It is important for nurses and professionals to think about leadership, especially in times of rapid development and innovation adjustments in healthcare. It is essential for nurses and healthcare professionals to understand the concept of leadership and its influence on their practice. At the same time, it is even more critical for medical practitioners to understand themselves and their strong and weak sides when it comes to implementing theory into practice (Dyess et al. 2016). The purpose of this paper is to analyze my personality type and integrate it into the healthcare leadership theory.
Carl G. Jung’s Personality Typology and My Specific Personality Type
In Jung’s classificatory scheme of personalities, four fundamental dimensions constitute a personality type: (1) extraversion/introversion; (2) sensing or intuition; (3) thinking or feeling; (4) judging or perceiving. Whereas the first opposition tells us about a person’s general attitude, the latter three tell us about their functions of perception, judging, and implementation of information correspondingly (Human Metrics 2020). Thus, the scales are presented in dichotomies, which help explain and classify all the various examples of personalities and attitudes. The first criterion explains the direction and source of energy: the external world for extraverts and their own internal world for introverts. As for perception, this criterion can also be described in terms of direction: deriving information from the external world (sensing) or the internal one (intuition). Thinking vs. feeling refers to a way of processing information: whether a person relies on logic and rational choices or rather emotions and feelings. Finally, judging vs. perceiving represents the ways of implementations of the processed information. Judging people are inclined to organize and plan events thoroughly, whereas sensing people tend to improvisation and alternative ways of acting.
According to the test, my personality type is ENFP: Extravert (16%), intuitive (50%), feeling (25%), perceiving (56%). It means that I am slightly inclined to be extraverted, prefer intuition over sensing, feeling over thinking, and perceiving over judging. As the results state, I am willing to help and be liked by people on both individual and humanitarian level. The personality traits help me with that because I am “outgoing and warm, and genuinely like people” (Human Metrics 2020:1). Furthermore, I tend to persuade people with the help of gentle and enthusiastic use of my social skills and contacts. Another trait which is present in the ENFP type is sympathy and friendliness.
Effective Leadership in the Health Care Environment
Effective Leadership in Nursing
With the changes in the requirements and practices of healthcare, the visions and methods of leadership have been continuously modified and revised. As Cope and Murray (2017) state, The Code of Professional Standards of Practice and Behaviour for Nurses and Midwives delineate four fundamental themes guiding the practice: “prioritize people, practice effectively, preserve safety, and promote professionalism and trust” (61). In this Code, a distinct crucial role is given to the leadership since effective leadership is essential for ensuring people’s well-being and providing adequate care and safety. The fundamental aspects of leadership for nurses are prioritizing, effective time, staff, and resource management, and dealing with risk. In order to achieve the best outcomes, nurses should work in cooperation and establish efficient communication.
Types of Leadership in Nursing
Merrill (2015) outlines the transformational/transactional leadership theory, which helps to identify leadership types in nursing. Transformational leadership is regarded as an optimal leadership type. Transformational leaders are enthusiastic and proactive; they convince subordinates to attend to higher performance. They also encourage creativity and individual development. As for transactional leaders, they motivate subordinates using such methods as a contingent reward and active management by exception (AME). Employees under transactional leaders do not tend to be fully engaged with an organization and committed to it. The reason for this is that this type of leadership does not involve the development of self-motivation among subordinates since AME is more of a corrective action approach.
My Personality and Leadership
I would like to believe that my personality type corresponds to the majority of positive leadership attributes. Generally, according to the typical traits of character inherent to ENFPs, such people tend to represent the transformational style of leadership. First, since they are sociable and approachable, they provide wholehearted support and encourage staff involvement in decision-making. At the same time, using their social skills, they can persuade others in their correctness and rightfulness in a gentle manner, without relying much on authoritative relationships with subordinates Another trait in ENFPs that supports conducting transformational leadership is their friendliness, which promotes a positive work environment. I believe that extraversion helps to establish a better relationship with the team, the preference of intuitive perception helps to focus in critical circumstances, and perceiving helps develop an individual approach. At the same time, relying on feelings can be regarded as an obstacle to effective leadership since emotions prevail over logic.
Conclusion
Since leadership is an array of behaviours and actions, rather than a formal position, it is crucial to be aware of one’s own strong and weak personality traits. One of the reasons for that is that effective leadership does not have to be an inherent attribute, and understanding one’s own potential and flaws can be of significant benefit in the process of training in specific knowledge and skills in both nursing and leadership. This step is worth taking for the reason effective leadership plays a crucial role in nursing and health care practice in general.
References
Cope, V., & Murray, M. (2017). Leadership styles in nursing. Nursing Standard, 31(43).
Dyess, S., Sherman, R., Pratt, B., Chiang-Hanisko, L., (2016). Growing Nurse Leaders: Their Perspectives on Nursing Leadership and Today’s Practice Environment. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 21(1), 103-119.
Human Metrics Jung Typology Test (2020). ENFP. Extraverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving. Web.
Merrill, K. C. (2015). Leadership Style and Patient Safety. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 45(6), 319-32