Humility in servant leadership during practicum oncology
Observational and thoughts during the practicum oncology week 13-14
Humility is a crucial virtue to have as a leader. Humbling yourself as a leader is one of the best qualities that every leader should have in the current society. Spears & Lawrence (2016) argues that humility enables a leader to achieve more and more authority. Besides, humility gives success primarily when handling people whom you are the leader as a team leader. Jesus Christ is a good role model when it comes to humility in servant leadership that the leaders of the current society should emulate. Leaders are supposed to serve those whom they are leading as their masters rather than viewing themselves as the masters for the followers to help. According to (Porter, 2016) in all the leadership levels that Jesus Christ participated in, He remains to be a perfect example to be emulated by modern leaders. Although Jesus Christ was the son of God, he never exalted himself before the sinful men; instead, he even died for the sake of saving humankind. He accepted to be crucified after being involved in various charity works and in serving people of different backgrounds.
Demonstration of Humility
During the two weeks of the Oncology practicum, I was able to learn a lot about leadership through observation. To my view, I discovered that servant leadership has many advantages in leading the managers and the staff members. Besides, servant leadership enhances the achievement of the organizational goals with ease; thus, the delivery of quality health care to the patients. According to (Seto & Sarros, 2016), it is difficult at times to instill the role of servant leadership primarily among the leaders who are used to using autocratic leaderships and leizzer faire leadership skills. The reason for the difficulty in that such leaders is used to ordering around their staffs, giving a lot of instruction as they watch things happen since they undervalue the role of servant leadership.
In the practicum, I loved the way the nurse manager involved every staff despite their rank in the department in decision making and problem-solving. The unit manager could find time to provide nursing care to her patients despite the enormous tasks that a manager has to the role in the entire department. She could delegate duties according to the capabilities and skills of the staff member to perform a particular task. She never despised the students who kept following her around to learn, and she could find time to help the students learn. The involvement of the entire team members in decision making and strategizing on various interventions to care for, it created a harmonic working condition among the staff members thus jog satisfaction (Sipe & Frick, 2015). Harmonious working conditions lead to the improvement of the services that were being delivered within the health facility.
The care that the nurse manager accorded to the juniors, including the students created excellent working relationships between the manager and the junior staff and even among the students in the various levels. During the first week, it was difficult to identify who the nurse leader was because the nurse was so humbled and could be too much involved in teaching us and showing means of doing things primarily in the care of oncology patients. Unless you could ask of who the nursing manager was, it remained difficult to identify her. Most of the visitors used to approach the wrong nurse because it was hard to locate and even notice her.
Plan to improving my success as a leader
The program in my leadership development is aimed at improving my skills in servant leadership, thus making me a successful leader by identifying the strategies that I will take in creating the improvement.
LEADERSHIP PLAN FOR STUDENT
| GOAL | STRATEGIES | TIMELINE |
| Develop emotional skills and empathy | Learn to read other people emotions to know when they are happy or disgusted | In one month time |
| Become persuasive | Participate in decision making groups and encourage the members to take action so that every member supports the decision. | In two weeks |
| Listening to others | Participate in group discussion, and problem-solving grows and be an active listener in the group. | Two weeks |
| Have foresight | Analyze what is happening every day and predict what is more likely to occur soon following what happened recently. | Two months |
| Develop stewardship skills | Being responsible for every decision that is made in the group and being accountable for every action and performance of the team in every group meeting. | One month time |
| Develop self-awareness | Reflecting on self the emotions and behavior and its effect on other people around me. As well, I will ask the group members to give feedback on my leadership skills. | One month time |
References
Spears, L. C., & Lawrence, M. (Eds.). (2016). Practicing servant-leadership: Succeeding through trust, bravery, and forgiveness. John Wiley & Sons.
Seto, S., & Sarros, J. C. (2016). Servant Leadership Influence on Trust and Quality Relationship in Organizational Settings. International Leadership Journal, 8(3).
Sipe, J. W., & Frick, D. M. (2015). Seven pillars of servant leadership: Practicing the wisdom of leading by serving. Paulist Press.
Porter, T. H. (2016). Jesus as Leader: A Sacred Texture Analysis of Philippians 2: 5-11. The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs, 3(1), 12.
