Essay Sample on Nursing Leadership

Introduction

Leadership is not about having people to serve you but being the example in service (Liden et al., 2014). Many times people who consider themselves leaders act like masters commanding everyone around them. A leader should create an environment where people feel loved, honored and protected. The same applies in the nursing profession, being a nurse leader involves leading by example of servanthood. It will be wrong as a nurse leader to have your juniors do your work especially when it comes to caring for patients. Leadership is, therefore, servanthood and not masterhood.

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As a nurse leader, one should learn how to influence others into doing the required things. The nursing profession is a great profession that needs a high level of sacrifice and commitment. It is not easy, and one may quickly lose the focus of it all. Moreover, there is a nursing code of ethics that guides the rule of the game, and unless an employee purpose to stick by it, then it is not possible. A leader must influence others to maintain a high level of commitment and excellence in the profession. He or she can influence through positive talk, acknowledging the efforts of employees through things such as incentives, to mention but a few.

What man sees, man does. It, therefore, means that the people one is leading tend to behave the way their leader does. The video gives a story of how the four-minute per mile in athletics was possible after a long time believe that a man could not run one mile for less than four minutes. The whole story however changed when in 1954 one athlete broke the record and ran three minutes and fifty-nine seconds. A year later, thirty-seven more men broke the record and then on three hundred men in the following year. The motivation factor for the breaking of this record was that one of them made it, and so the others imitated. The same thing applies in the nursing profession, where a leader shows excellence in her work, the junior staff will also do the same (Palanski et al., 2015). On the contrary, where a leader does not show full commitment and does things for the sake of doing them rather than from passion, then the employees will also tend to do the same. A nurse leader who is a bad example to other junior staffs brings down an organization.

Finally, a leader needs to have integrity (Engelbrecht, Heine, & Mahembe, 2017). Integrity is meaning what you say and doing what you promise. Where their integrity, there is prosperity. The field of nursing is a profession where one has to deal with so many ethical issues and unless there is integrity, then many illegal things will find their way into the profession. It takes integrity for a nurse to keep a patient's information as confidential and not use against the patient for one's gain. It takes integrity for a nurse leader not to overcharge patients for financial gain but to instead be faithful in the same. It also takes integrity for a nurse leader to protect the assets of an institution. Most individuals especially those working in government hospitals might want to gain from the hospital unlawfully. As a result, many people go even to extents of stealing hospital drugs and equipment for use in their private practice. Such behavior is wrong and unacceptable. Integrity is therefore vital in the nursing profession not only for the leaders but for all the employees.

References

Engelbrecht, A. S., Heine, G., & Mahembe, B. (2017). Integrity, ethical leadership, trust and work engagement. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 38(3), 368-379.

Liden, R. C., Wayne, S. J., Liao, C., & Meuser, J. D. (2014). Servant leadership and serving culture: Influence on individual and unit performance. Academy of Management Journal, 57(5), 1434-1452.

Palanski, M. E., Cullen, K. L., Gentry, W. A., & Nichols, C. M. (2015). Virtuous leadership: Exploring the effects of leader courage and behavioral integrity on leader performance and image. Journal of Business Ethics, 132(2), 297-310.