Introduction:

Nurses are in a unique position to take up leadership roles and shape healthcare reform. Apart from clinical skills, they can use their extended and expanded skill sets to enhance patient outcomes and create a healthy work environment. In part A, a discussion was provided on effective nurse leaders. This paper aims to further review the discussion and reflect back on the key skills and attributes that an effective nurse leader should possess.

Discussion:

According to my previous reflection on the nursing leader’s role, I identified that some of the key qualities of nurse leaders are that they are critical thinkers and have excellent problem-solving skills. They focus on teamwork and skilful communication with patients and staff members. These are some important qualities based on which a nurse can effectively lead a team. Engaging in teamwork is important and it can be done by motivating and empowering staff members. Effective teamwork in health care depends on leadership skills (Miles & Scott, 2019). According to Rosengarten (2022), effective team leaders have a shared vision and they appreciate the skills of each team member. They respect the opinion of others and appreciate them for good performance. Zaheer et al. (2021) further argue that with the complexity of care delivery, teamwork behaviours such as communication, coordination and cooperation is important to promote the safety of patients and reduce preventable errors. Positive staff perception related to teamwork is associated with better patient outcomes and a decrease in hospital readmission rates.

In the discussion in part A, important traits of an effective nurse leader were discussed such as compassion, self-awareness, transparency and the ability to adapt to different situations. Such traits are important to effectively deal with culturally diverse patients and handle critically complex situations in health care settings. The quality of compassion is synonymous with servant leadership competencies. They are leaders who focus on the well-being of others and the team. They support their team members to develop to their potential and perform to the best of their abilities. They use a bottom-up approach to increase staff engagement (James et al., 2021). Such leaders use empathy and compassionate care to influence the performance of team members and provide positive care experiences to patients. To demonstrate compassion, nursing leaders must have the ability to listen to the concern of others. They should promote inclusiveness by hearing the concerns of those whose voices are often ignored (Quinn et al., 2017). It may include those with dementia, mental health condition or any learning disability.

To further elaborate on the qualities of effective nurse leaders, an example of a situation of effective leadership was shared in part A. It discussed a previous placement experience where a code blue was initiated for a patient and another patient was on the verge of a MET call. The situation was chaotic but the nurse leader handled the situation through an effective delegation process. The situation reflects the insight and confidence of the nurse in handling complex situations in practice. Some of the key skills that the nurse demonstrated in the situation were effective problem-solving skills and a willingness to adapt to critical situations. These are key attributes that defined effective leadership roles. Contemporary nurse leaders have witnessed similar situations of crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study by Sihvola, Kvist and Nurmeksela (2022) reported on the nursing leader’s resilience and qualities to support the team during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the common challenges that the nursing team faced during the pandemic were heavy workload, long shift hours, ethical dilemmas and challenges in prioritization of scarce resources. In this situation, resilience and positive coping skills were associated with resilience. It reflects the importance of coping strategies for nurses. In addition, efficient leaders can modify their leadership styles during novel conditions.

To support the resilience of nurses, developing a safe and supportive work environment is also required. To engage in an effective leadership process, they must develop a positive work culture. Organizational culture refers to shared values, principles and traditions that influence the action of the organizational members. Effective organizational culture is manifested through effective values and behaviours. Leaders use different leadership styles based on their values and beliefs. The leadership theory that relates to the situation is the transformational leadership style. It is a leadership style where an individual engages with other and engage in communication to raise the level of motivation of both leaders and followers (Collins et al., 2020). Transformational leaders play a role in shaping and maintaining appropriate organizational culture. They achieve this goal by creating and infusing values that are necessary for an effective organization. The stronger is the unified values and beliefs, the stronger is the organizational culture (ALFadhalah & Elamir, 2021). The findings give the implication to new leaders to establish a culture of learning and transformational programs.

An efficient leader takes part in leading effective change too. Some of the attributes that promote them to support change are respecting their own beliefs, being proactive, having empathy for staff nurses and having an understanding of organizational characteristics. Having detail about the number of incidents, turnover, nursing characteristics and relationships influence a nurse’s ability to identify problems, develop strategies and evaluate outcomes. By being proactive, nurses can prioritize change as well as develop strategies to manage nurses’ resistance to change. Displaying empathy during the change process is important to understand nurses’ feelings, take their feedback and respect their experience (Kodama & Fukahori, 2017; Salmond & Echevarria, 2017). Thus, it is the responsibility of all hospital administrators to provide nurse managers with opportunities for leadership training.

Conclusion:

Based on the reflection of key skills and attributes for effective leadership competencies, it can be concluded that problem-solving skills, communication and teamwork skills, shared vision and adapting during a crisis situation are important for effective leadership. Based on effective communication and problem-solving skills, they can manage crises and motivate staff members towards appropriate performance. In clinical practice, nurses are often confronted with crises and complex situations and having an arrangement for leadership training is important so that nurses can be advanced to wide responsibilities in the organization.

References

ALFadhalah, T., & Elamir, H. (2021). Organizational culture, quality of care and leadership style in government general hospitals in Kuwait: a multimethod study. Journal of healthcare leadership , 243-254.doi: 10.2147/JHL.S333933

Collins, E., Owen, P., Digan, J., & Dunn, F. (2020). Applying transformational leadership in nursing practice. Nurs Stand , 35 (5), 59-66.

James, A. H., Bennett, C. L., Blanchard, D., & Stanley, D. (2021). Nursing and values‐based leadership: A literature review. Journal of Nursing Management , 29 (5), 916-930. h tt p://dx.doi.or g/10.11 1 1/jon m.13 2 7 3

Kodama, Y., & Fukahori, H. (2017). Nurse managers’ attributes to promote change in their wards: a qualitative study. Nursing Open , 4 (4), 209-217.doi: 10.1002/nop2.87

Miles, J. M., & Scott, E. S. (2019). A new leadership development model for nursing education. Journal of Professional Nursing , 35 (1), 5-11.

Quinn, B. (2017). Role of nursing leadership in providing compassionate care. Nursing Standard (2014+) , 32 (16-19), 53. doi:10.7748/ns.2017.e11035

Rosengarten, L. (2022). Teamwork in nursing: essential elements for practice. Nursing management , 29 (3). doi: 10.7748/nm.2019.e1850 

Salmond, S. W., & Echevarria, M. (2017). Healthcare transformation and changing roles for nursing. Orthopedic nursing , 36 (1), 12.

Sihvola, S., Kvist, T., & Nurmeksela, A. (2022). Nurse leaders' resilience and their role in supporting nurses' resilience during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A scoping review. Journal of Nursing Management , 30 (6), 1869-1880. doi: 10.1111/jonm.13640

Zaheer, S., Ginsburg, L., Wong, H. J., Thomson, K., Bain, L., & Wulffhart, Z. (2021). Acute care nurses’ perceptions of leadership, teamwork, turnover intention and patient safety–a mixed methods study. BMC nursing , 20 (1), 1-14.

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