NURSE LEADERSHIP AND CHANGE ADVOCACY EXAMPLE
NURSE LEADERSHIP AND CHANGE ADVOCACY EXAMPLE
NURSE LEADERSHIP AND ADVOCATING FOR CHANGE 5
Nurse Leadership and Advocating for Change
Student’s Name
Institution
Nurse Leadership and Advocating for Change
Personal and professional accountability
According to the “Nurse Manager Skills Inventory” this entails personal development evaluation through educational training, career planning, action plans and self-assessment (American Organization of Nurse Executives,2012). One of my major strengths is that am constantly seeking new ways to improve my abilities in the provision of the quality service to patients. I am always looking for areas that can help me increase my level of education and advance my career. This also includes learning from senior nurses with more experience and knowledge. Also instead of making excuses when I make mistakes, I strive to learn as much as possible from them to avoid a repeat of the same in future. The main weakness I have is that I have encountered some setbacks in my personal and professional development and I tend to blame some unconducive circumstances for them. One should always find a way to maneuver through any obstacles that stand in their way (Stefancyk, Hancock & Meadows, 2013).
Career planning
One of my key strengths in this area is that I always maintain and adhere to a future long-term plan of where I desire to be in nursing. Further, I am flexible enough to make necessary changes and adaptations to my plan as dictated by dynamic circumstances. My career plan entails an incremental step-by step process in attaining nursing education that enables me to be well prepared to take advantage of any career opportunities that come my way. The weakness that I have in this area is that I lack key resources to pursue my career plan fully and prepare myself for any future unforeseen changes.
Personal journey disciplines
These are skills that assist a nursing professional to improve themselves as leaders such as shared leadership, reflective practice, problem solving and action learning (Harris, Roussel & Thomas, 2016). I have participated in reflective practice, active learning and problem solving which has improved my critical thinking skills. The problem solving skills that I have acquired have prepared me in carrying out leadership and supervision roles where I will be faced by challenges that require solutions. However, I have not participated in shared leadership and I consider myself a novice in this area.
Reflective practice reference behavior
These are established tenets and guidelines that enable an individual to carry out an evaluation of their effective leadership skills (Baxter & Warshwsky, 2014). One needs to be tolerant and accepting of diverse practices and beliefs and where appropriate incorporate them into care (Yoder-Wise, Scott & Sullivan, 2013). Where the beliefs or practices are unsafe, I educate people on safer options while being sensitive at the same time. However, the lack of diverse cultural groups poses a challenge but using reflective and active techniques helps one in handling such a situation (Yoder-Wise, 2014). I can comfortably work with people from different religions, genders, races, cultures and sexual orientations. However, I find it difficult to work in areas with environmental ambiguity. For instance, I find it challenging when there are dissenting voices of stakeholders holding different points of view in making decisions.
Application of leadership skills to advocate for change
I possess leadership skills that will help me advocate for change in my workplace. I will use these skills to rally other workers behind a change project that I will be advocating for. Further, I will engage and involve fellow nurses in advancing processes in their respective positions to advocate for realistic changes that serve both the patients and staff. I will lead by example and have confidence when faced with confrontation, failure or changes. Lastly, I am striving to develop my interpersonal skills as a leader so that I can accommodate and work with dissenting voices of stakeholders in making change decisions.
Personal goal and implementation plan
I have a personal goal of becoming a senior nurse manager. To achieve this, I will need to advance my education in nursing management which will equip me with supervisory skills. I will seek and gather new information by reading more books, attending seminars and networking with higher professionals in nursing leadership.
References
American Organization of Nurse Executives. (2012). Nurse manager skills inventory. AONE, 2013, 28-31.
Baxter, C., & Warshwsky, N. (2014). Exploring the acquisition of nurse manager competence. Nurse Leader 12(1), 46-51.
Harris, J. L., Roussel, L. A., & Thomas, T. (2016). Initiating and sustaining the clinical nurse leader role. Jones & Barlett Learning.
Stefancyk, A., Hancock, B., & Meadows, M. T. (2013). The nurse manager: change agent, change coach? Nursing administration quarterly, 37(1), 13-17.
Yoder-Wise, P. S. (2014). Leading and Managing in Nursing E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Yoder-Wise, P. S., Scott, E. S., & Sullivan, D. T. (2013). Expanding leadership capacity: educational levels of nurse leaders. Journal of Nursing Administration, 43(6, 326-328. NURSE LEADERSHIP AND CHANGE ADVOCACY EXAMPLE.
