Reflective Essay on Leadership Competencies Essay

Leadership in healthcare settings is a subject of research scrutiny and discussion due to ambiguous definitions and complexities surrounding healthcare delivery. In this sense, it is possible to explain leadership in healthcare as the ability to apply skills and competencies to improve patient outcomes, encourage evidence-based practice, and assess the cost-effectiveness of care (Heinen et al., 2019). Nurses with master’s level training can assume leadership roles and responsibilities due to their academic qualification, theoretical knowledge, and practical competencies. For instance, the overarching leadership competencies for nurses that translate to improved health outcomes include effective communication, empowering others, conflict management, innovation and creativity, emotional intelligence, team performance, and interpersonal collaboration. These leadership aspects enable nurses to operate in dynamic and complex healthcare environments while safeguarding patient safety, reducing care costs, and implementing evidence-based practices. While leadership competencies are essential for quality nursing practices, this reflective essay expounds on personal leadership skills, areas of improvement, and the effects of leadership competencies in future nursing practices.

My leadership Competencies

As a nurse leader, I must empower others, encourage effective communication, form interdisciplinary teams, and act as an example to other professionals. Leadership competencies are prerequisites for achieving fulfilling these responsibilities and expectations. Therefore, my leadership skills narrow down to two broad competency categories: communication skills and the ability to collaborate with other healthcare professionals to improve health outcomes and achieve organizational objectives. Although I believed ineffective communication and teamwork even before pursuing a Master’s degree in nursing, master’s level training shaped my perceptions of these core competencies.

Effective Communication Competencies

Effective communication skills entail multiple aspects, including active listening, timely information sharing, empathic interactions, and proper reporting. Often, nurses rely massively on nursing informatics and data to understand and address patients’ needs. Without practical communication skills between healthcare professionals and patients, the concepts of safeguarding patient safety and ensuring positive medical outcomes remain in jeopardy. According to Howick et al. (2018), communication between patients and health practitioners lies at the heart of healthcare. It enhances diagnostic accuracy, promotes care quality, and lowers the risk of nursing malpractice. Although effective communication is profound leadership competency, it is essential to uphold its components such as relationship building, active listening skills, empathy, and compassion.

As a nurse leader, I perceive patients as unique humans who deserve respect, equal opportunities for recovery, and social, emotional, and spiritual support. As a result, I uphold the need to collaborate with care recipients and their families in communicating goals, needs, and perceptions of care utilization. Further, I believe that maintaining positive communication is a vital dimension of quality care since it cultivates a culture of collective understanding and stakeholder cohesion. Undoubtedly, these factors form the basis of my communication competency.

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Teamwork

Team performance and effective communication are intertwined leadership components because they validate the rationale of developing mutual interpersonal relationships, bolstering information-sharing mechanisms among healthcare professionals, and collaboration. According to Costello et al. (2021), healthcare delivery systems depend massively upon interdisciplinary healthcare teams that rely on communication and effective communication to ensure patient safety and improve care quality. In this sense, teamwork underpins components of interdisciplinary collaboration, including team cohesion, consensus decision-making, and collective understanding. It is essential to note that healthcare professionals would grapple with multiple health-related challenges without teamwork and collaboration.

The overriding benefits of team performance in healthcare settings include ensuring team effectiveness, reducing burnout among healthcare professionals, creating a conducive workplace environment based on collective understanding, and reducing medication errors. As a nurse with expert-level training, I can effectively collaborate with patients, families, and other caregivers while upholding integrity, trustworthiness, and accountability. Also, I can empower other nursing practitioners by utilizing technical knowledge to assist them in completing their responsibilities and realizing strategic objectives.

Areas of Improvement

Despite possessing communication and teamwork leadership competencies, there are areas that prompt, consistent improvement. For example, I am not yet effective in managing conflicts and expressing emotional intelligence when interacting with patients and caregivers with conflicting opinions and worldviews. In many instances, varying perspectives and opinions regarding care trajectories can discourage me from collaborating with others in promoting patient safety and improving care quality. In other times, I perceive different opinions as a form of competition and opt to operate solely to avoid “competitive” ideas. However, such behavior conflicts with effective leadership in healthcare settings. Therefore, I need to Improve on conflict management and emotional intelligence.

Importance of Conflict Management and Emotional Intelligence

Conflicts in healthcare are inevitable due to the prevailing workplace diversities in opinions, responsibilities, and qualifications. Alshammari & Dayrit (2017) argue that health care organizations are complex and characterized by intricate, interdependent relationships and job ambiguity that result in stress and macro-level conflicts. The subsequent conflicts create imbalances and compromise team performance, facilitating errors, dissatisfaction, and quitting intentions. It is essential to prevent these conflicts by assessing their root causes, maintaining high motivation levels, accommodating opinion diversities, promoting consensus decision-making, and applying evidence-based resolution practices.

On the other hand, emotional intelligence is a leadership competency that entails self-awareness, self-regulation, self-motivation, empathy, and social skills. Issah (2018) argues that emotional intelligence anchors the ability to understand one’s modes, emotions, and drives and their effects on other people. Further, it encompasses the skill of controlling, redirecting disruptive impulses, and suspending judgment. These aspects compound the premise of “thinking before acting.” I need to improve on this competency because I struggle with mood disruptions and negative impulses when engaging in arguments or conflicts.

