Running head: REFLECTION ON LEADERSHIP

Reflection on Leadership

Raymonta T. Green

Kennesaw State University

WellStar School of Nursing

NURS 7873: Nurse Educator Practicum 1

Dr. Anne White

February 15, 2023

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Understanding the personal strengths of a leader may help to uncover comparable or

complementing skills amongst the organization, permitting management to leverage into

the company's enthusiasm while also discovering and addressing any deficiencies to boost the

entire group. A leaders’ vision or philosophy is an essential instrument to convey essential

objectives, goals, and outlooks with members of a team. It serves as a foundational

understanding within organization for members in leadership to communicate with others about

what's desired within the organization and what colleagues may anticipate from the leader.

In a nursing journal on the various behaviors of leadership and results in the nursing

workforce Cummings (2010) concluded that organizations and people must work together to

foster and create transformative and interpersonal leadership in order to improve satisfaction of

nursing, attraction, development, and appropriate workspaces, especially in light of the present

and continuing shortage of nurses. Having been in the nursing field in some capacity for almost

ten years, the writer, has establish a leadership and teaching philosophy that aids in the

facilitation of the betterment of the nursing profession as well as the advancement of goals that

aligns with identified personal strengths. This writers’ philosophy is to nurture students who

might make a noticeable shift in culture by welcoming inclusiveness and diversity throughout the

industry of nursing by assisting to reduce the disparity in the knowledge of health. The

responsibility of the nurse should not be to put oneself on a platform, but rather to employ our

expertise and interact with others in order to move mankind toward a better future.

Understanding strengths is important when it comes to a philosophy because it shapes the

direction and approach in which a philosophy will be carried out and the impact that the

leadership will have on those that benefit from service. Gottlieb (2021) conducted an evidence-
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based research appraisal that illustrated that the most critical piece in defining the atmosphere

and culture that will be established on a unit and throughout an agency is the character and

approach of leadership. Leadership that focuses on strength-based nursing, can assist leaders in

building conditions that particularly raise issues of individuality, organization, and confidence,

that promotes leaders to unlocking their full potential After completing the self-assessment to

identify strengths about this leadership, it was found that strengths that align alongside the

identified leadership and teaching philosophy were adaptability, connectedness, input,

intellection, and strategic.

In order for a leader to be able to lead, there must be a direction and style to be adoption

for practice. This writers’ preferred style of leadership is a democratic leader. Xu (2017) defined

and described the benefits of a democratic leader as an effective leadership for which group

members take part in outcome, which as a response, ensures group members are more invested in

the strategic planning, more devoted to objectives, and are encouraged to perform more

productively. Adaptability demonstrates that being flexible entails working without constraints

and being receptive to discovering new and unexpected approaches to workplace difficulties and

obstacles. Because change is continuous and unavoidable, leaders should be adaptive in order to

thrive. People who are adaptable have the ability to change ideas, attitudes, and actions in

response to completely new, altering, or unpredictable conditions. Adaptability and the

philosophy work together because in order to be able to attend to different ethnicities, beliefs,

cultures, and practices, one must be understanding and adapting to the surroundings, learners,

and environment is essential. Connectedness demonstrates the ability to form bonds and the

responsibility shared when it comes to taking care of each other. Connectedness shows that a

person is not recognized at the skin level, but the heart and intentions. Connectedness and the
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philosophy work together because in order to teach learners on how to break health barriers and

acknowledge and include people of all walks of life, one must understand the complex

similarities shared amongst each other and how it can be used for beneficial gain towards one

goal of optimal health. Intellection and input demonstrates’ the desire to question and continually

be on the search for new information and answers. Intellection and input and the philosophy

work together to in order to educate people, one must be knowledgeable in a specific area of

practice. In order to be knowledgeable, one must constantly search and create questions relevant

for research that can constantly evolve evidence-based practice. Lastly, strategic shows the

ability to set goals, use complex critical thinking, and organization to produce maximum

efficiency. Being strategic enables the capacity to manage individuals, colleagues, and groups in

a manner that supports the agency's goals and objectives while creating long-term benefit seen in

growth. People who are strategic are being observant, forward-thinking, transparent, creative,

working from the front lines, and making and adopting substantial proof decisions for the

betterment. Strategic strengths and the philosophy go together because in order to make a

societal change in the profession, one must be able to organize the bigger picture and focus on

the smaller goals of the entire situation and collaborate with others through critical thinking that

will promote the long-term goal of health literacy and expansion of cultural influence and

competency.

