Jason Barber N362 Leadership Discussion It has been somewhat of a blessing to have seen firsthand the different leadership

styles within different nursing professions. Whether it was during our long term care, med/surg, maternity, pediatrics, or psychiatric clinical rotations; every department had supervisors and managers with slightly different leadership styles. It was easy to see that those supervisors using the more autocratic leadership style were avoided more by the nurses working under them. There was a feeling of just trying to get through the day without having to interact with the supervisor. On the other hand, I noticed that when supervisors led with a more democratic or transactional leadership that incorporated the nurses in the decision making process along with the possibility of a reward for good work, the nurses had a sense of willingness to do a better job and to help each other when needed. There was more of a teamwork attitude rather than a CYA and every man for himself type attitude. I noticed the terms leadership and management can sometimes be used incorrectly, leading to confusion. Cherry states that, Leadership is the ability to guide or influence others, whereas management is the coordination of resources (time, people, and supplies) to achieve outcomes (p. 336, 2011). Greta Cummings in the Journal of Clinical Nursing states that, leadership development involves taking some risks, supporting innovation and creativity in others, developing and empowering others, communicating effectively by listening more than speaking, and checking progress and results by seeking feedback from others (2012). I feel that a good leader needs these qualities along with a few others listen in Giddens such as having a vision for the future, they must be an effective communicator, they must be able to make good

decisions (with employee participation), be willing to admit mistakes, take criticism, be willing to change and adapt, and be caring and honest (2012). The supervisor at my last job went a huge step further in his leadership role by having his employees fill out a Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which is a personality type test. This allowed him to know how to distribute and assign certain tasks and projects to his employees based on knowing how they would handle such tasks with their personality type. Some people needed more time to prepare for certain tasks while others may not. It was a way to individualize his interactions with every employee to their personality type. I feel that this would be very beneficial in the hospital setting but realize that it would be extremely hard to do with such a high number of employees. My management style assessment showed that I am a Shepherd and that I prefer to guide, encourage, and equip others. It also means that I avoid conflict but have qualities of sharing, being sensitive, accommodating, informal, and spontaneous. This is a pretty accurate description of who I am and the type of leader I would be. The one part of this management style that I feel I need to work on is to become more firm and direct on expressing what I want or need to get done and less on people pleasing. References Cherry, B. (2011). Contemporary nursing - issues, trends & management, (5th ed.). St Louis: Elsevier Mosby. Cummings, G. (2012). Editorial: Your leadership style - how are you working to achieve a preferred future?. Journal Of Clinical Nursing, 21(23/24), 3325-3327. doi:10.1111/j.13652702.2012.04290.x Giddens, J. (2012). Concepts for nursing practice. St Louis: Elsevier. Su, S., Jenkins, M., & Liu, P. (2012). Nurses' perceptions of leadership style in hospitals: a grounded theory study. Journal Of Clinical Nursing, 21(1/2), 272-280. doi:10.1111/j.13652702.2011.03815.x