Leadership and Professional Practice

Running Head: LEADERSHIP AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
Leadership and Professional Practice

LEADERSHIP AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE 1
Current health care environment is considered to be unsustainable and broken. Highest quality
care is desired by the patients and therefore, the reduction in the costs is required. For the
purpose of regaining public trust, changes are needed in the health care system along with the
adaptation to the current requirements of the patients. However, challenges are created by the
different group of stakeholders in the health care system for the purpose of improving value of
care. The operative ways for refining the value of care can be best determined by the health care
providers. Moreover, the health care providers are required to learn the manner of leading the
patients effectively for the purpose of creating change (Hunter, 2016). This essay focuses on the
best leadership approach for a nurse in the current health care environment. It describes the
characteristics of an effective leader, leadership models for the health care environment and the
rationale for the leadership characteristics and the models chosen (Arroliga, Huber, Myers,
Dieckert and Wesson, 2014).
Certain characteristics are required to be possessed by the leaders in the current health
environment. An effective leader should be capable of making the recognition of the strengths
and weaknesses of the individuals in the team along with evaluating the level of effectiveness of
each individual. These traits are considered to be desirable and include self- confidence,
intelligence, integrity, determination and sociability. It is suggested that there is a relationship
between traits of leadership, patient outcomes and staff satisfaction (Zhang, Avery, Bergsteiner,
and More, 2014). One of the most important characteristics of an effective leader in nursing is
being a role model. This implies that the leader needs to initiate action, an exemplar, and should
present them as an example of how the actions should be performed. Further, another important
characteristic is to be an inspiration. Through this characteristic, the leaders should aim at
inspiring others with a goal and should make the followers see the desired endpoint to their
actions. Moreover, the leaders should possess the characteristic of empowerment which allows
them in getting other to work. They should also be capable of generating enthusiasm which is
considered to be a vital component i.e. getting other to work with passion (Gini and Green,
2014). An effective leader is also capable of establishing two- way communication with the staff
members. Effective nursing leader should also demonstrate skills and knowledge relating to all
aspects of the delivery of care. There should be complete understanding of the job descriptions
along with the responsibilities of employees. They should also possess knowledge regarding the
latest techniques along with the understanding of ethical and legal issues that confront the

LEADERSHIP AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE 2
practice of nursing. This can also be linked with the personality and trait leadership theory which
provides that the leaders are born with particular characteristics that allows them to lead others
and take the command (Spears and Lawrence, 2016).
The best leadership approach for nurses in the current health care environment is servant
leadership. Servant leadership is considered to be the best model due to the reason that it
emphasizes on the forte of the team, attending the requirements of the patients and developing
trusts. The nurses, as the servant leaders, may be best equipped for making the needed
modifications in the organization and in the patient- provider relationship for improving the
value of care for patient. The main emphasis of the servant nurse leader is on the success of the
team through the performance of the individual team members (Harden and Fulop, 2015). This
leadership approach has gained popularity over the past few years. In this style, the needs of the
team members are targeted by the leader while ensuring that they have the requisite
relationships, tasks and tools for achieving the individual and group goals. This style works in
the best possible manner when there are diverse members that work on different tasks with
different responsibilities. However, there are possibilities that this style doesn’t work well in
cases when the top decisions are required to be made or collective directions are to be followed
by the group (Gunnarsdóttir, Edwards and Dellve, 2018).
A nurse servant leader constantly makes the evaluation of the needs and requirements of his/ her
staff in order to help them in resolving their problems along with promoting personal
development. The servant leaders have the ability of providing the service which also regarded
as their primary motivator for the purpose of seeking a leadership role. The most important
characteristics of a servant leader are awareness, healing, empathy, listening, persuasion,
conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, building community, commitment to the growth of
people. The servant leadership is embraced by a number of nurses in the form of a philosophy
that offer the required guidance in their practice. This type of leadership is considered to be a
caring leadership that assists in building trust due to believe of the followers that the leader have
genuine concern for them. This psychological safety experienced by the employees results in
high level of employee engagement in the job. In this way, the servant leaders are capable of
building a healthy work environment along with attracting and retaining staff (Van Dierendonck,
Stam, Boersma, De Windt. and Alkema, 2014).