The Issue of Power in Nursing Leadership Essay

One of the characteristics of leadership is the ability of a leader to use their positions of power to influence meaningful transformations and motivate others to act and behave appropriately. According to Sherman (2018), owing to the numerous responsibilities and roles in the nursing profession, nurses and nurse manager exercise some modicum of power which enables them to influence organizational decision making and health care policy. Power entails the capacity and potential to do something that influences other people or changes their behaviors, actions, thoughts, and attitudes (DelHousaye, 2016). A good nurse leader is thus one who uses their power to influence nursing goals and outcomes. The main things that I have learned from the "Issue of Power" video by DelHousaye (2016) are that power entails the ability of one to influence the lives of other people and that power involves what one has in them that they have to offer to others.

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Since -as indicated in the video - power is all about influence, its relevance to nursing leadership is that nurse managers and leaders have to use their positions of power in healthcare organizations to not only influence people around them but also influence change. With power, nurse leaders have the opportunity to enable those they lead to achieve the set goals and undergo changes in behavior and attitudes (Sherman, 2018). As a result, nurses will play a significant role in championing and leading change in their respective power positions and clinical settings. While a nurse leader can at times use their power in a negative way, nursing ethics and law imbues them to use their power to ensure that they nurture future leaders and to initiate transformations in their areas of specialization. When leaders in the nursing profession utilize their power well, the end result would be a motivated workforce and improved care outcomes for patients. Nurse leaders can use power not only to benefit themselves but also to benefit those whom they lead, their organizations, and the nursing profession as a whole.

Moreover, from the video presentation, it is clear that power is a quality which represents what one has to offer to others and hence for one to discover their true power, they have to ask others who are well acquainted with them. Hence, building personal power requires a leader to possess other qualities such as self-knowledge, ambition, empathy, focus, capacity to tolerate conflicts, confidence, and energy (Sherman, 2018). It is these values that make a good nurse leader as they enable nurses to treat other nurses and patients well and to always strive towards enhancing the health, safety, and well-being of others. As DelHousaye (2016) states, the possession of power require knowing oneself in terms of what one has to offer so as to be unique and authentic in influencing others. With power, an individual has the ability to accomplish anything and everything they want as long as they engage in self-retrospection, interact with others around them and discover what exactly they possess that can improve the lives of others. For, poor leadership results from the inability to deal with people being led and hence power should not be about controlling others but influencing them to do something good.

Conclusion

To summarize, power boils down to one's ability to influence, motivate, or encourage others and determine what should be done. It is all about what an individual has to offer to others. In the context of nursing leadership, power, as presented by DelHousaye (2016) in his piece, entails the capacity of a nurse leader to affect positive change, behavior, and attitudes in a way that improves care outcomes.

References

DelHousaye, D.L. (2016, October 10). Servant leadership - The issue of power. [YouTube file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLqKj_eriTOI9Js2i_C2mitH1P96Zf6Q__&v=Z8yMNFMp0k8

Sherman, R.O. (2018).Leadership influence and power. Nurse Leader,16 (1), 6-7. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mnl.2017.10.003