My Leadership Philosophy

The emergency department (ED) is a fast paced, unpredictable, high-pressure critical care nursing environment. Providing the best possible care to patients relies on dynamic, high performance teams of healthcare staff. Leadership in the ED has a well documented influence on the building of teams, improved patient outcomes and enhanced job satisfaction (Boamah, et al, 2018; Sarcevic. 2011). I believe that the development of a leadership philosophy is important in my role as a leader in the ED in order to empower me to inspire and motivate my team so we can continually adapt to the unpredictable nature of the ED. A leadership philosophy is a personal system of principles specifically chosen to guide decisions which provides improved self confidence and can improve effectiveness as a leader (Calvert, 2017).

My personal leadership philosophy views leadership as a continuous repeating cycle of engagement, effective communication and self reflection. This paper will explain three principles of my philosophy of leadership through the description of each principle, support for each principle in current literature and its application in practice.

The first principle of my leadership philosophy is the importance of engaging followers. Engagement is a key assumption of andragogy as adult learners must be involved in planning, ready to learn and internally motivated (Kaufman, 2003); thus, ensuring an individual’s engagement is essential in order to be an effective leader in my role. Adult learners need to be informed of why learning is important to them personally (McCauley, Hammer & Hinojosa, 2017) therefore engaging followers and helping them to develop intrinsically motivated reasons to follow is the core principle of my leadership philosophy. I use this principle daily in my leadership practice. Simple tasks such as asking a nurse to take on an extra patient in their assignment are better supported by staff when they understand why they are being asked to extend their workload. In larger projects such as changes to patient flow models in the department identifying to team members the benefits to their own practice and rational for the changes help to engage team members in becoming motivated. Employees who are engaged are demonstrated to be more productive, more efficient and enjoy work more (Engelbrecht, Heine & Mahembe, 2017) demonstrating the importance of engagement in my leadership philosophy.

The second principle of my leadership philosophy is effective communication. Communication is a process where individuals create and use information to relate to one another and their environment using both verbal and nonverbal methods (Ruben & Gigliotti, 2016). As leaders and followers communicate over time a relationship is built on the interpretations and messages sent and received creating a foundation for communication in the future (Ruben & Gigliotti, 2016). This highlights the importance of communication in my leadership philosophy, as the relationship that I build with my team when I communicate will be the basis for future communications. I believe in the importance of role modeling effective communication skills with my team which means that developing my own skill as a communicator including a situational awareness of communication methods is an essential tool in my leadership. Some examples include; closed loop direct communication and making eye contact with team members in resuscitation (Mo et al, 2019), identifying and preparing for challenging conversations (Patterson, Grenny, McMillan & Switzler, 2012), and encouraging critical thinking and inquiry through the open-end questions (Van Quaquebeke & Felps, 2018). Effective communication is a key trait of good leaders (DuBois et al, 2015) and an important concept in my leadership philosophy.

The final principle in my leadership philosophy is reflection. A simple definition of reflection by Boud, Keogh & Walker 1985 (cited in Ette, 2017) describes reflection as “an important human activity in which people recapture their experience, think about it, mull over & evaluate it.’ (p.19). Reflection in nursing practice is a required element in order to maintain professional registration and identify areas for professional growth (College of Nurses of Ontario, 2019). Practicing self reflection not only allows me to build my individual competencies as a nurse, but further enhances my leadership abilities. Reflective practice aides in the development of emotionally capable nurse leaders (Horton-Deutsh & Sherwood, 2008). Being a reflective leader means that leaders can be flexible, reflect and adapt to a situation and apply the different leadership traits needed for different situations (Reardon, Fite, Boone & Sullivan, 2019). Through reflection I am a more contextually aware leader; knowing that leadership behaviours must be adapted to the situational factors (Oc, 2018). This is necessary working in the emergency department due to the dynamic leadership environment which requires frequent adaptation in order to meet the needs of patient, families and team members. The concept of self reflection also encourages me to evaluate how I have engaged and communicated with staff, creating the continuous cycle of engagement, communication and self reflection that is my leadership philosophy.

My personal leadership philosophy views leadership as a continuous repeating cycle of engagement, effective communication and self reflection. Engaging team members builds on the principles of andragogy and encourages motivation so that team members want to follow, creating more effective teams. Role modeling appropriate communication methods not only ensures messages are received, but encourages the development of team members. Practicing self reflection develops nursing skill, builds situational awareness and ensures I evaluate my own efficiency as a leader. In understanding and evaluating my leadership philosophy I am empowering myself to lead through an understating of my core principles.

References

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College of Nurses of Ontario. (2019). Self Assessment. Retrieved from http://www.cno.org/en/myqa/self-assessment/

DuBois, M., Hanlon, J., Koch, J., Nyatuga, B., & Kerr, N., (2015). Leadership Styles of Effective Project Managers: Techniques and Traits to Lead High Performance Teams. Journal of Economic Development, Management, IT, Finance and Marketing, 7(1), 30- 46. Retrieved from http://prosandconrads.com/files/4.pdf

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