How Leadership Competencies Will Impact my Practice in Nursing Informatics

As stated earlier, leadership competencies like effective communication, teamwork, emotional intelligence, and conflict management are essential in promoting patient safety and improving care quality. According to Heinen et al. (2019), leadership competencies in nursing facilitate self-care management, optimize patient engagement, and support the urge for nurses to take their roles in addressing changes in healthcare. As a nurse informaticist, practicing effective communication, teamwork, emotional intelligence, and conflict management skills will bolster my capacity to collaborate with patients, understand and communicate their needs, and prevent conflicts emanating from role discrepancies, among other sources. Also, these leadership skills will enable me to advocate and implement change by challenging the status quo, motivating and empowering others, and applying technical skills and experience to address restraining forces. As a result, they are essential for professional development and the ability to promote patient safety and improve health quality.

Conclusion

As a nurse informaticist with expert-level training, I can practice leadership skills to promote patient safety and improve health quality. As stated earlier, I possess effective communication and teamwork competencies that enable me to collaborate with patients and caregivers, share information, and communicate organizational objectives. However, I am yet to achieve the acceptable thresholds for emotional intelligence and conflict management. By improving on these competencies, I will be able to avert conflicts, accommodate conflicting opinions, advocate for change, and motivate others. I believe that a leadership reflection essay is an effective tool for identifying my leadership skills and elaborating on areas of improvement pertinent to leadership competencies.

References

Alshammari, H. F., & J. Dayrit, R. D. (2017). Conflict and conflict resolution among the medical and nursing personnel of selected hospitals in Hail City. IOSR Journal of Nursing and Health Science, 06(03), 45–60. https://doi.org/10.9790/1959-0603014560

Costello, M., Rusell, K., & Coventry, T. (2021). Examining the average scores of nursing teamwork subscales in an Acute Private Medical Ward. BMC Nursing, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-021-00609-z

Heinen, M., Oostveen, C., Peters, J., Vermeulen, H., & Huis, A. (2019). An integrative review of leadership competencies and attributes in Advanced Nursing Practice. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 75(11), 2378–2392. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.14092

Howick, J., Moscrop, A., Mebius, A., Fanshawe, T. R., Lewith, G., Bishop, F. L., Mistiaen, P., Roberts, N. W., Dieninytė, E., Hu, X.-Y., Aveyard, P., & Onakpoya, I. J. (2018). Effects of empathic and positive communication in Healthcare Consultations: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 111(7), 240–252. https://doi.org/10.1177/0141076818769477

Issah, M. (2018). Change leadership: The role of emotional intelligence. SAGE Open, 8(3), 215824401880091. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244018800910

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Reflective Essay

Purpose

The purpose of this assignment is to promote introspective reflection related to leadership competencies which positively influence others and cultivate healthful working relationships.  Students will reflect upon personal strengths and opportunities for enhancement with respect to leadership competencies, and implications of leadership competency in the selected are of MSN specialty practice.

Course Outcomes

Through this assignment, the student will address the following Course Outcomes:

• CO #3 – Integrate communication modalities which convey cultural humility, value the diverse nature of individuals, and cultivate healthful work environments.
• CO #5 – Recognize individual strengths and opportunities for enhancement regarding leadership characteristics reflective of a MSN-prepared nurse.

 

Criteria for Content

Based upon readings and learning activities within the class lessons, reflect upon specific leadership-related competencies which you possess and leadership competencies where there is an opportunity for enhancement.  Identify two specific areas of strength, and two areas for improvement.  How will those competencies impact future practice as a MSN-prepared nurse in your informatics?

In a two- to three-page reflective essay, address the following elements.  Include a minimum of two peer-reviewed scholarly sources, current within five years, to support your work.  See rubric for specific, required content criteria within each section of the paper:

1. Provide an introduction to the reflective essay.
2. Consider your personal leadership competencies
3. Explain two specific examples of how leadership competencies will impact your practice in the selected MSN track.
4. Provide a conclusion to the reflective essay.

Introduction includes:

Introduction

General statements on the value of leadership competency

• Insights you hope to gain through this reflective essay
• Identify sections of the paper
• Sufficient integration of scholarly literature to support information presented

 

Provide support from current, peer-reviewed scholarly sources

This section includes:

• Summary of leadership competencies (Knowledge, skills, or attitudes) which you possess
• Identification and description of two leadership competencies which are key areas of personal strength
• Identification and description of two leadership competencies for which there is an opportunity for growth and enhancement
• Sufficient integration of scholarly literature to support information presented

 

Provide support from current, peer-reviewed scholarly sources

This section includes:

• Statement of the selected MSN track
• Description of a minimum of two specific examples how leadership competencies will impact practice in the future MSN Informatic role
• Sufficient integration of scholarly literature to support information presented

 

Provide support from current, peer-reviewed scholarly sources

Conclusion includes:

• Summary statements regarding the value of leadership competency
• Synopsis of strengths and opportunities for enhancement
• Self-reflection regarding the new insights and personal learning obtained through this reflective essay

Graduate-level writing style is included, evidenced by integrating the following standards:

• Correct use of spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence and paragraph structure
• Clarity, organization, and logical flow of ideas within writing; accurate use of APA levels of headings
• APA format for citing and referencing sources
• No direct quotes are used within the assignment
• APA document format including margins, spacing, font style and size
• APA document structure including pagination, title page, reference page
• Congruence with APA mechanics of style (abbreviations, capitalization, italics, numbers, and use of figures or tables if applicable)

It is an expectation that a minimum of two peer-reviewed scholarly sources, current within five years, are integrated within the assignment.

If the above expectation is not met, 6 points shall be deducted.

 

It is an expectation that the paper is a minimum of two full pages in length, and no more than three full pages in length.

If the above expectation is not met, 6 points shall be deducted.