Nurse Leadership Interview Reflection

Abstract

This paper provides a reflection on an interview with a nurse leader at a medical surgical unit. The nurse leader provided responses to questions about her philosophy of leadership, her methods, and factors that influence staffing. While she applied a team leadership style, some elements of transformational leadership, authentic leadership and servant leadership could be detected in her approach. As for staffing, she observed that telemedicine could be viewed as an opportunity for addressing future staffing issues while at the same time relieving concerns about COVID.

Introduction

For this reflection an assistant manager on the medical surgical unit provided answers to questions about leadership, what makes a good follower, shared governance, and quality improvement. The interviewee also discussed the role of nursing leaders in the workplace, the role of technology, and the impact of organizational factors on staffing plans. This paper reflects on the answers given and compares and contrasts the nurse leaders leadership style to other leadership styles, including authentic leadership and transformational leadership. Finally, it discusses the opportunity for implementing a quality improvement initiative.

Same-Team Leader

The nurse leader described herself as a team leader. Team leadership style typically consists of identifying a clear purpose or goal for the team to achieve, and in the team the leader understands the strengths each team member brings and uses them in complementary way so that the team is strong overall. The nurse leader did this by creating an environment in which all team members can reach their highest potential, but also by giving a positive example herself. By focusing on giving a good example, the nurse leader also engaged in what could be termed authentic leadership.

Her nursing philosophy, however, appears to be rooted in transformational leadership, as her outlook was defined by the goal of transforming health care so as to be recognized as the leader of positive change. To achieve quality leadership, the nurse leader noted that one must communicate effectively, be able to adapt to new situations and environments, implement motivating strategies to inspire and empower staff, assist the staff with planning and decision making, and make sure staff has the tools and training needed to meet patient needs. All of these remarks...

Thus, it is worth comparing the nurses team leadership approach to transformational leadership to see how they overlap, which will be done in the next section.

The nurse leader elaborated on how she communicates with followers and stated that verbal, face-to-face communication is the mode she prefers: however, because of the stress of a busy, noisy, distracting environment, communicating in this manner can be a challenge. Perhaps the best example of how she engages in same-team leadership is through her attempt to seek compromises when conflicts arise. For example, she stated that when conflicts arise among patients, family members, nurses, or physicians, she listens to each side and tries to come up with a compromise that satisfies each party of conflict: We look at the problem together, analyzing situation, and look for resolution.

At the same time, as a nurse leader she recognizes that she must make decisions especially when it comes to assigning tasks. When delegating, she stated that she takes into consideration a particular nurses level of education and training before delegating certain tasks. Her goal is always to make sure a task she delegates is within the scope of practice of the delegate. This approach corresponds with the same-team leadership approach, which is that a leader recognizes the strengths of each team member and uses them appropriately (Teguh, Hariyati & Muhaeriwati, 2019).

Other Types of Leadership

Transformational leadership focuses on implementing a change in a workplace by communicating a vision, using logic and reason to justify the change, and providing support and motivation to workers so that they can buy-in to the change and achieve the vision (Hadi & Tola, 2019). Empowerment is a big part of transformational leadership, but it is also a part of servant leadership, which aims at supporting followers so that they can reach their potential (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018). The interviewee stressed that she does aim to use empowerment strategies to motivate workers to grow professionally and to develop their potential. To that end, she stated that she also shares her own experiences, tries to answer all questions, resolves conflicts that arise, follows through on all promises, and acts as a good role model. This last pointacting as a role modelis what compares her method favorably with that of authentic leadership as well. Authentic ledership is a style of leadership in which the leader demonstrates a good work ethic, based on ethical principles, and motivates followers by providing a good example of how to work (Alilyyani, Wong & Cummings, 2018).

Some of the big differences between the interviewees same-team…