Often time, in order to understand a situation, one must have lived through or experience

that situation in order to get first-hand perception that will impact the process of decision

making. Smith (2021) summarized in a journal that the nursing profession has always respected

and stressed the necessity of mentoring from the experiences and lessons learnt at the bedside to

all organizational levels. Active participation at the executive level allows healthcare
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professionals to develop systemic processes that will enhance the delivery of products and

services, implement policies, and establish objectives to identify critical matters. Experiences

and life lessons play an important part in not only the shaping of ones’ personal career in nursing

but the impact on mentorship and decision making in an organization. One important lesson that

the writer has learned regarding leadership is to always have a reason and a purpose for what you

are doing and remembering those reasons when things seem to get unclear. Having worked at

bedside for some time, burnout is inevitable and changing professions may seem to be the easiest

answer. The writer has been found in situations where bringing care at the patient level is no

longer a motivation. Recognizing the strengths of ones’ leadership, years of dedication to the

profession, and experiences from the profession has led to a shift in passion and goal to serving

as an educational resource to the community and diversity of nursing. Another important lesson

in leadership is knowing one’s strength and self-understanding and how to use that to create

change. The writer understand that a leadership strength is the ability to organize and strategize.

While serving in the military, the writer was identified for this strength and was tasked with the

responsibility of training an organization of over nine hundred personnel on basic lifesaving

procedures that resulted in a combat survival rate of eighty-six percent in the case of a hostile

incident while being deployed overseas. As the assignment entails, it is important to understand

the strengths play an important part in professional and personal development.

Just as important as strengths play a part in ones’ philosophy and development, weakness

also play just as equal a part. The reader does not like to use the word “weakness” to describe an

insufficiency in a character trait, but rather the term “areas of improvement”. In a journal on the

importance of emphasizing strengths and acknowledging weaknesses, Santovec (2014) suggests

that trying to address a deficiency takes your attention away from your innate potential, and if
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one doesn’t appreciate the self-work you're doing, it saps your vitality. The greatest

recommendation would be not to concentrate on just strengths and disregard the problems, but

instead to concentrate on the strengths and discover methods to handle the limitations as well.

The writer understands that one area to improve that plagues has been the act of procrastination.

Even though ones’ best work comes from last minute constraints, it is not a healthy way or

effective way to manage time and increase effective productivity. As a current graduate student

and planner of extensive goals for the future of personal nursing, there are plans in place that use

the identified strengths to find ways to combat procrastination. By being strategic, it gives the

ability to plan, organize, and orchestrate goals in a daily, weekly, and monthly manner that will

give a chance to see the bigger picture as well as the smaller parts that make the bigger picture.

This will allow for small pieces to be done in an organized method and allow for the strength of

adaptability to demonstrate in the event that goals go in an undesired direction, there is room to

adjust and shift fire. Another plan to combat procrastination is to remove distractions when work

is to be done. This can be accomplished by finding quiet areas away from unnecessary

electronics and noises that allows for my full attention to be placed on what matters at the

moment.

The assignment is much appreciated because it allowed to connect shared points between

the strengths of the writers’ leadership and the philosophy that drives the writers practice and

reasoning for nursing. The assessment can be and will be used a tool in the future to govern the

approach of ones’ leadership style as well as used in future methods of educating.

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References:

Cummings, G. G., MacGregor, T., Davey, M., Lee, H., Wong, C. A., Lo, E., Muise, M., &

Stafford, E. (2010). Leadership styles and outcome patterns for the nursing workforce and

work environment: A systematic review. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 47(3),

363–385. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2009.08.006

Gottlieb, L. N., Gottlieb, B., & Bitzas, V. (2021). Creating empowering conditions for nurses

with workplace autonomy and agency: How Healthcare Leaders could be guided by

strengths-based nursing and healthcare leadership (SBNH-L). Journal of Healthcare

Leadership, Volume 13, 169–181. https://doi.org/10.2147/jhl.s221141

Santovec, M. L. (2012). Team leaders use their strengths, manage their weaknesses. Women in

Higher Education, 21(12), 27–28. https://doi.org/10.1002/whe.10404

Smith, Y., Cleveland, K., & Kleman, C. (2021). Understanding nurses’ experiences and

contributions to governing boards. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 27(1).

https://doi.org/10.3912/ojin.vol27no01ppt32

Xu, J.-H. (2017). Leadership theory in clinical practice. Chinese Nursing Research, 4(4), 155–

157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cnre.2017.10.001