This article aims to help aspiring nurses or registered nurses improve their nursing leadership skills. On the other hand, it will help nursing students to write a nursing paper on nursing leadership. If you need any professional assistance, place your order right now. We are the best nursing paper writing service and we always deliver what we promise.
Nursing leadership is one of the most important factors for nurses to practice at the top of their licensure. A good nurse leader is someone who can inspire others to work together in pursuit of a common goal. Thus, nursing leadership is a skill every nurse should incorporate if they want to achieve career success or advance to the next level of leadership.
Table of Contents
Who is a nurse leader?
According to ANA leadership institute, a nurse leader is “ a nurse who is interested in excelling in a career path, a leader within a healthcare organization who represents the interests of the nursing profession, seasoned nurse or healthcare administrator interested in refining skills to differentiate them from the competition or to advance to the next level of leadership”.
In order to achieve high performance as a leader, you must have this set of personal qualities:
- Integrity.
- Courage.
- Initiative.
- Ability to handle stress.
- Critical thinking.
- Good communication skills.
- Collaborative and ability to set SMART goals.
- Resilience and determination.
- Willingness and ability to learn.
Here is a list of guidelines for effective nursing leadership:
- Making the right numbers.
- Understand your organizational culture.
- Become more self-aware.
- Support your staff.
- Learn to listen.
- Show empathy.
- Inspire and encourage.
- Be a mentor.
Nursing leadership qualities.
1. Making the right numbers.
Staying on track means staying focused on interpersonal skills, adaptability, team leadership, and bottom-line results. One effective way to successful leadership is to ask for feedback. You can ask for feedback that describes the situation in which you were observed and what you did.
This allows you to identify your weaknesses which you might not notice on your own. Then make critical decisions on how you are going to better yourself or improve your performance.
2. Understand your organizational culture.
If you want to achieve career success in any organization, you must strive to learn how your organization thinks. This helps you to align yourself with its goals. It also aids you to weather changes that may occur in the organization over time. This means that you should work on building trust or interpersonal relationships.
3. Become more self-aware.
This is also an important step in order to achieve effective nursing leadership. Being self-aware means you should recognize your emotional reactions to different situations and changes. You should also know your values and don’t let success go into your head. Remember that your feelings can interfere with the way you learn from your mistakes. You should therefore take time to review your thoughts and feelings connected to your work. This kind of reflection enables your to remain flexible in case of changes.
4. Support your staff.
You should always provide a suitable environment for your staff members to try new skills. Doing it the right way allows the staff members to develop their skills in a competent manner. You should be supportive of your staff members if you want to achieve by a good nursing leader.
5. Learn to listen.
Listening is a skill that is very effective and is used by all leaders in any field. In order to support your staff members, you must possess good listening skills. A nurse who has perfected their listening skills is on the way to become a successful nurse leader. You should strive to achieve listening rather than hearing.
6. Show empathy.
Everyone is worthy of your respect. Moreover, you should train yourself to listen without making judgments. You should also take feelings and perspectives of others into account.
7. Inspire and encourage.
It takes effective nursing leadership to keep your staff members motivated to perform at their best level. Managing different situations like absenteeism or reducing staff tensions takes careful skill. You should remember that it is your goal as their leader to support your team in any possible way.
8. Be a mentor.
You should be a model for your team members. If you do good work, they will also deliver great results in return. You should guide them in the proper direction. Being a mentor for your team members helps to shape your organization’s objectives towards what you are seeking. This is highly effective if you want to receive great output from your organization.
