MOD005236: Leadership and Decision Making in Nursing

Running head: NURSING LEADERSHIP TRANSCRIPT
Nursing leadership transcript
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1NURSING LEADERSHIP TRANSCRIPT
Leadership is a very important personality trait that each and every individual must
possess. In everyday life, there are various scenarios where the need for able and assertive
leadership skills to facilitate rights and justice becomes crucial (Davis, Corless and Nicholas
2018). Even in the professional field, the need for adequate leadership is imperative, with
multidisciplinary teams working together conspicuous everywhere. Especially in the context of
healthcare and nursing, the need for adequate leadership has never been as crucial as it is right
now, and in this first slide I would like to introduce importance of leadership in nursing field.
Healthcare is being provided in multidisciplinary setting all across the globe. The advantages to a
multidisciplinary healthcare service are numerous, although there are certain disadvantages as
well (Démeh and Rosengren 2015). With a variety of different professionals belonging to
different professional disciplines, the risk of conflict and interpersonal management challenges
are very high which might affect the patient care if not addressed immediately. Hence, the need
for adequate leadership in the nursing professionals is extreme, so that they can prioritize the
care needs of the patient over any conflict and can help facilitate optimal care services as
smoothly as possible (Grossman and Valiga 2016). In this presentation I would like to shade
light on the aspect of leadership in nursing, how I have experienced the leadership in my
placement, and how it helped me understand the importance of leadership in our position taking
the assistance of different leadership theories.
In the next two slides, I will attempt to illustrate the leadership scenario I experienced in
my placement. The leadership instance or scenario which I will be focusing on for this
presentation refers to one of the shift work nights that I had to complete as a student. This night
stands out as an inspiring moment of leadership which presented itself in the form of most urgent
crisis situation. I had been placed in elderly care ward where my mentor discovered a patient

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helplessly laying on the floor. Understanding the urgency of the situation, my mentor quickly
informed all the available staff and communicated the urgent need for health for the vulnerable
elderly patient. I observed my mentor instantly slip into the role of a potent leader, arranged and
designated different tasks to be completed to different members of the available staff. The tasks
were many and complicating, including taking vital signs, assessing for injuries, assuring the
patients, and calling for additional help from the adjacent wards along with leaving a staff
member available to attend the other patient in the elderly ward as well. I noticed that my
mentor had understood that the elderly patient that had fell was our highest priority, however
caring for this patient must not affect the care services provided to the rest of the elderly patients
as well, which is commendable (Lynch et al. 2018).
Furthermore, I would also like to highlight that along with directing a team of 15 nurses
to attend to the emergency that the elderly patient had been suffering from, our leader had been
simultaneously checking for any signs of injury and quickly noticed a bruise on the patient's left
elbow. My mentor also provided me the opportunity to check the patient's vital signs, which
seems normal after my observation. My mentor also showed leadership qualities while
communicating effectively with the patient reassuring her to be calm while she was being
examined for pain score assessment. The patient confirmed my mentor that she was able to
stand up and with the taking our assistance, the patient was successfully transferred to her bed
and my mentor quickly instructed us for assessing the patient before giving any analgesics to
relieve any pain (Luo and Liu 2014). I was given the opportunity to check on the vital signs of
the patient every 30 minutes for 2 hours and continue hourly observations for 24 hours to ensure
optimal safety of the patient. After which my mentor contacted the doctor in charge and reported
the situation following the incident reporting proforma and also an incident form was also filled

