The Importance of Leadership Qualities in Nursing
Question:
Discuss about the Nursing Leadership for Delegate and Vision.
In every field where leadership is an important quality, a practitioner is required to possess a sense of organization, direct, delegate, and vision as well. In addition, a nursing practitioners needs to uphold the values of care and compassion. This is highly because their careers involve helping patients through influence of attitude, behaviors, beliefs, and feelings of the clients that come to have their needs tended to in the health care facilities. A leader is quite far from a manager as a manager such as a doctor involves controlling the processes, coordinating resources and making decisions that empower others, inspire innovation, and challenge traditional practices (Ashley, 2017).
There is need for a nursing practitioner to assume transformational leadership as this affects a patient’s comfort ability and safety in any clinical institution (Filion, 2015). There is need for health care attendants to take charge of a medical emergency and handle it promptly to ensure the stability of a patient’s health. This can be achieved by taking initiative to being prompt in handling emergent situation through applying ability and the resources available to keep a patient safe and comfortable in a health institution (Micevski, 2001).
Growing to be the best health attendant while ensuring safety of the patients
To enable patient’s comfortability before and after treatment while under care in a health care institution while keeping their health a priority at all times.
In a situation where a patient is admitted to a health facility for further observation and treatment and experiences bed discomfort contributing to his or her slow recovery process, it’s important for a nurse to step in and take charge of the situation. Responsibility is a key value as there is need to solve a problem and a nurse is well able to do so. Stepping in and taking time to investigate on why the bed is giving the patient such discomforts will help in placing a written complain about the situation of the bed and having the bed fixed or replaced. A faulty bed increases the risks a patient may face at the health facility from back pain problems and even falling off the bed. In such a situation, it is very important for a nurse to be proactive and be prompt in resolving the situation (Krupp, 2013). This can be through first helping the patient slowly off the faulty bed and providing the patient physical support as the patient stands and walks around the facility. This will be an effective move to keep the patient preoccupied with healthy positive activities as the situation gets handled (Krischke, 2016).
First, the nurse needs to be able to respond on the frontline in the occurrence of a crisis. This crisis can be the patient falling off the bed or experiencing severe pain. Being that all nurses are trained in handling emergency situations, the promptness of a nurse in handling a situation displays many leadership skills. Should the patient by chance collapse or experience traumatic medical issues like seizures, the quick response will be key in saving the patient and help in treatment process (Schober, 2006). This will display leadership qualities through the ability to make key decisions in difficult situation for the well-being of a patient. The dedication of the practitioners to putting the patient’s life and safety first and being willing to go any sort of miles in the line of duty displays leadership qualities of the nurse ( Micevski et al., 2001).
Steps to Improving Leadership Skills
The second step is to gain knowledge of the situation. They say that knowledge is power and in the nursing field, knowledge is key for any nurse who wants to acquire leadership qualities. Knowledge about nursing and managing will increase and sharpen a nurse’s skills and help them in acquiring qualifications and more advanced positions. Better knowledge assists the nurse in being more aware of a patient’s condition and helping him or her in attaining more comfort. In the situation where the bed of the patient keeps causing him discomfort, it is important for the nurse to establish what events may occur should the situation not be addressed promptly and follow up activities that will help in preventing injuries. It is also more important for a nurse to be able to delegate tasks to other practitioners in order to increase skilled support team tending to a patient’s needs. This can be in administering IVF treatments, helping patients off the bed and tending to a patient when helped is requested (Bryant?Lukosius, 2004).
Thirdly, a nurse needs to volunteer to more than just basic care. More to just tending to the patient’s need in the health care facilities, a nurse should be able to diversify and offer the services to committees and communities in volunteer basis. Through offering services, one’s care for the course is identified. It helps the nurse to be more people oriented as opposed to just task oriented and this creates a sustainable connection with the patient. This connection is also strengthened through strong communication skills in asking the patient about discomforts, their state of health; and how they are coping in and out of treatment (Porter-O’Grady, 2015). Moreover, it creates a more personal approach to the patients’ needs, which helps in improving the patients’ health conditions. Being a servant in leadership in the nursing field helps in developing relationships with the patients and assists in cultivating trust with the patients. Through intensive listening skills and long term, thinking skills helps in quick response to a medical condition (Souraya, 2001).
Fourth, a nurse should be aware of changing events and be able to transform towards them. A nurse should gain transformational leadership qualities through individualized considerations and assumptions that work in the best interest of the patient. Being able to diversify ones mindset will help in effective services and adaptability to worldwide healthcare trends through sharing technologies that address both local and global health care issues. The bed discomfort situation cannot only occur to one patient but also to other patients and thus a measure that handles the issue regardless of the health facility can be helpful for future situation (Souraya, 2001). More to just diversification, one needs to be technologically efficient. Electronic health records (EHRs), clinical decision supports (CDS) and biometrics support daily processes and interaction in health care. This technologies will soon take over the health care division to ease the workload and therefore a well technologically equipped in order to keep up with the future times (Sidani & Irvine, 2001).
