Reflective Essay on Preceptoring New Staff in Healthcare Setting

This reflective essay details a student's experience as a preceptor to a new nurse, utilizing Gibb's reflective cycle to analyze the incident and the leadership styles employed. The essay describes a situation where the student, initially using an autocratic leadership style, negatively impacted the new nurse's confidence and performance, leading to demotivation and a complaint. The student reflects on the negative aspects, including the impact on the new nurse and mentor's disappointment, and identifies the need to develop transformational leadership skills. Through analysis, the student recognizes the importance of idealized influence, individualized consideration, and inspirational motivation in guiding new staff. The essay concludes with a plan to address leadership skill gaps through workshops, mentoring, and evidence-based practice to become a more effective preceptor, aiming to foster a supportive environment and promote the development of expert healthcare professionals.

Running head: PRECEPTORING A NEW STAFF
PRECEPTORING A NEW STAFF
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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PRECEPTORING A NEW STAFF
Introduction:
Reflective practices can be described as the medium by which the nursing professionals
can share their own experiences for improving their work and clinical practices. This medium is
found to be extremely helpful in carrying on with lifelong learning by the professionals (Boamah
et al., 2018). The act of reflection is indeed one of the best ways of increasing the confidence and
thereby becoming a more qualified as well as proactive professional in the healthcare service
(Giddens, 2018). This assignment would be mainly depicting an incident where I had to lead a
new nurse in the healthcare centre. For effectively reflecting on the incident, Gibb’s reflective
cycle would be used in the assignment.
Description:
One I got the opportunity to become a preceptor to a new nursing student who had joined
the healthcare centre during placement. It was a very busy shift and large number of patients was
needed to be attended. I made everything understand to the new nurse and went to the emergency
room for handling a serious case. When I came back, I noticed that she had not attended the
patients that I had asked him to. I got disappointed and immediately shouted on her in front of
all. She was not able to apply the theories properly to her nursing practices and hence she was
criticized by me. She was not even able to complete her work within time and often delayed
every work that was assigned to her. One-day, she came and told me that a patient is not willing
to take medication but I was so upset with her actions for the previous days, that I cut her short
and asked her not to make excuses and complete the medication administration. Later, I came to
know that the patient had complained against the staff nurse for forcibly administering
medication. At the same time, I found the staff nurse crying for being questioned about her

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actions and she told the head authority that she no more wanted to work under my leadership. To
this, my mentor called me to his room and advised me. He believed that I had adopted autocratic
leadership style which had demotivated the student. He instructed that as a preceptor, I had to
uptake transformational leadership style for managing and mentoring the new staff nurse.
Feeling:
I was feeling extremely guilty for having hurt the new nurse. I was also upset over the
fact that I could not lead him effectively that resulted her in feeling demotivated. Moreover, I
also understood. If I had guided her appropriately, the new nurse would not have been held
responsible for the complained lodged against her by the patient. I realized that I have to develop
my leadership skills so that I can lead future teams of nurses efficiently and guide them to
become expert professionals in the healthcare centers. I was quite upset as I could not prove
myself as an effective leader to my mentor and thereby wanted to work on my leadership skills
to make him proud and also to ensure that every patient is provided safe and quality care by all
nurses under my leadership.
Evaluation:
The negative aspect of the incident was that the staff nurse had become highly
demotivated and did not want to work with me. The staff nurse even wanted to leave the
profession and withdraw her name from placement. She was held accountable for poor unethical
care practice against the patient who lodged a complaint against her. If I would have guided her
effectively without cutting her while she was speaking and exhibited effective listening skill, I
could have prevented the incident from working. The new nurse had totally lost all confidence as
she felt that I had made her feel that she has no proper nursing knowledge and skills to work in

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the profession. I had actually applied autocratic leadership style that had demotivated her.
Studies are of the opinion that autocratic leaders do not allow input from group members and
they themselves make all the decisions. Group members are rarely trusted with important tasks
and the leaders always dictate all work methods (Fischer, 2016). Work tends to be highly
structured and creativity is discouraged and rules are forced to be followed by subordinates. I
realized that my leadership traits were similar to autocratic leaders as mentioned in the studies. It
has been also found that such style of leadership demotivates employees and discourages inputs
from employees (Quin, 2017). This also impairs the morale among employees ad also lead to
resentment (Barr et al., 2019). They do not feel the sense of belonging to the organization. All
these affect the zeal to work and productivity as well. I realized that I had followed this
leadership style with the staff nurse and hence she had become demotivated and was not willing
to work anymore. Another negative aspect was that my mentor was upset with my performance
and this had made me feel very bad. The only positive aspect was that this incident had been an
eye-opener to me about the lack of leadership skills that I had. It appropriately made me
understand that my leadership abilities were not suitable to become a preceptor of new nurses
and that I had to change my skills for the better.
Analysis:
On analyzing the incident thoroughly, I had been able to develop strong insight about the
ways I could have handled the situation that could have resulted in better outcomes. I should
have followed the traits of transformational leadership to guide the new nurse in her clinical
practices.

