What Makes a Good Leader

What Makes a Good Leader

Leadership, teamwork, and collaboration in nursing are the most essential elements of successful nursing care. Leadership in nursing determines the level of nurses’ satisfaction, nurse retention, patient experiences, safety and quality of care, and nursing care outcomes (Specchia et al., 2021). Nurse leaders provide direction for nursing care and create an environment for effective teamwork and collaboration in care delivery. Teamwork and collaboration in healthcare are important factors of nursing care that help meet the specific health needs of patients as well as the goals of the healthcare organizations they work in. Nurse leaders must ensure that nurses have the capacity to collaborate and work in interdisciplinary teams for better patient and health outcomes, as well as create opportunities for teamwork and collaboration. However, successful teamwork, collaboration, and nursing leadership are based on the individual traits of the nurse leader. This paper will discuss teamwork and collaboration as my chosen leadership topics, define and provide the major concepts of teamwork and collaboration, and application of these concepts in my nursing practice. I will also provide a SWOT analysis of my career advancement and three major traits of a good nurse leader.

Leadership Topic

My selected leadership topics are teamwork and collaboration. Teamwork and collaboration in nursing go hand in hand. Teamwork and collaboration are two major concepts in leadership in which leaders bring together healthcare professionals from various specializations and disciplines to establish collaborative healthcare teams. Nurse leaders are responsible for establishing these collaborative teams and facilitating the harmonization of the different professional expertise within such teams to work together to attain an organizational, health, or patient health goal and outcome, or a combination of all. Good leaders in healthcare working with collaborative teams must adapt to the team dynamics and allow the role of leadership to evolve as the team grows and synergies are achieved.

Definitions, History/Background, and Major Concepts of Teamwork and Collaboration

Teamwork focuses on leadership in which leaders bring together healthcare professionals and set for a joint action aimed at a similar health goal or patient outcome. Collaboration, on the other hand, involves bringing together healthcare professionals with varied skills to work together effectively despite the differences in specialization and discipline for a common goal using the same resources. Collaborative teams focus on each individual providing their skills based on their discipline to support each other through interdisciplinary communication and effective leadership. Collaborative teams have clear roles and common goals (Folkman et al., 2019). Leaders focus on establishing these collaborative teams due to the potential of a group of people with varied skill sets to effectively and efficiently solve problems.

Two major concepts of teamwork and collaboration are coordination and cooperation. Coordination involves creating a plan for the different disciplines to know when and how to contribute to the care plan’s progress. Cooperation involves bringing together the elements of teamwork, collaboration, and coordination to effectively share ideas and opinions and organize the care delivery process. Good leadership ensures that the care plan developed by collaborative teams is well coordinated and optimal cooperation is achieved to avoid role dominance and other challenges (Folkman et al., 2019).

Application of Teamwork and Collaboration in Nursing Practice

As noted, teamwork and collaboration bring together healthcare professionals with different skill sets to work as a team and coordinate care efforts toward a common goal. An example of teamwork and collaboration is a case involving a bedside nurse, unit manager, and nurse anesthesiologist in a hospital’s surgical unit. Leadership in this can focus on establishing and applying collaborative teams in patient care for various reasons. For example, based on the various roles, the bedside nurse can collaborate with the unit manager and the nurse anesthesiologist to manage a patient before and after surgery. This improves resource coordination, reducing wastage or delays with an impact on operational expenses. Another reason a leader would ensure that teamwork and collaboration are achieved in the surgical unit is due to the pooling of varied specializations and skills, which improves the capacity of the healthcare organization to improve its operational efficiency. In other settings, leaders inspire teamwork and collaboration based on the type of problem or situation and the need to solve a current or future problem that involves nursing. An example of the need and importance of inspiring collaborative teams can be drawn from how global healthcare leaders during the COVID-19 outbreak brought together different types of healthcare workers and related industries, such as scientists, doctors, medical professionals, social workers, policymakers, governments, pharmaceutical firms, aid agencies to effectively manage the spread and impact of the pandemic immediately (Chakraborty et al., 2020).

Application of Teamwork and Collaboration in My Nursing Practice

Teamwork and collaboration are all about bringing together individuals with various skill sets, professional disciplines, and people with diverse views on a problem or health issue under common leadership. Based on my experiences, the application of teamwork and collaboration approaches in my practice has been a wonderful experience. The combination of teamwork and collaboration in my nursing practice has helped establish an environment that helped each team member overcome the communication difficulties of working in interprofessional teams as well as help develop other soft skills essential for effective nursing practice. The various members of the collaborative teams have been challenged to improve their skills to improve their efficiency in care delivery. Teamwork and collaboration have also established a work culture of innovation aimed towards overcoming the various challenges of delivery care as a team of different professions, including innovations towards the coordination of care.

Personal Growth in Regard to Teamwork and Collaboration

Teamwork and collaboration have been critical for my personal growth and my career. Teamwork and collaboration create a learning environment. Both leadership elements have allowed me to evaluate myself at a personal and professional level. I have identified and understood my strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats important to my future career advancement plans. Through teamwork and collaboration, I have learned about the basic roles and essential traits of becoming an effective leader of collaborative teams.

Personal Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats to My Career Advancement

I analyzed myself using a SWOT analysis in order to determine my capacity to manage my career advancement plan. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It is a framework for analyzing an individual’s or organization’s internal and external factors to determine their potential for current and future plans.