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along with informing the family immediately the next morning to report the accident (Meier
2016).
Hence, I have to appreciate the quick thinking and logical reasoning skills of our leader
where she didn't hesitate for a second before slipping into the role of a leader and took charge to
help a vulnerable and possibly injured patient in the ward. This experience only enhanced my
respect for my mentor and I realized that I aspire to become as competent as her in both my
professional responsibilities and leadership skills and qualities.
In the next two slides, I will discuss the leadership style that corresponds to the leadership
scenario illustrated before. Discussing the leadership qualities that my mentor expressed in this
urgent situation, it can be considered that the situational leadership theory is the most relatable to
the leadership qualities and the situation that we are reviewing in this presentation (Hutchinson
2018). Situational leadership had been developed and studied by Kenneth Blanchard and Paul
Hersey. This leadership refers to the adjusting of the leadership style by the leader or manager of
the organization in order to fit into the situation and address the need of the hour of the situation
(Scully 2015). In this particular leadership style, the leader is capable of changing or modifying
his leadership qualities with respect to the exact needs of the people that he or she is leading and
the situation that has presented itself. It has to be mentioned that in situational leadership the
leadership style of the leader may change continually in order to keep meeting the needs of the
stakeholders of the situation and address the need of the hour (Stanley 2016).
In this case my mentor has successfully followed each and every trait of a situational
leader as needed while addressing the crisis or emergency that we discovered in the elderly ward
that night. Elaborating further, telling and directing is a very important aspect of a situational

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leader, where the leader has to swiftly make quick decisions and direct followers to achieve a set
of goals (Mannix, Wilkes and Daly 2015). Elaborating more, this leadership style is also called
micromanagement, as the leader is very involved so that everybody will understand and will
comply with the orders or responsibilities assigned. On the other hand, selling and coaching is
also a key trait of a situational leader. In this case although the decision still lies in the hands of
the leader, the input is requested from all of the staff. This had also been followed in case of my
mentor, where she was delegating responsibilities with asking whether the staff has any issues
and challenges to completing these responsibilities (Carragher and Gormley 2017).
Along with that, participating and supporting is also very important aspect of a
situational leader, where the success of the entire team lies on the direction and guidance
provided by the situational leader. In this case, my mentor have been very involved with the
patient care along with delegating responsibilities which not only inspired us to provide our best
efforts but also guided us thoroughly in completing these challenging responsibilities.
Considering the delegating abilities which is are fundamental trait of a situational leader, it can
be mentioned that situational leaders provide the employees with the clarity regarding their role
and the tasks needed to be completed so that it can be carried out effectively and functionally. In
this case as well, my mentor had been very efficient and proactive in delegating responsibilities
clearly so that we have clarity of the tasks that we need to be performing in that urgent situation
which is very important for crisis resolving (Park 2015).
In the next two slides, I will discuss key learning points covered in the assignment. It
has been mentioned in this context that my mentor had been very involved with the entire
procedure and she knew exactly the development the level of each employee and accordingly she
delegated the responsibilities. Criticizing the situational leadership style, situation leadership is

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divided into four elements of leadership qualities, directing, coaching, supporting, and
delegating, which has been followed effectively by my mentor. However, in the crisis situations,
motivating the employees is also very important aspect of leadership that the nurse is required to
be performing in order to be able to provide adequate services in spite of the physical and
emotional exhaustion (Alharbi 2017). In this case my mentor had focused entirely on slipping
into the role of an assertive and potential situational leader but she had not been very
compassionate or empathetic to either the patient or the staff.
In the last concluding slide, I would like to mention that for crisis situation, situational
leadership provides the best leadership model or framework which can help the individual
providing leadership to address the differential need of the crisis situation effectively. Although
in the field of healthcare, compassion and empathy are a very important aspect even in
leadership, which can only be provided through aesthetic leadership combining the pros of
transformational leadership and situational leadership blended together. This presentation has
covered the scenario of leadership and the leadership theory outlining and criticizing the pros and
cons of the leadership style. This opportunity has been excellent for me to represent the
experience that I had had and decide the leadership traits that I need to develop that will help me
in my future. I am completely awed by my mentor’s swift leadership skills and the situational
leadership style that she effortlessly exhibited in that crisis situation. Hence, for my professional
leadership components I would like to incorporate both situational and transformational
leadership, so that I can provide compassion and empathy as well when leading a team.

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References:
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Organisational Performance, Issues And Problems.
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