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Firstly, one of the most important components of transformational leadership is the
idealized influence. Studies are of the opinion that transformational leaders act as role models
and display a charismatic personality (Asamani et al., 2016). They show a set of values,
convictions and ethical principles in the actions that help in building of trust with the followers
and thereby help the subordinates in developing confidence in their leaders. I noticed that the
staff nurse was struggling with time management issues. In such cases, instead of leaving her
like this, I should have acted a s role model for her helping her to know how to manage time
effectively by showing my methods of doing them.
Secondly, another important trait of transformational leadership is individualized
consideration. This trait helps the leaders to offer support as well as encouragement to the
individual followers. Studies are of the opinion that in order to foster supportive relationships,
transformational leaders keep the lines of communication open so that the followers feel free in
sharing the ideas. They provide help of every kind required by the subordinate and this helps the
employees feel that they are cared and that their needs are looked after (Brewer et al., 2016). I
have realized that the new nurse was struggling with the application of theories in clinical
practices. Instead of providing support to her, I criticized her education. I needed to help her in
developing knowledge about how she could apply theories properly in her clinical areas and
communicate constantly with her to know about her barriers and provide feedbacks. This would
have made her confident and learn from practice. However, I failed to achieve this as well.
Thirdly, another important aspect of transformational leadership is inspirational
motivation. The leaders need to have a clear vision and thereby they need to articulate this to the
followers (Fischer, 2017). These leaders are also able to help the followers in experiencing the
same passion and motivation to fulfill the goals. The leaders should have the ability in inspiring

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PRECEPTORING A NEW STAFF
confidence, motivation as well as the sense of purpose in his followers. They also need to infuse
continued optimism as well as enthusiasm and ability in pointing out the positives (Lavoie et al.,
2016). When the nurse was trying to get help from me in different aspects, I did not provide her
any help. I was quite strict with her and took no roles in motivating her to overcome her fears
and develop her confidence. I I would have helped her and motivated her, she would have never
lost confidence on her own self and wanted to leave the profession.
Conclusion:
From the entire discussion, I have realized that I had exhibited traits of autocratic
leadership style. This form of leadership had affected the morale of the staff nurse and she had
therefore wanted to leave the profession. She had lost her confidence and was also not
comfortable in working with me. After effectively reflecting on the incident and going through
different evidence-based articles, I had realized that my approach of leadership in the role of
preceptor of a staff nurse was inappropriate and this had resulted in poor outcome both on a
patient and also the staff nurse. I realized that when I have to be a preceptor of a staff nurse, I
would try to apply the traits of transformational leaders. In this way, I will be able to develop
healthcare professionals who would be expert in their nursing practices.
Action plan:
I have realized that I have poor leadership attributes. Therefore, firstly, I would join
leadership workshops where expert nursing leaders would train use in developing proper
leadership skills and knowledge about the situations where I would need to apply the skills. This
would require 5 months. Secondly, I would also engage in effective discussion with my mentors
to get feedback from his over my leadership skills and work according to his guidance to develop

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such skills. Third, I would be interviewing eminent nursing leaders and try to learn from their
experiences and the ways of handling different satiations. This would give me good insights
about effective ways of handling any issue. Fourth, I would be also following the evidence based
practices where I will read different evidence based articles on effective leadership in healthcare
and develop my knowledge as well as skills to become expert leaders.
Summary:
Once, I had got the opportunity to become a preceptor for a new nurse whom I had to
lead in the healthcare practices. The staff nurse was upset and demotivated and wanted to leave
the profession as she was not comfortable with my leadership. I realized that I had applied
autocratic leadership traits which had demotivated the staff nurse. I had to undertake
transformational leadership style. It was my responsibility to support her, to motivate her and act
as a role model which she could have followed to develop her skills. Hence, I have realized that I
would adopt transformational leadership style when I would become a preceptor. I would also
join workshops, conduct evidence-based searches and also take feedbacks from mentors to
develop myself as a better leader for future.

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References:
Asamani, J. A., Naab, F., & Ofei, A. M. A. (2016). Leadership styles in nursing management:
implications for staff outcomes. Journal of Health Sciences.
Barr, J., & Dowding, L. (2019). Leadership in health care. Sage Publications Limited.
Boamah, S. A., Laschinger, H. K. S., Wong, C., & Clarke, S. (2018). Effect of transformational
leadership on job satisfaction and patient safety outcomes. Nursing outlook, 66(2), 180-
189.
Brewer, C. S., Kovner, C. T., Djukic, M., Fatehi, F., Greene, W., Chacko, T. P., & Yang, Y.
(2016). Impact of transformational leadership on nurse work outcomes. Journal of
advanced nursing, 72(11), 2879-2893.
Fischer, S. A. (2016). Transformational leadership in nursing: a concept analysis. Journal of
Advanced Nursing, 72(11), 2644-2653.
Fischer, S. A. (2017). Transformational leadership in nursing education: Making the
case. Nursing science quarterly, 30(2), 124-128.
Giddens, J. (2018). Transformational leadership: What every nursing dean should know. Journal
of Professional Nursing, 34(2), 117-121.
Lavoie‐Tremblay, M., Fernet, C., Lavigne, G. L., & Austin, S. (2016). Transformational and
abusive leadership practices: impacts on novice nurses, quality of care and intention to
leave. Journal of advanced nursing, 72(3), 582-592.

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Quinn, B. (2017). Role of nursing leadership in providing compassionate care. Nursing Standard
(2014+), 32(16-19), 53.