Personal Strengths

I possess strengths that are essential for my career advancement. Firstly, I am a curious learner. I always want to find out what works and what may be made to work. I am also consistent with my plan and always try to put a deadline on whatever I am doing in order to accomplish it and overcome any instances of procrastination. As a nurse, I have perfected my communication and collaboration skills. I have also learned a lot about searching, compiling, and utilizing evidence in making decisions and in care delivery. I am also always dedicated to personal growth.

Personal Weaknesses

I have a few personal weaknesses that are quite a threat to my career advancement. My major weaknesses are that I pay too much attention to details and am always too critical of myself. I tend to try to be perfect in doing what I do. This has in, many times, held me back in a loop. I get anxious with the fear of failing and not achieving perfection in my career or the care I provide. Another weakness is that I have not yet gained enough experience in my nursing career, and I feel there are a lot of things to learn before I think of advancing my career in nursing.

Opportunities

There are quite a number of good opportunities in nursing that can support my career advancement plans. The most notable opportunity is the growing demand for advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) as primary care providers, researchers, and educators. This promises ready work opportunities after career advancement, which is motivating. Another opportunity is the widely accepted expansion of the nursing scope of practice across many states in the United States. Other opportunities include the planned expansion of the hospital system I work for, international opportunities for APRNs, and the availability of funding, institutions, and nurse associations that support nursing career advancement.

Threats

I have identified various external factors that are beyond my control and that have a significant impact on my career and professional advancement in nursing. The major threat to my career advancement goals is the establishment of restrictive policies guiding nursing job specifications and scope of practice. The development of a policy that restricts nurses only in practice and locks them out of other roles in healthcare, such as nurse researchers, nurse educators, or health system managers, can halt my career goals. Another threat is the lack of government and institutions for career advancement in nursing. This can demotivate me as a nurse as I will not see a need to invest in career advancement without opportunities. Other threats to my career advancement include increased expenses for nursing career development and advancement, lack of adequate nurse educators to support advanced nursing career education, and involvement in events that may limit my ability to perform as a nurse or continuation of my career advancement, such as an accident or loss of licensure.

Top Three Traits of a Good Nurse Leader

From a personal perspective, the top three traits of a good nurse leader are having high emotional intelligence, integrity, and critical thinking. Emotional intelligence will support the nurse leader’s interactions and communication with the healthcare’s diverse workforce. They will also be able to develop care provision programs that are culturally sensitive to the cultural and health needs of the patients and help nurses from diverse backgrounds cope with workplace conditions. Integrity as a leader is one of the essential leadership competencies in advanced practice nurse practice (Heinen et al., 2019). Being a person of integrity as a nurse leader will assist in making healthcare decisions that abide by the ethics of nursing and healthcare principles. Decisions are based on what is best for others rather than personal benefits. Being a nurse leader who is a critical thinker improves your decision-making capacities. Nurse leaders who are critical thinkers take time to understand a situation before making decisions or taking conclusive actions. Cumulatively, these essential traits improve the effectiveness of nurse leaders in improving teamwork and collaboration among the healthcare teams they lead.

Conclusion

Teamwork and collaboration in nursing are essential for the delivery of high-quality and safe patient-centered care. However, these factors of care safety and quality are achievable with the presence of effective nursing leadership. Becoming a good nurse leader can be achieved by leveraging my strengths and weaknesses while taking available opportunities and addressing factors that may threaten my career advancement. Additionally, a good nurse leader who supports teamwork and collaboration in nursing is emotionally intelligent, a person of integrity, and a great critical thinker.

References

Chakraborty, C., Sharma, A. R., Sharma, G., Bhattacharya, M., Saha, R. P., & Lee, S. S. (2020). Extensive Partnership, Collaboration, and Teamwork is Required to Stop the COVID-19 Outbreak. Archives of Medical Research, 51(7), 728–730. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ARCMED.2020.05.021

Folkman, A. K., Tveit, B., & Sverdrup, S. (2019). Leadership in interprofessional collaboration in health care. Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare, 12, 97. https://doi.org/10.2147/JMDH.S189199

Heinen, M., van Oostveen, C., Peters, J., Vermeulen, H., & Huis, A. (2019). An integrative review of leadership competencies and attributes in advanced nursing practice. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 75(11), 2378–2392. https://doi.org/10.1111/JAN.14092

Specchia, M. L., Cozzolino, M. R., Carini, E., di Pilla, A., Galletti, C., Ricciardi, W., & Damiani, G. (2021). Leadership Styles and Nurses’ Job Satisfaction. Results of a Systematic Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2021, Vol. 18, Page 1552, 18(4), 1552. https://doi.org/10.3390/IJERPH18041552

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***MOD 8*****
Signature Assignment Title: What Makes a Good Leader?
Signature Assignment Description/Directions:
Choose one or more leadership topic(s) from your textbook or from a scholarly source from a previous discussion or assignment from this course and write about its application to nursing practice. Provide definitions, history/background, and major concepts of the chosen topic. Describe the topic’s function in nursing practice by examining at least three different nursing roles (for example, bedside nurse, public health nurse, CNO, unit manager, etc.). Discuss how the leadership topic can be used in your own practice. Discuss your personal growth in regard to your chosen leadership topic. Evaluate personal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to your career advancement.

Then, discuss the top three traits you feel make a good nurse leader. Support your statements with examples from your practice experience and scholarly sources.
Length: 1750 to 2000 words in length
Structure: Include a title page and reference page in APA format. These do not count towards the minimum word count for this assignment. Your essay must include an introduction and a conclusion.
3 References Min