Free Essay Sample on Head Nurse: A Leadership Role in Healthcare

Introduction

Head nurses perform several administrative duties and are still responsible for providing patient care. These professionals help monitor inventory levels, maintain patient records, and prepare nurse performance reports. In most instances, head nurses are in charge of specific teams, meaning they are accountable for the performance of healthcare employees underneath them. For nurses to qualify for this leadership role, they must have a Bachelor’s degree and at least five years of experience (Kantanen et al., 2017). Research by Kantanen et al. (2017) showed that more than half of head nurses had college-level education.

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Essential Qualities

American Nurses Association (ANA) outlines emotional intelligence, integrity, mentorship, and communication skills as essential qualities that nurse leaders should have (ANA, 2018). These elements are of great importance to nurse leaders because they are in charge of overseeing staff members under them. Communication skills are needed since head nurses act as a link between the management and their respective teams.

Perez et al. (2018) said nurse leaders should have professional competence, ethical stance, influencing skills, and the ability to build and maintain relationships. These qualities help head nurses to lead, inspire, and motivate teams. Transformational leadership style is ideal for head nurses since it helps motivate the followers to give their best (Abd-Elrhaman & Abd-Allah, 2018). Also, it allows these nurse leaders to influence and enhance their team’s self-esteem.

Advocacy Techniques

Every nurse leader has an opportunity to positively impact the lives of the followers and the profession through daily advocacy activities (Perez et al., 2018). As a leader, I would advocate for a safe and healthy workplace that can motivate nurses to sustain positive patient outcomes. I would use two advocacy strategies to achieve my goals: direct communication or lobbying and campaigning for change through processes that support a cause.

For direct lobbying, I would use direct, private means of communication to express issues that need to be addressed. In the second method, campaigning, I would speak on areas that should be changed in the workplace during formal meetings to generate a response from a large group of employees and the decision-makers.

Conclusion

In the past, I provided leadership to a team of employees tasked with connecting patients to resources in a non-governmental organization. The outcome was promising since the group recorded a significant improvement in patient satisfaction and caregiver support network. If given another leadership role, I would set the scope and boundaries for my followers to keep them more focused and, more importantly, achieve their goals quickly.

References

Abd-Elrhaman, E. S., & Abd-Allah, N. A. (2018). Transformational leadership educational program for head nurses and its effect on nurses’ job performance. American Journal of Nursing Science, 7(4), 127. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajns.20180704.13

ANA. (2018). Professional competence in nursing practice and nurse leadership. https://www.nursingworld.org/~4a0a2e/globalassets/docs/ce/177626-ana-leadership-booklet-new-final.pdf

Kantanen, K., Kaunonen, M., Helminen, M., & Suominen, T. (2017). Leadership and management competencies of head nurses and directors of nursing in Finnish social and health care. Journal of Research in Nursing, 22(3), 228-244. https://doi.org/10.1177/1744987117702692

Perez, A., Nichols, B., & Quinn, W. V. (2018). Growing diverse nurse leaders: The current progress of the future of nursing campaign for action. Nurse Leader, 16(1), 38-42.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mnl.2017.10.009