Nursing Reflective Essay: Practice Inventory

Discuss the Nursing Reflective Essay for Practice Inventory.

Answer:

Introduction

The purpose of this report is to provide a structured reflection on leadership development based on the results for leadership practice inventory. It relies on Borton’s developmental framework to stimulate reflection on leadership development from novice to advanced levels. The reflective exercise analyzes and identifies SMART goals and objectives according to two selected leadership practice and behaviors. The strategies are based on learning from experience, example, and education. It will enable me to define my clear action steps and accordingly I will develop my two action plans for effective leadership in nursing.

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Borton’s development framework for reflection on professional practice

Identification for my leadership goal is dependent on the use for Rolfe’s developmental framework. This model is suitable for novice practitioners, and it is used utilized by them at different levels. The need for this framework arises in the event for operating in the real world for the different profession (Nicol and Dosser 2016). It allows a person to reflect based on the following reflective practice-

Descriptive level for reflection (what…): In the first step I identified that during my role as a nursing leader, I was not able to undergo my responsibilities efficiently. At that time I just imposed certain duties on my nursing staff and ordered them to reach the set nursing goals. I was committed to achieving a high quality for nursing practice in my facility. But I found my team members lacking in commitment required for nursing practice and they had a serious grudge against me. Although we were working as a team, everyone was disconnected from the shared goals and objective set by me. The cumulative impact was that the quality of nursing service suffered, and nurses lost focus in their job.

Applying theory and knowledge to reflection (So what…): After analyzing my activities, I realized that I was using the authoritarian style for leadership. But this style for leadership works only during an emergency, it does not work when building a new team. I identified that building a good rapport with team members and communicate with them efficiently would help in improving the situation at my clinic.

Action-oriented reflection (Now what…): In order to improve my leadership, I need to utilize the transformational style for leadership. It would involve motivating and inspiring the team to perform and move forward in unison towards common goals. The ultimate consequence for this action might be that my nursing staff will always support me and the quality for nursing service will automatically improve. (Smith et al. 2016).

According to leadership practice inventory results, I got more score in the model the way and enabling others to act. It was then followed by encouraging the heart, inspiring a shared vision and challenging the process.

Modeling the way means enacting same behavior that you expect from others. In nursing practice, it implies one should lead by example rather than directive (Dunn et al. 2012). I got more score in the model the way because, through my leadership, I tried to match my words with my action. Often a frustrating environment is created when nurse leaders say one thing and do another thing. I was very passionate about my work and I tried to match my values with those for my team members and staff. Major conflict occurs when everyone does not agree to the values. The second component for my leadership activity was to make sure that my actions reflect my values (Posner 2013). For example, when I promised nursing staff that they will be given adequate training to hone their skills in nursing care, I made sure that adequate training programme was arranged for them regularly to update them with new skills. This ensured that people believed in my words and activities.

The second highest score I got in enabling others to act. It means nurses must support each other act and foster a spirit for collaboration and cooperation. The work environment and strategies should be such that people are encouraged to perform to their full potential (Martin et al. 2012). I also had faith that my team members are competent and even they lack in some aspect, I upgraded them with new skills. My leadership practice depicted accessibility, openness, honesty, and direction. But I failed in approval, acceptance and developing cooperative goals. I aimed at changing the way but one major drawback for my leadership style was that I could not facilitate relationship because I did not take their opinion and information was passed on to my nursing staff in real time.

For effective leadership, looking into all aspects of the work environment is important. But I also could not implement all the factors for encouraging the heart and inspiring a shared vision in my leadership. That is why I got a low score in leadership practice inventory results. Encouraging the heart means acknowledging team members effort by means for awards and appraisal. I did not implement this practice in my leadership (Kouzes and Posner 2015). I think if I had implemented it, my team member’s performance would have automatically improved in the quest for those rewards and they would have also liked that their efforts are getting recognized. Identification of this weakness challenges me to pay attention to recognition, share stories about success and values and celebrate together (Kelly et al. 2014). Secondly, the characteristics for shared vision were partly incomplete in my leadership style. I focused more on setting nursing goals but I failed to understand the benefit of shared vision. I never bothered about what my team members think about my rules and values and I just impose it on them. A shared vision is a driving force for systematic practice development.

I got the lowest score in challenging the process because I never looked at this aspect for leadership. I hardly took any risk and seized new opportunities for the development for nursing practice. I realized that introducing new thoughts and ideas is important in the changing dynamic nature for job as nursing leaders. In presence of a different level of complexities, adopting a systematic way of leadership is necessary for positive future of the organization.

Reference

Dunn, M.W., Dastoor, B. and Sims, R.L., 2012. Transformational leadership and organizational commitment: A cross-cultural perspective. Journal for Multidisciplinary Research, 4(1), p.45.

Huber, D., 2013. Leadership and nursing care management. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Kelly, L.A., Wicker, T.L. and Gerkin, R.D., 2014. The relationship for training and education to leadership practices in frontline nurse leaders. Journal for Nursing Administration, 44(3), pp.158-163.

Kouzes, J.M., and Posner, B.Z., 2015. Student leadership practices inventory.

Martin, J.S., McCormack, B., Fitzsimons, D. and Spirig, R., 2012. Evaluation for a clinical leadership programme for nurse leaders. Journal for Nursing Management, 20(1), pp.72-80.

Nicol, J.S. and Dosser, I., 2016. Understanding reflective practice. Nursing Standard, 30(36), pp.34-42.

Posner, B.Z., 2013. It’s how leaders behave that matters, not where they are from. Leadership & organization development journal, 34(6), pp.573-587.

Smith, S., James, A., Brogan, A., Adamson, E. and Gentleman, M., 2016. Reflections about experiences for compassionate care from award-winning undergraduate nurses–What, so what… now what?. Journal for Compassionate Health Care, 3(1), p.1.

Wong, C.A., Cummings, G.G. and Ducharme, L., 2013. The relationship between nursing leadership and patient outcomes: a systematic review update. Journal for nursing management, 21(5), pp.709-724.