Leadership styles and professional development in nursing practice

1 Capstone Leadership Reflection Paper Leadership and Professional Development Lessons that I learned about leadership and professional role development include the different styles of leadership that are effective in the nursing field—such as servant leadership, authentic leadership and transformational leadership. Of the three I find that servant leadership is one of the best ways to show patients the kind of support and empathy that they expect from nurse practitioners. In terms of applying a leadership style when working with colleagues in order to effect change management, transformational leadership can be most helpful. Essentially, in every situation there is a type and style of leadership that can best suit that situation and that more that one knows about leadership approaches, the better one is equipped to implement the right style at the right time for the right occasion. The lessons that I learned about professional role development are that as a nurse, development is absolutely essential to maintaining quality in one’s profession. The profession of nursing is not a static or stagnant one: new data, research, evidence and studies are always being published and advancing the field. This research has to be taken into consideration and nurses must advance their learning through continuing education in order to help advance the field of medicine in and of itself. There is a need for greater access to care and nurses who become advanced practitioners can help to answer that need by working independently of physicians and giving patients more options and access to quality care as a result. Professional role development is about enhancing one’s position in the field so that one can be a teacher to other nurses, an example to both colleagues and patients, and a leader in the industry. The Impact of Capstone Leadership Projects on the Nurse The impact of capstone leadership projects on the nurse’s professional role and beginning leadership abilities is substantial. The capstone project provides the nurse with an opportunity to engage with real world nursing issues and find ways to test or verify responses to those issues to help arrive at solutions. The capstone project sets the nurse on the path of discovery and pro-action. Nurses must not be passive workers in the field of medicine or simply reactive to patient needs. They must engage in evidence-based practice and preventive care in order to provide patients with true quality care that helps them address their own challenges and needs. In terms of the nurse’s professional role, the capstone project helps lay the foundation for the role by giving the nurse a sense of what real nursing is all about. The capstone project also teaches the nurse about beginning leadership abilities by setting the nurse face to face with an issue and providing the framework for addressing that issue. Leaders must face challenges and find ways to overcome them, ways to solve problems that impact other nurses and patients. By being aware of these issues and having practice in addressing them, the nurse develops the leadership qualities and traits that help to strengthen one’s leadership abilities. Leadership is not born overnight but rather is practiced and perfected over time. The capstone project serves as long period of practice, as the nurse takes up a problem, researches it, answers it, and provides the field with new knowledge or tools that can be of benefit to the community. A nurse leader is always finding ways to help the nursing community, whether through example or through study. How Capstone Leadership Projects Help Synthesize Important Aspects of Professional Leadership and Practice The capstone leadership project can help to synthesize important aspects of professional leadership and practice by intertwining theory with practice so that the nurse learns to incorporate the two together and use what is learned from the research in one’s daily nursing practice. Synthesizing the most important aspect of professional leadership with practice empowers the nurse to lead from within the daily practice environment: the knowledge, skills, and the principles acquired through the capstone project can and must be put into practice in order for the capstone project’s real fruits to be manifested. The project should not be considered an end in and of itself but rather as an opportunity to bring knowledge and practice together. Conflict Resolution and Styles of Leadership Resolving conflict can be one challenge that a nurse faces in daily practice and this capstone has taught various styles of leadership that can be effective in addressing these types of situations as well as other interpersonal dynamics that arise in the workplace. Servant leadership is a style of leadership that can help a nurse neutralize a situation because it places the other person at the forefront and lets the nurse examine that persons needs and find a way to satisfy them. Instead of insisting on the nurse’s own needs or demands, servant leadership style places the other person’s needs first. The nurse is there to serve. Another style of leadership that can help to resolve conflicts is transformational leadership, as this style is all about communicating a vision of a goal and inspiring others to want to achieve that goal. The leader will appeal to principles or duty or an ethical standard to motivate the person to want to get on board with the program. This can help to resolve conflicts too. Evidence Based Practice My assessment of evidence based practice (EBP) is that it is essential in the nursing field. EBP gives the nurse a solid foundation for treating patients and providing quality care, as every care intervention utilized is based on evidence obtained through research that is published in academic journals for nurses to use in their profession. Employing evidence based practice allows the nurse to stay up to date on what practices and treatment methods are working best, which can be replaced, which have been updated and so on. It is a method of professionalism that the industry really cannot do without. Evidence based practice will influence the future professional nursing practice because nursing is always changing for a variety of reasons and factors. For instance, the advancement of technology has helped to completely change several aspects of nursing—such as how patients are monitored, how they communicate with nurses, how records are stored and shared, and so on. Telehealth has broken down barriers of time and space that the industry probably never would have thought possible. Yet before this type of technology can be effectively utilized in the nursing profession, it has to be understood—and that understanding comes by way of research and by way of the publication of findings that lead to the development of evidence based practice. These developments are what make nurses effective at their jobs and help guarantee that top notch quality care is always being delivered. EBP safeguards both nurses and patients and ensures that knowledge is effectively communicated and utilized in one’s daily practice for the benefit of all health care stakeholders.