Cline Anthony - Reflections of Leadership and Management

Running
Head: LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

Reflections of Leadership and Management
Anthony Cline
University of South Florida

LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
Reflections of Leadership and Management

Colin Powell once said, The day the soldiers stop bringing you their problems is
the day you stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help
them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership. While
this references military leadership, this directly translates to leadership in any career or
situation. I have almost 10 years of experience in the United States Air Force and had a
lot of supervisors but only a handful of leaders. A nurse manager is someone who
balances the duty of leader and manager to make sure the daily operations are
completed correctly. An effective manager takes care of hiring, finances and training
while an effective leader guides employees in a way that allows them to reach their
highest level of clinical excellence (Yoder-Wise, 2015). The nurse manager I had the
pleasure of shadowing was Mrs. G., the nurse manager for a Medical/Surgical unit at St.
Josephs Hospital- South. She is responsible for a 30 bed unit, its nurses, patient care
technicians, the budget, patient care, and making sure all required training is
accomplished.
The terms leadership and manager are typically used interchangeably but are
actually very different. The role of a manager is very task oriented and biggest concern is
making sure things are completed. The role of a leader is to guide a person or group
with a vision while helping them better themselves in the process (Yoder-Wise, 2015). A
manager is very good at telling people what to do while a leader will encourage a staff
member and have them want to perform a task. An example of a manager would be
telling someone to finish required training by a certain date, upon reaching that date
the manager would verify the employee completed that training. A leader, on the other
hand, would create a vision for the unit like decreasing medication errors to below a
certain level. As a leader, they would motivate employees to share in that vision and
come up with ideas of how to reduce medication errors without being asked. Another
good example would be a manger would hire a set amount of nurses to staff a unit,
while a leader will hire a variety of nurses with varying levels of experience in order to
better compliment each other.
Mrs. G is both a manager and a leader but tends to lean more towards the leader
side of a nurse manger. She is excellent at facilitating constructive discussion and her
employees are very comfortable approaching her with questions and concerns. In my
opinion I would say her style of leadership is transformational leadership (PorterOGrady, 2015). She is a master at uniting her staff to a vision and she does so by leading
by example. She is very inspiring and I witnessed, on multiple occasions, Mrs. G
encourage her staff that had doubts about their skill, care, and time management. There
were also moments when Mrs. G takes on a democratic approach to leadership. During
a monthly staff meeting she was very open to ideas to help make the unit better and
improve patient care. The ideas that were agreed upon by the most staff were diligently
put into place and would remain if they were successful. As a manager, she focuses on
the people and how they perform their job instead of just making sure the job is
complete. The ability to find the opportunity in a problem is a characteristic that is ideal
in a leader (Moore, Sublett, & Leahy, 2016). Mrs. G spoke of the impending nursing
shortage over the next few years. She discussed how this was a time to take something
that is normally a negative and finding the opportunity for change and growth. In the
case of the nursing shortage she said it would open up the forum to find new and
creative ways to retain the nurses they already have.
Mrs. G is fully in agreement with the new initiative for patient care to be an
interdisciplinary approach. One place this was observed was multi-disciplinary rounds.
This meeting happens every day and includes hospitalists, dietary, therapy, pharmacy
and lab. Together with nursing, all the disciplines work together to cover all aspects of
patient care for each patient in the hospital. The purpose of this meeting is to ensure all
disciplines are aware of the plan of care for each patient. Her level of leadership is
evident in these meetings as well because when she gives ideas for a problem in care,
the entire group really takes her seriously and values her input.
My role as a new graduate will be to take leadership styles from the people and
nurses I emulate. I will not immediately be put into a role similar to a manager but I will
still be managing other staff such as practical nurses and patient care technicians. Over
the course of my career I will be able to develop and hone my leadership ability in hopes
of one day becoming a charge nurse and then a nurse manager. It will also be my job to
have interdisciplinary nursing practice, as I will be working with dieticians, pharmacists,
nurse practitioners and doctors. I have a very strong managerial side from my
background in the military but one place I have worked on a lot over the years is my
ability to lead as a transformational and democratic leader. I plan on continuing that
effort and will use things I see in future managers that will contribute to the leadership
side of being a registered nurse.

References
Moore, L. W., Sublett, C., & Leahy, C. (2016). Nurse managers insights regarding their
role highlight the need for practice changes. Applied nursing research, 30, 98103. doi:10.1016/j.apnr.2015.11.006
Porter-OGrady, T. (2015) Leadership in nursing practice: changing the landscape of
health care. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Yoder-Wise, P. S. (2015). Leading and managing in nursing (6th ed.). St. Louis, MO:
Mosby/Elsevier.

Cline Anthony - Reflections of Leadership and Management

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Cline Anthony - Reflections of Leadership and Management

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Cline Anthony - Reflections of Leadership and Management

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Running

Head: LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

Reflections of Leadership and Management

LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

You might also like