Responding on the Frontline in Crisis Situations
Lastly, it is also important to direct care and concern towards offering quality services and keeping safety as a priority. This helps in avoiding errors that can be life threatening to a patient. It is important to keep the patient’s safety as a priority as worsening patient’s condition could cause further illnesses that will cost the health facility and more so affect the patient negatively (Rampton, 2015). Nurse need to be more politically independent even with the political situations surrounding healthcare organizations in order to accurately interpreting different social situations in times of urgency and in daily activities as well. This helps in promoting good leadership and working relationships with fellow colleagues and the patients as well (Madrean, 2006).
Nurses need constant support from other nursing practitioners to execute the work promptly to keep the patient’s security first. They also need the doctor’s prescription in different levels of treatment to be able to understand different conditions of illness in patients such as back related issues that can result from bed discomfort leading to osteoporosis. To understand the history of the patient’s medical conditions, a nurse will need the assistance of administrators to get the e-records as well as treatment records, which is coordinated with the assistance of a pharmacologist (Krupp, 2013). Lastly, there is the need of family members to be able to coordinate on moral and physical support of the patient. Family also provides more insight into the issues facing the patient.
Through follow up of instructions, the patient is able to get a comfortable stay in the hospital during the admission period until discharged. In addition, a nurse is able to gain knowledge of the patient’s situation and other information about administration that deals with the situation of the bed and other issues and follow up on the same to provide comfort to the patient. The nurse is able to grow in the nursing field by gaining knowledge of managerial roles in health facilities that elevate their position in the medicine association and help in increasing chances of promotion (Maxwell, 2017). The nurse also gets the opportune time to improve her or his relationship with the patients as well as the other medical staff in health facilities and organization that seek to assist the patient achieve full health.
It takes more than just registering a faulty bed with the administrators; there is need for follow up to ensure that the issue is attended to fast enough. There is more to just assisting the patient around the hospital, gaining knowledge of the patient’s condition and the physiology with the same is important to assist the patient recover fast. More to that, it’s necessary to go beyond expectation in order to stand out and thus increasing knowledge of the practitioner and the skills put the nurse at better chances of career growth and increases chances of promotion (Pullen, 2016). Practical awareness of nursing puts the nurse at better options of growing and being able to participate in board meetings that seek to find ways to help the health facility grow in the society and gain a name for itself.
Conclusion
It is important for them to be able to cope with change effectively by being visionary and proactive in the health care especially in stressful situations like in situations where a patient proves difficult to cooperate. This helps a nurse grow and empowers them to achieving quality care qualities that benefits the practitioners and patients as well.
References
Ashley, B. (2017, July 2). 5 Innovative Ways to Display Leadership in Nursing. Retrieved April 20, 2017, from Rasmussen: https://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/nursing/blog/ways-to-display-leadership-in-nursing/
Bryant?Lukosius, D., DiCenso, A., Browne, G., & Pinelli, J. (2004). Advanced practice nursing roles: development, implementation and evaluation. Journal of advanced nursing, 48(5), 519-529.
Filion, J. (2015, September 22). 5 Ways Nurse Leaders Can Improve Team Cooperation. Retrieved April 20, 2018, from Gebauer Company: https://www.gebauer.com/blog/5-ways-nurse-leaders-can-improve-team-cooperation
Krischke, M. M. (2016, July 14). Three Ways to Be a Better Nurse. Retrieved April 20, 2018, from Travel Nursing: https://www.travelnursing.com/news/career-development/three-ways-to-be-a-better-nurse/
Maxwell, E. (2017) Good leadership in nursing: what is the most effective approach? Nursing Times [online]; 113: 8, 18-21.
Micevski, M. H. (2001). Success Indicators and Barriers to Acute Nurse Practitioner Role Implementation in Four Ontario Hospitals. American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, 542-437.
Porter-O’Grady, T. (2015). Leadership in nursing practice. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Pullen, R. L. (2016). Leadership in nursing practice. Journals, 14(3), 26-31.
Rampton, J. (2015, June 10). 10 Strategies for Developing a Strong Leader. Retrieved April 20, 2018, from Qualtrics: https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/10-strategies-for-developing-a-strong-leader/
Schoemaker, P. J., Krupp, S., & Howland, S. (2013). Strategic leadership: The essential skills. Harvard business review, 91(1), 131-134.
Schober, M. (2006). Advanced nursing practice: an emerging global phenomenon. Journal of advanced nursing, 55(3), 275-276.
Sidani, S., & Irvine, D. (2001). A conceptual framework for evaluating the nurse practitioner role in acute care settings. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 30(1), 58-66.