Nurse Manager's Strengths and Weaknesses

¶ … Nursing Nurse leaders and managers are vital in every aspect of a healthcare organization with regards to their role in ensuring the provision of quality care services. Given their significance in a healthcare organization, nurse managers and leaders need to develop essential competencies and leadership abilities. This implies that nurse leaders not only need to develop essential knowledge, competencies and expertise but should also focus on their leadership skills and abilities.

One of the ways nurse managers and leaders can use to develop their leadership skills and abilities is through examining their competencies. The American Organization of Nurse Executives developed the Nurse Manager Skills Inventory that nurse managers can rate themselves based on several content areas (Denker, 2014). The tool can in turn be used as a platform for planning career pathway and identifying professional targets as a nurse manager.

Personal Rating As part of promoting my personal career plans and development, I have utilized the Nurse Manager Skills Inventory as a tool to rate myself. I utilized the tool to identify my strengths and weaknesses on various content areas including individual and professional accountability, individual journey disciplines, career planning, and reflective practice reference behaviors/tenets. These content areas are crucial towards creating the leader within me for effective functioning as a nurse leader or manager in the future.

Under personal and professional accountability, my strengths include having a clear plan for personal growth and development, ethical behavior and practice, and certification. I have developed a personal plan towards education advancement and continuing education even after completing my current studies and understand requirements for certification in my specialty. I also have understanding of practice that aligns with standards and scope of practice in nursing.

However, my weakness in this area is that I am yet to join and participate in a suitable professional association that promotes professional development and networking. In relation to career planning, my strengths include a clear understanding of my role and future as well as positioning myself for career growth and development. These strengths emerge from the fact I have developed a comprehensive career plan for my pathway in the nursing field. Moreover, I am willing to learn something new and make necessary adjustments for personal and professional growth.

With regards to personal journey disciplines, my strengths include ability to effectively use mechanisms of action learning for problem solving and reflection on personal decisions. Furthermore, I have relatively good knowledge of reflection and usually practice it as a leadership behavior. Nonetheless, my weakness is my shared leadership and council management skills since I do not currently manage councils that foster shared leadership. Based on the final content area, my strengths include acknowledgement of ambiguity, appreciation of diversity as a channel to wholeness and holding the truth.

In contrast, I have weaknesses in developing intellectual and emotional self, keeping personal commitments, and quest for gaining more knowledge. Generally, I don't usually create time to study new material and obtain information regarding current trends. Using Current Leadership Skill Set to Advocate for Change Despite my weaknesses in the various content areas in the Inventory tool, the identified strengths can be used as part of my current leadership skill set to promote change in the workplace.

One of the ways for utilizing current skill set to advocate for change is through empowering nurses. This will not only entail using traditional nursing education but also encouraging participation in informal activities that create empowerment (Garner, 2011). Secondly, I will help create an environment where nurses are able to speak up freely, especially during the creation of process improvement plans for enhanced organizational success.

Third, I will focus on developing leadership skills at every organizational level so that every individual within the workplace assumes responsibility for the success and growth of the organization. The development of leadership skills at every organizational level is primarily because an individual does not necessarily need to be a nurse manager or leader in order to be leaders.

Personal Goal for Leadership Growth In light of my strengths and weaknesses in the different content areas in Nurse Manager Skills Inventory, one of the important measures to promote my personal and professional growth and development is developing a personal goal for leadership growth. My personal goal for leadership growth to obtain more useful information that is relevant to my career in order to become a better professional and obtain improved results.

I will implement this goal to reading more materials and networking with more professionals in the field to gain more experience. The implementation plan also entails participating in a leadership program that is centered on transformational leadership principles in order to eventually enhance patient outcomes.