Combining Nurse Leader with Advocacy

Personal leadership skills

Personal and professional accountability. As a nurse manager I take any learning opportunity that avails its self to me. I read nursing books and also apply for scholarship to further my education and also attain skills in nursing and other related fields. I have also planned my career in that I know what I want in future and what I expect to attain in a certain period of time. I also asses myself at the end of every year to know what I have achieved and also determine my strengths and weaknesses. As a nurse manager I also ensure I behave ethically and always abide by nursing standard and scope of practice. I ensure all my customers enjoy and get satisfied with the services I provide (The voice of nursing leadership, 2006). This has helped to build a strong relationship with the people I work for. I have also joined professional nurse groups which have been very helpful to me as they are places we can network with people we are in the same profession and learn from each other. As a nurse manager I ensure that I have knowledge and skills in all the fields I require so as to undertake my work sufficiently and effectively.

            Career planning. As a nurse manger I know my duties, responsibilities and working conditions which I’m very comfortable with. I also know my job specifications and I’m able to determine that it fully matches with the skills I have attained. I have also written a plan of where I want to be in future and clearly indicated what I will require to be where I want to be. For example I have realized a need a masters and a PHD in nursing to be where I aspire to be in future. I have also realized that in future information technology will be a very important aspect in nursing and thus am working to ensure am not left behind when it comes to technological development in the nursing field (The voice of nursing leadership, 2006). I have also positioned myself in developing a career path to ensure I’m not left behind as other people in my profession move forward. I’m also flexible and ready to learn new things as long as they will help advance my career and skills and help in adapting to future scenarios.

            Personal journey disciplines. As a nurse manager I encourage council management or shared leadership. This is because it encourages people to learn from each as all of them possess leadership skills and knowledge thus they can grow together in the field. I also encourage action learning in the work place. This is important as it helps in solving critical problems and also making the best decisions in the work place (The voice of nursing leadership, 2006). Action learning is very important in that it helps leaders in problem solving skills. As a leader I believe in reflective practice. This involves learning from mistakes or from past actions and deciding on the best action to take so as to come up with the best result. 

            Reflective practice reference behaviors or tenets. This encourages the use of beliefs and set guidelines that encourage leaders to use reflective practice. The guidelines can be personal or developed by other people while others can be from the center of nursing leadership. As a nurse manager I must always hold the truth as it is a key value in leadership. One should always learn to speak the truth. It is also important to also be sober in work despite what is happening in our environment or personal life. As a nurse manager I always ensure I do not bring my person problems to work as it may affect the way I undertake my duties and the way I interact with the people around me. I also ensure I treat all the people around me well despite their sexual orientation, gender, race, religion or any other factor that makes them different. I also ensure I appreciate every person’s contribution in the work place to ensure they all feel special and appreciated. I also ensure I give all the employees space to give their views in issues concerning the work place before decisions can be made. This will help to provide a number of views which can be used in decision making. I also have the ability to access myself and determine my potential which has helped me know my capability. I’m also able to determine other employees potential and thus I assign them duties depending on their capabilities. I also involve myself in learning new things and also introduce new things that are helpful in the work place (The voice of nursing leadership, 2006). I also encourage the use of reflective learning in the work place where I encourage people to use their experience in making decisions and also when undertaking their duties. I’m also committed to grow myself and regenerate my body to be strong by strengthening my spirit.  

            As a nurse manager I can will relationship management skill to help advocate for change in my work place. I will also use communication skills to explain to other people in the work place about change and what every employee is expected by the management to do to enhance the change. I will also inquire from the employees on any problem they might encounter on the process and express the issue to the management. I will also encourage the employees to always raise any issue they feel might affect the implementation of the change to the management or to me so that we can be able to find a solution early enough (Gleeson, 2016) I will all also use my communication skills to motivate other employees to embrace change in the work place

As a leader I have personal goals which will help improve my leadership skills. One of my goals is in improving my strategic thinking skills. I have an implementation plan with for steps which I plan to use in attaining my goal. To attain this goal I will observe and seek trends both internal and external. I will also have to ask hard questions relating to the things I find hard for me to comprehend (Bowman, 2016). To be a strategic thinker I will also be required to speak and sound strategic. The last step will be getting myself free time to thinking and reflect on issues relating to my job.               

References

Bowman, N. (2016). 4 Ways to Improve Your Strategic Thinking Skills. Harvard business review. Retrieved 31 October 2017, from https://hbr.org/2016/12/4-ways-to-improve-your-strategic-thinking-skills

Gleeson, B. (2016). 3 Leadership Skills Critical For Driving Change. Forbes. Retrieved 31 October 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/brentgleeson/2016/08/16/3-leadership-skills-critical-for-driving-change/#1cffe2bd4fde

The voice of nursing leadership. (2006). Nurse Manager Skills inventory (2nd ed.). Nurse Manager Leadership partnership. Retrieved from http://www.aone.org/resources/nurse-manager-skills-inventory.pdf