW had received several complaints and reports from patients regarding medication errors by some of the nurses in the unit. On the other hand, the nurses denied making mistakes during medication administration and were confused by the escalating situation. Since the conflict had numerous potential impacts on the effectiveness of the unit in meeting patients' needs, WW utilized compromise as the conflict management strategy to deal with the conflict. In this case, she met all the junior nurses and communicated the increased incidences of medication errors. During the meeting, she did not accuse some nurses of this mistake but stated that it was a mistake by the entire nursing staff in the unit. This was followed by asking the nursing staff to provide suggestions on things that could be done to ensure safe medication administration in the hospital.

One of the adopted solutions to the issue was for the clinical nurse educator and specialist in the hospital to address the problem of increased medication errors. This involved conducting observations and supervision of nurses when they were administering medication to patients. This process enabled the clinical nurse educator and specialist to identify nurses involved in medication errors. It was followed by conducting training on safe medication administration to the entire nursing staff in the cardiac progressive unit at the hospital.

The conflict management strategy adopted by WW was effective because it helped in identifying the root cause of the problem and dealing with it without discriminating against or victimizing any member of the nursing staff. Through this approach, the nurses in the unit took responsibility for the problem holistically and worked together with the Nurse Manager to identify a suitable solution to the problem. In essence, through transformational leadership style, WW successfully reached a compromise that helped in resolving the problem effectively. According to Hendel, Fish & Galon (2005), one of the most commonly used conflict management approaches by transformational leaders is compromise, which helps in finding a common ground for a problem or conflict.

I was impressed by WW on how she handles her various roles and responsibilities at the Cardiac Progressive Unit (2s). Through her transformational leadership style, the nurse manager has successfully created an inspiring and motivating healthcare environment where care providers work as a team to meet the ever-increasing needs of patients. WW has inspired her junior staff to work towards the accomplishment of the mission and vision of the healthcare organization through individualized attention. Based on my observations, the Cardiac Progressive Unit (2s) at the hospital has been effective in delivering excellent patient care because of the suitable leadership of WW. However, I was concerned that WW seems to be a task-oriented nurse manager who is mainly focused on the accomplishment of organizational goals and objectives. While she inspires and motivates the junior staff at the unit, WW is extremely pre-occupied with work and rarely engages her staff in team-building activities like retreats and picnics.

My personal style of leadership is democratic, which is relatively similar to transformational leadership style, but differs in terms of focus on relationships building. My democratic leadership style characterized by the tendency to encourage open communication and create an environment where every member of the team participates in the decision-making processes. Unlike the transformational leadership style that focuses on inspiring staff members towards achievement of established goals and mission, the democratic style focuses on improving systems and processes towards realizing desired objectives. Additionally, while achieving goals and objectives is important to me, being people-oriented is equally important towards establishing a suitable working environment. My style would complement the organization through creating a balance between focusing on tasks and focusing on people. WW's leadership skills complement organizational effectiveness by creating an environment where staff are motivated towards achieving the desired goals and objectives.

I would like the position of nurse manager because it would give me the opportunity to inspire others (nursing staff) towards making significant impact on people's lives. However, I will need to develop effective decision-making, planning, and problem-solving skills because the roles of a nurse manager include administration, planning and budgeting, and staff management (Cipriano, 2011). To develop these skills, I would need to engage in personal and professional development opportunities through a commitment to lifelong learning. This would entail obtaining specific education in management, especially graduate and post-graduate education. Additionally, I would need to engage in training conferences, workshops, and seminars that enhance my leadership and management skills.

In conclusion, this shadowing experience has helped me gain insights on how nurse practitioner apply concepts into daily practice and activities towards providing high quality healthcare services to patient populations. Through shadowing WW, a nurse manager at Cardiac Progressive Unit (2s), I have gained insights on the application of nurse leadership and management concepts into practice. The process has enabled me to determine the effectiveness of leadership styles in a nursing unit. Additionally, through the shadowing experience, I have reflected on my personal leadership style and its effectiveness in achieving organizational goals as well as the need for professional development opportunities and activities in my journey.

References

Cipriano, P.F. (2011, March). Move Up the Role of Nurse Manager. American Nurse Today, 6(3). Retrieved from https://www.americannursetoday.com/move-up-to-the-role-of-nurse-manager/

Hendel, T. Fish, M. & Galon, V. (2005, March). Leadership Style and Choice of Strategy in Conflict Management Among Israeli Nurse Managers in General Hospitals. Journal of Nursing Management, 13(2), 137-146.

Perez, J.W.L. (2014). Impact of Nurse Managers' Leadership Styles on Staff Nurses' Intent to Turnover. Retrieved from Gardner-Webb University website: http://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1030&context=nursing_etd