Combining Nurse Leader with Advocacy

Personal and Professional Accountability

Following the assessment in personal and professional accountability, I have become aware of my strengths and weaknesses. Some of my major strengths are in ethical behavior and practice, certification, and personal growth and development. My significant weakness is in professional association involvement. I have been able to achieve the required certification as a nurse manager and a leader in a healthcare setting. This is an appropriate measure of ensuring that I can undertake the objective tasks that are handed to me in the healthcare organization. Certification also ensures that I can develop the required leadership strategies that suite my followers towards achievement of the vision and mission of the healthcare institution (Twigg, & McCullough, 2014). Competency in education advancement, action plans, and annual self-assessment also helps ensure that I can keep up with the changing practices in the nursing practice. The results of ethical behavior and practice assessment have shown that I have a major strength in maintaining nursing standards in my profession. However, I should make improvements in professional association involvement by developing a network of professional peers who can stimulate my professional development.

Career Planning

The results of my personal assessment in career planning show various strengths and weaknesses. The major strengths include accurate understanding of my current job requirements and my significant weaknesses are in planning for my future and positioning myself to adapts to future changes. While I am perfectly aware of my current role in the organization, I am yet to know where I would like to be in future. The latter makes it somewhat difficult to position myself for significant developments in the vocation. My current job description has been clearly identified by the human resource department and the administrative personnel in the health organization. In this regard, I can effectively steer my subordinate workers to ensure accurate achievement of the objective goals set by the institution. This practice is evident in improving quality of care, safety, and satisfaction of the patients (Twigg, & McCullough, 2014). I am well aware that the future needs of healthcare require significant incorporation of technology in providing a better and high quality of service to meet the patient expectations (Salmond & Echevarria, 2017). However, I am yet to make a decisive approach towards improving my technology skills and ability to incorporate them into practice. 

Personal Journey Disciplines

An assessment of my personal journey disciplines demonstrates individual strength in improving my skills as a leader through shared leadership, action learning, and reflective practice. I have rated myself as an expert in shared leadership and council management. In this practice, I have always advocated for interprofessional collaboration where I can consult peers in my field to effectively solve complex problems arising in the workplace environment (Regan, Laschinger, & Wong, 2016). I have participated in leadership workshops that also improve my skills in ensuring shared leadership. The results also show high level of competency in action learning and reflective practice. As a leader in the health industry, it is always important to undertake measures of approaching real problems affecting the nursing discipline and developing solutions based on a reflection of the results (Salmond & Echevarria, 2017). This practice also includes the input of subordinates who are prompted to be creative in establishing appropriate interventions for the health concern. Reflective practice will involve individual assessment of individual behavior and also the input of subordinates and supervisors. 

Reflective Practice Reference Behaviors/Tenets

The evaluation of the reflective practice reference behaviors demonstrates a major strength in various aspects though I should make some improvements to be able to assess my leadership behaviors. It is evident that I strive to ensure the presence of high levels of integrity in my leadership practice through showing fairness to employees and an uncompromising stance on nursing values. I am also a strong believer in diversity as I understand the importance of differences particularly in a team which could help achieve the best possible outcomes for the patients (Regan, Laschinger, & Wong, 2016). In this regard, I am able to receive distinct perspectives from the followers during decision making process. This practice is particularly important for leaders to hold particularly in identifying the potential of future leaders from the team. I am able to identify the importance of nurturing the emotional and intellectual self through a process of exploration. This is evident in my desire to understand the significant demands in other medical fields and how my role as nurse manager can help in lessening the workload (Twigg, & McCullough, 2014). I am perfectly aware of the demands of my profession and I encourage my subordinates to strike a balance of life to reduce cases of burnout. However, I should make improvements to appreciate the ambiguity of my environment and use it as a learning tool to become better at delivering positive patient outcomes. 

Using Leadership Skill Set to Advocate for Change

As presented in the individual assessment of my leadership skill set, I am at a strategic position of promoting change in the workplace. In the case of personal and professional accountability, I am aware that I serve as a role model for my followers who identify the importance of ethical behavior in the workplace. This involves strict adherence to the nursing core values and regulations established by the organization along with government agencies. I am well aware of the need to prompt the management team to set up effective measures of guiding the numerous professionals to understand the changing nature of the medical field and the necessity of preparing for the same (Regan, Laschinger, & Wong, 2016). This may even help leaders like myself to improve their skills to adapts to future scenarios. 

Personal Goal for Leadership Growth

The results of the assessment show that I have a significant weakness in career planning and to some extent personal and professional accountability. While I have ensured education advancement to suit the demands of my current job position, I have not prepared myself for future changes in m professional role. I have set a personal goal of ensuring an accurate understanding of various technologies that may be incorporated in the nursing field. Through this action, I will also undertake courses that are steered towards achieving high level of competency in diverse technologies that help improve the service to the patients. This will help position me as a trainer in future for other medical workers seeking to improve their knowledge in using the various devices and machines. 

References

Regan, S., Laschinger, H. K., & Wong, C. A. (2016). The influence of empowerment, authentic leadership, and professional practice environments on nurses’ perceived interprofessional collaboration. Journal of Nursing Management, 24 (1), E54-E61.

Salmond, S. W., & Echevarria, M. (2017). Healthcare Transformation and Changing Roles for Nursing. Orthopedic Nursing, 36 (1), 12-25.

Twigg, D., & McCullough, K. (2014). Nurse retention: a review of strategies to create and enhance positive practice environments in clinical settings. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 51 (1), 85-92.