Exploring Nursing Leadership, Ethics, and Healthcare Environments

This essay discusses the transformative changes in health organizations and the crucial role of nurse leaders in creating healthy practice environments that positively influence staff engagement and satisfaction. It highlights the ANCC's excellence program and its emphasis on inter-professional collaboration and quality. The essay further explores Burn's perception of ethical leadership, emphasizing the importance of focusing on followers' values and moral development, and compares it with Robert Greenleaf's servant leadership idea, noting similarities and differences in their approaches. The discussion covers the significance of ethical considerations, personal development, and addressing social injustices within leadership roles in nursing.

Running head: NURSING 1
Nursing
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

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Question 1
Health organizations are experiencing dramatic and rapid transformations. Nurse leaders
usually have minimal control in regards to external changes. However, they control and manage
the practice environments within their respective organizations which largely influence staff
engagement and satisfaction. Notably, establishing a healthy workplace environment for nurses
affects nurses' retention and satisfaction positively. The excellence program of ANCC, American
Nurses Credentialing Center, provides a basis for establishing an ideal workplace environment
(Lyle-Edrosolo and Waxman, 2016). It also ensures there is an emphasis on quality to maintain
excellence. Pathway organizations nurture inter-professional collaboration, work-life
effectiveness, supportive leadership and nurse development.
The application manual of 2016 has new criteria referred to as EOPs, Elements of
Performance. These contemporary criteria emphasize on inter-professional collaboration and
aspects which address nurses' role in upholding a culture of community and health partnerships
to enhance improvement of population health. Subsequently, practice environment aspects were
consolidated to form six standards. The standards are safety, well-being, leadership, professional
development, collective decision-making, and quality.
Remarkably, the contemporary professional enhancement standard entails orientation for
new nurses and availing growth and education opportunities to already employed nurses. World
Health Organization acknowledges inter-professional collaboration to be imperative in
addressing health concerns (Dans et al, 2017). Moreover, inter-professional collaboration
facilitates the improvement of organizational outcomes by making sure that there is the most
excellent quality of healthcare. Specifically, this is achieved through partnerships between
healthcare professionals, patients, communities, and families. There are various concepts which

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define the aspect of collaboration including power, process, interdependency, partnership, and
sharing.
Question 2
Burn's perception of ethical leadership is apparent. His perspective is exceptional
because it emphasizes that ethics is the fundamental characteristic of any leadership process.
Burn's transformational leadership theory highlights the need to focus on followers' values,
morals and need. Therefore, transformational leadership entails leaders influencing followers to
greater levels of moral responsibility (Northouse, 2018). The relationship established increases
the morality level of both the followers and leaders. According to Burn, a leader's role should be
to attend to individuals' moral development and personal motivations.
Similarly, Robert Greenleaf's service leadership idea is similar to that of Burn. Servant
leadership has ethical implications because it requires that leaders have to be concerned with the
personal issues of their followers. According to Greenleaf, leadership is bestowed on an
individual who is a servant. Servant leaders, therefore, focus on the specific needs of their
followers. Therefore, both Burn's and Robert Greenleaf's leadership styles emphasize that leaders
should focus on the personal development of their followers.
Conversely, Burn's and Robert Greenleaf's leadership styles are different in some ways.
Burn does not believe that a follower can become a leader without mentorship. Nonetheless,
Greenleaf observes that a servant can automatically become a leader as long as one has the
leadership skills (Northouse, 2018). For instance, a servant's presence sustains people during a
journey. The travelers abandon the journey when the servant disappears showing that it was the
servant who was the leader of the group. Similarly, Burn does not consider the essence of social
injustices and inequalities like Greenleaf.

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References
Dans, M., Pabico, C., Tate, M., & Hume, L. (2017). Understanding the New Pathway to
Excellence® Standards. Nurse Leader, 15(1), 49-52.
Elkington, R. (2017). Ethical Leadership at the Speed of VUCA. In Visionary Leadership in a
Turbulent World: Thriving in the New VUCA Context (pp. 13-37). Emerald Publishing
Limited.
Lyle-Edrosolo, G., & Waxman, K. T. (2016). Aligning Healthcare Safety and Quality
Competencies: Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN), The Joint Commission,
and American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Magnet® Standards
Crosswalk. Nurse Leader, 14(1), 70-75.
Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.