Nurse leadership combined with the support is a very vital aspect in the medical industry. In every community, nurses are valued for the services they offer to people – particularly on the medication and health care (Huber, 2016). To meet the societal expectations, nurses need to have the right skills and knowledge to boost their competency and be reliable enough to those who need care. According to the Nurse Manager Skills Inventory, every nurse has to possess unique skills to enable the nurse to execute duties effectively (Carlson, Kline, & Zangerle, 2016). In the essay, I will give my reflective account on my strengths, weakness guided by personal and professional accountability, career planning, personal journey path and reflective traits. Further, I will discuss how I will have my current leadership skills to initiate change in my place of work. Besides, I will discuss how I will use my current leadership skills to advocate for transformation in my workplace.
About personal and professional accountability, one of my strengths is that I always seek ways of improving my nursing and leadership skills through continuous learning so that I can offer the best service as possible to my patients. Besides, I gain knowledge and skills through information sharing with other nursing professionals who have excelled in the field. In this manner, I can correct my weakness and be a better nurse. Secondly, I have the strength of taking responsibility for my actions. I do not make any excuses whenever I made mistakes but rather bring them as a challenge and learning opportunity never to happen again when I am giving care to patients. However, my major weakness is that I tend to blame circumstance for my shortcomings on my past life. In as much as the past shape our thinking, individuals should always avoid letting their past define their future.
Regarding my career planning, my primary strength is that I can develop long term work strategy to design the direction of where and what I want to be in the nursing industry. For example, my five-year plan is to be an excellent nurse leader who offers exceptional patient based care to local and international patients. Two, I am adaptive to the changing environment where I can alter my plan to suit the current situation and patient needs. Ideally, my patients come first. Moreover, my career plan is a step-by-step process that includes educational training in nursing to keep abreast of the current issues in the field. Nonetheless, I have a weakness in career planning where I compromise my plan to attend to the immediate need of my patient.
As far as my personal journey path is concerned, my strength is that I have followed one clear career path of becoming a professional caregiver and nurse leader who other can depend on at the time of need. Being a nurse as always was my childhood career dream and has grown stronger with the time that I am passionately perusing every educational training to make me a great nurse. My weakness here is that I have dedicated my life so much in nursing that my other life aspects have become less important. In other words, my work life seems to encroach into my social life.
Regarding reflective traits, my strengths are in my leadership behaviors. For instance, I embrace diversity for a holistic practice. Throughout my nursing practice, I intend to appreciate everyone regardless of their race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and age. Two, I am truthful with my colleagues and patients to build trust between clients, partners, and other stakeholders in the health care industry. Lastly, I communicate my thoughts clearly to make a strong team that enhances the collaborative care that is essential in patient-centered care.
Therefore, I will use my leadership set to promote transformational health care that is patient-centered in my organization. I will welcome various perspectives and nurture different intellectual and emotional states of my colleagues and patients to enhance collaboration in line with Kulik, (2016), who asserts that a good nurse leader is one who welcomes divergent opinions and promotes teamwork. Besides, in will build an actual team by giving them new skills and knowledge to initiate transformation in the workplace and make everyone discover the personal potential in the working environment. My key personal leadership goal is to appreciate the multiple views without pre-judgment to create and hold space to improve decisions making. For achieving the goal, I will work in a multi-cultural environment so that I can learn how other cultures work.
In conclusion, nurse leadership is a critical aspect of the transformational nursing service that puts the patient at the center through collaboration. Through education, planning, communication and teamwork, I will initiate transformational healing towards collaborative care. My strengths in career planning, collaboration, respect for all and welcoming divergent views will assist me in achieving my leadership aspirations in nursing practice.
- Carlson, E., Kline, M., & Zangerle, C. M. (2016). AONE Competencies: Preparing Nurse Executives to Lead Population Health. Nurse Leader, 2(14), 108-112.
- Huber, D. L., Joseph, M. L., Halbmaier, K. A., Carlson, M., Crill, S., Krieger, K., & Mundisev, A. (2016). Leadership for Transitions of Care: An Active Learning Innovation. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 47(2), 82-88.
- Kulik, C. M. (2016, July). Building a Transformational Nurse Manager Workforce through Interactive Competencies. In Sigma Theta Tau International’s 27th International Nursing Research Congress. STTI.