Introduction
Understanding one’s nursing leadership potential is essential for further professional growth and development. Nursing Manager Skills Inventory made by the American Organization of Nurse Executives helped me assess my leadership style. It identified my strengths and weaknesses in a variety of areas that I will analyze below.
Personal and Professional Accountability
My personal accountability seems to qualify me as a good leader. I am able to make decisions, accept, and manage their consequences. The knowledge of ethics and professional code of behavior guide me in every action within the scope of my professional duties. In addition, I am well aware of my educational gaps, and I possess the skills and desire to eliminate them. According to Krautscheid (2014), education is essential for building and maintaining both personal and professional accountability.
Career Planning
According to the results of the assessment, career planning is one of my strong sides. Despite the fact that a nursing career may be volatile due to external factors such as job market fluctuations, salary levels, and other events that one could not control, my path is relatedly clear to me. First of all, I possess an understanding of the importance of career planning. I believe that it is vital for the job and, consequently, life satisfaction. One spends approximately 70% of his or her day working. It is, therefore, paramount to make all that time performing in a position that suits one’s personal and professional vision. Secondly, it is clear to me that nursing is a rather developed professional sphere with plenty of opportunities for growth. Thirdly, I am aware of the skills I need to possess and the requirements I need to meet to occupy the position I chose.
Personal Journey Disciplines
As for personal journey disciplines, action learning and reflective practice do not seem to be my strongest sides. I am familiar with the concepts, however, more practice implementing them is required. By assuming many responsibilities as a leader, I often forget about reflection that is a crucial component of learning. When one task follows the other, it is often challenging to find time for retrospective analysis. In addition, according to the action learning concept, the practice should take 80%, which is not always possible in a highly standardized area of expertise such as nursing (McNamara et al., 2014). On the other hand, I possess the essential component of active learning, such as commitment to it. I am also an attentive listener, which leaves only practice and reflection on the key spheres that I need to work on.
Reflective Practice Reference Behaviors/Tenets
As I already commented above, reflection is not yet on my virtue list. However, I am familiar with the concept and its significance for learning and professional development. As such, I understand that by assessing one’s actions in retrospect, one can have an opportunity to measure how well he or she performed. This approach has the potential to enhance the further operation and improve the understanding of certain items. As an example, the Nurse Manager Skills Inventory gave me an excellent opportunity to reflect on my leadership behavior and make useful observations and conclusions. One of the barriers that do not allow me to practice such behavior is the absence of time. As a possible intervention, I envision organizing group sessions at work that would allow having time not only for unit assessment as a whole but also for each professional on the team in order to advance nursing practices.
Leadership Skillset Implementation
Having read the report, I assumed that I could be rather productive as a manager of human resources. In this sphere, I received 3.9 points out of 5. This gives me a reason to believe that HR or nursing management is one of the spheres where my talents could be of use provided some additional practice and education are in order. I had the experience of organizing people and monitoring their activities with gathering and creating performance reports, which enables me to continue developing in this direction. I could work more on correctional activities and reflection as well as theoretical knowledge on reward and recognition. 5 points in conflict management and promotion of stress management activities also speak to the fact that I could be of use as a hospital HR specialist or nursing manager.
I could use my potential to advance change in my workplace in the sphere of intergenerational conflict. In my unit, there is a certain lack of understanding between younger and older nurses, which I could try to mediate by using my communication prowess and conflict management abilities. In addition, I could foster the active inclusion of interns in the process of learning about the nurse profession.
Leadership Growth Goal
The personal goal that would assist me in becoming a better leader is developing reflective behavior. Reflection is a great practice that requires mental resolution and analytic abilities that can significantly improve one’s performance as a leader (Porter-O’Grady & Malloch, 2014). I plan to implement it personally by taking note of all the professionally-significant actions I make during the working day. Then I will analyze each of them from the ethical and professional, and leadership standpoints. I will also ask my colleagues to give me their feedback on my weekly performance. I believe, this plan could help me develop reflective behavior that will make me a better leader.
Conclusion
This personal assessment enabled me to reflect on my strengths and weaknesses. It also profiled my leadership potential, which could benefit my professional development. Additionally, I understood that I should develop reflective behavior to advance further as a leader.
References
Krautscheid, L. C. (2014). Defining professional nursing accountability: A literature review. Journal of Professional Nursing, 30(1), 43-47.
McNamara, M. S., Fealy, G. M., Casey, M., O’Connor, T., Patton, D., Doyle, L., & Quinlan, C. (2014). Mentoring, coaching and action learning: Interventions in a national clinical leadership development programme. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 23(17-18), 2533-2541.
Porter-O’Grady, T. & Malloch, K. (2014). Quantum leadership (4th ed.). New York, NY: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.