Custom essay on Leadership Journal: Serving
Leadership and service
Leadership is the ability of an individual or a group of individuals to influence and direct
a group of people with the same objective towards achievement of their goals. Service is the
occupation of serving through provision of guidance and function of a particular group of people
with the same set objectives (Cherry & Jacob 2016). Thus, service and leadership may be used
correlatively or interchangeably though they may not refer to the same concept.
The paper tries
to focus on leadership and service especially for nurses in the healthcare setting and how they
can best practice their roles as leaders both to the patients and the fellow nurses.
Nurse can serve diligently and through effort by providing proper and purposeful
directions to fellow nurses and the patients that they serve but they will not have achieved true
leadership. For instance a nurse may be very professional and effective in serving a single patient
or a group of patient but the level of the service cannot be termed as effective leadership. Just
like service levels do not relate to leadership, also the opposite is true. There might be a nurse
who is mandated and given authority by the hospital to head a certain department. They become
leaders by virtue of position and authority even though the service delivery is poor and of very
low standards. Thus, even with proper service delivery, a nurse is expected to serve as a role
model to the patients and the nurses in order to be referred as a good leader. Mentorship
separates the two concepts that require to be merged together to create a great leader (Dyess et
al.,2016). Many people who hold great public positions are referred to as leaders because of the
position that they may be sitting on even though the public has never seen any qualities of good
leadership.
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According to the 21 st century definition of leadership is from power and influence just as
seen by political leaders. However, in many organizations, especially the healthcare facilities,
leadership comes from the service delivered and the level of mentorship depicted. Even though
service is a key in hospital leadership, some level of power and control is required in order for
the hospital to follow a certain guided direction to achievement of their mission and vision.
Observations and thoughts on week’s activities
Nurses have a great role to play in management and leadership of major hospital
activities. The major responsibilities lie on the shoulders of the advanced practice nurse (APN)
due to the level of experience and training accrued. However, all nurses play role in smooth
running of operations just as experienced through week 9 and 10 at the clinical areas. I got to
learn a lot related to the responsibilities of the nurses and the level of authority that they have
during practice. The issue of power comes in controlling of the patients behaviors and attitudes
especially when under management and influencing their attitude towards treatment (Lin et
al.,2015). One of the major focus areas in nursing leadership is how they can influence the
positive outcomes of the patients through teamwork collaboration and nursing interventions.
Unlike other organizations, in the hospital we focused on building one another and supporting
one another to ensure that the goals of nursing care were met which included providing quality
healthcare and patient empowerment.
All nurses focused on improvement of one another’s skills. From the senior most to the
juniors, the efforts were collaborative no matter the level of skill and expertise. Additionally,
unison was explicited in support of one another in front of the patients and during providing of
care to the patients (Moorley & Chinn 2016). As a result, patients highly regarded nurses and
they were respected in the entire hospital. In many healthcare facilities, nurses have been viewed
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as minorities and people with no professionalism or authority in the hospital. The main cause of
that was thirst for power and lack of teamwork. Through supporting one another, nurses are able
to grow to their optimal potentials.
Responsibility and success
Nursing leadership is generally focused on critical thinking, advocacy, and action taking.
Maintaining the three aspects could prove effective in support of other team members in the
management of the patients. It does not matter the level of the nurse as leadership can happen at
any level, formal positions, appointed positions, or informal roles that all nurses have in the
hospital. Being one of the informal nurses, I had to contribute in care of the patients and support
of my fellow colleagues in ensuring positive patient outcomes. Every nurse should be visionary
and innovative when managing patients (Giddens 2018). Accountability is a vital responsibility
for all nurses as they manage patients. They should demonstrate high levels of responsibility and
record keeping, to help in any situation. All nurses should be proactive in the running of day’s
routine activities regardless of being a manager or not. That enables effective follow up and
prevention of any medical errors that could lead to sever adverse consequences for the nurse and
the patient involved. As nurses we all should learn to watch our backs as many at times nurses
are fatigued and tired due to the low numbers of nurses globally.
During our shift with three other nurses, we ensured that all patients had taken
medication and those for admissions were well taken care of. As it was the afternoon shift, not
many activities were going on and so we could get by ourselves. However, one incident occurred
that required adequate attention. One of the nurses had admitted wrongly and led to almost
wrong drug administration for patients who shared similar names. The nurse forgot to include the
third name which was a requirement in hospital admission. Luckily, I was in charge of managing
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the old admission and prevented administration of digoxin to the wrong patient which could have
led to immediate myocardial infarction.
Lesson learnt
With such as good clinical experience, I was able to grasp a few things that will help me
cope in the nursing profession especially being a training ANP. The two main lessons learnt are
inter-professional collaboration/ teamwork and commitment. Nurses have advanced to
professionals that outshine others in healthcare teams and some become even the leaders in team
management (Grossman & Valiga 2016). For service delivery to be competently achieved,
nurses have to learn to work together and also in collaboration with other healthcare
professionals from other departments. Without commitment, nursing can become very
challenging and a source of fatigue to many. Thus, we all have to become committed to the
profession beyond any limits.
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References
Cherry, B., & Jacob, S. R. (2016). Contemporary nursing: Issues, trends, & management.
Elsevier Health Sciences.
Dyess, S. M., Sherman, R. O., Pratt, B. A., & Chiang-Hanisko, L. (2016). Growing nurse
leaders: Their perspectives on nursing leadership and today’s practice environment. OJ
Nurs.
Giddens, J. (2018). Transformational leadership: What every nursing dean should know. Journal
of Professional Nursing, 34(2), 117-121.
Grossman, S., & Valiga, T. M. (2016). The new leadership challenge: Creating the future of
nursing. FA Davis.
Lin, P. Y., MacLennan, S., Hunt, N., & Cox, T. (2015). The influences of nursing
transformational leadership style on the quality of nurses’ working lives in Taiwan: a
cross-sectional quantitative study. BMC nursing, 14(1), 33.
Moorley, C., & Chinn, T. (2016). Developing nursing leadership in social media. Journal of
advanced nursing, 72(3), 514-520.
