Leadership Assessment Assignment Discussion Paper
Leadership assessment is a tool that evaluates an individual’s management skills. Conducting a leadership assessment can offer an objective idea of leadership abilities and competencies, thereby helping in efforts to capitalize on leadership strengths and improve leadership weaknesses. In fact, the assessment helps in evaluating and improving leadership skills even as it determines the potential leadership attributes and styles that an individual is likely to apply to the leadership position. In addition, it helps in honing the leadership strengths, increasing self-awareness and advancing the professional career (DeNisco, 2022). A leadership assessment serves five main functions. First, it helps in optimizing the leadership strengths by identifying leadership skills. Second, it helps in locating and focusing on management weaknesses along with skills that may need further development thus offering an opportunity to target and improve on them. Third, it helps in improving self-awareness by understanding leadership traits and abilities, and increasing awareness of personal strengths that can be capitalized on even as the leadership challenges are overcome. Fourth, it helps in increasing leadership potential by guiding the creation of a leadership development plan, future direction and goals. Fifth, it helps in guiding and developing future career plans for career advancement, such as deciding on a training program to enroll for (Chism, 2022). This paper discusses the results of a leadership assessment, goals in nursing leadership development, and development as a nurse leader.
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Explain your self-assessment in relation to the nurse leadership competencies. Be sure to identify your strengths and potential gaps in relation to these competencies.
The self-assessment was conducted in relation to nurse leadership competencies as presented by the American Organization of Nursing Leadership (AONL). The competencies are presented in five main groups. First, communication and relationship building competencies that involve academic relationships, having relationships with other medical personnel, engaging the community, facilitating diversity, influencing behaviors, and effective communication. The results of the assessment reveal that these competencies are strengths with no significant gaps although there is room for improvement, especially in the areas of community involvement and diversity that require dealing with foreign cultures (American Organization of Nursing Leadership, 2015).
Second, competencies involving knowledge of the health care environment. This includes risk management, performance metrics/improvement, patient safety, evidence-based practice, governance, health care policy and economics, work design (delivery models), and clinical practice. The results of the assessment reveals significant weaknesses in health care economics competency, particularly in the understanding of payer mix, and understanding of payment and regulation issues affecting organization finances. Third, competencies involving leadership and management functions. This includes change management, succession planning, systems thinking, personal journey disciplines, and foundational thinking skills. The results of the assessment reveals significant weaknesses in succession planning and systems thinking (American Organization of Nursing Leadership, 2015).
Fourth, competencies involving professionalism. This includes advocacy, ethics, career planning, and personal and professional accountability. The results of the assessment reveals that there are no significant weaknesses, although the strengths may need to be refined. Finally, competencies involving business skills. This includes information management and technology, strategic management, human resource management, and financial management. The results of the assessment reveals weakness in all the competencies involving business skills (American Organization of Nursing Leadership, 2015).
Describe at least four goals for nurse leadership development that you would like to pursue, given the results of your self-assessment.
The assessment makes it clear that leadership is foundational nurse leadership development. This requires that the identified leadership competencies be leveraged and weaknesses addressed. Towards this end, five goals have been identified for nurse leadership development. The first goal is to improve the communication and relationship building competencies within the next one year by listening closely to what others say, seeking clarification, embracing diversity, and asking others whether they understand what I am communicating. This will be helpful in improving communication and relationship building (Finkelman, 2019).
The second goal is to improve knowledge of the health care environment by attending continuing nursing education to acquire the associated skills. This improvement will be an ongoing process. This will be helpful in improving the capacity for risk management, performance improvement, patient safety, evidence-based practice, and governance. In addition, the continuing education will improve clinical practice knowledge and awareness of delivery models (Stanley, 2017).
The third goal is to improve leadership by practicing and attending targeted education programs. This will be an ongoing process. Practicing the associated skills and competencies will help with improving familiarity and ability to use them proficiently. In addition, attending education programs on systems thinking and succession planning to improve awareness and use of these competencies (Marshall & Broome, 2017).
The fourth goal is becoming more professional as a nurse. This will be an ongoing process. Towards this end, I will engage in advocacy and ethics activities that enable me to improve on these competencies. Besides that, engaging the services of a mentor to improve career planning. Additionally, joining a professional nursing organization and participating in its activities to personal and professional accountability competencies. The final goal is learning and using business skills within the next two years. This will involve attending business-oriented courses to improve information management and technology, strategic management, human resource management, and financial management competencies. Whenever I learn new business skills, I will look for opportunities to apply them (Murray, 2022).
Explain why these goals are pertinent to your development as a nurse leader. How will developing these leadership competencies support your healthcare organization or nursing practice?
The identified leadership competencies identify what it means to be a successful nurse leader and professional – across the performance continuum, from the lower to upper leadership levels. In fact, improving the competencies as identified through the five goals will involve improving and refining behaviors and skills that contribute to superior nurse leadership performance. Through using the competency-based leadership assessment, it becomes easier to identify and develop leadership capabilities (Chism, 2022). As identified by AONL, the goals effectively capture the main qualities required in nurse leadership positions.
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Developing the competencies support nursing practice in five ways. First, the competencies provide a sense of safety and demonstrate strong ethics. This is useful for nursing practice that seek to convey commitment to fairness, and instils tong confidence that nurses and the practice will honor practice principles. Within such an environment, the nurses will relax, and invoke the brain’s higher capacity for ambition, creativity, innovation and social engagement (Cherry & Jacob, 2019). Secondly, the competencies empower nurses to self-organize. They provide a clear direction while allowing nurses to organize their own work and time. Third, the competencies foster a sense of belonging and connection. The leaders will be able to communicate openly and often thereby creating a feeling of succeeding and failing together. This creates an emotional connection that affects emotional wellbeing and productivity. Fourth, the competencies foster organizational learning while showing openness to new ideas even as they provide safety for trial and error. If a leader has these competencies, he/she would encourage rather than stifle learning. Fifth, the competencies nurture growth by committing to ongoing training. They maximize the chances of success in leadership by nurturing and teaching leadership skills (DeNisco, 2022).
Conclusion
In closing, this analysis reveals that the identified competencies represent the set of abilities, skills and knowledge that constitute effective nurse leadership. These competencies present five areas of challenges to leaders. However, with deep self-reflect and a shift in perspective, there is an opportunity to improve leadership performance. Overall, the leadership competencies effectively capture the main qualities required in nurse leadership position even as they help in effectively building a unique set of skills for leaders that will help the organization to sustain competitive advantage.
References
American Organization of Nursing Leadership (2015. Nurse Executive Competencies. https://www.aonl.org/system/files/media/file/2019/06/nec.pdf
Cherry, B., & Jacob, S. R. (2019). Contemporary Nursing: Issues, Trends, & Management (8th ed.). Elsevier, Inc.
Chism, L. A. (2022). The Doctor of Nursing Practice: A Guidebook for Role Development and Professional Issues (5th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC.
DeNisco, S. M. (2022). Role Development for the Nurse Practitioner (3rd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC.
Finkelman, A. (2019). Professional Nursing Concepts: Competencies for Quality Leadership (4th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC.
Marshall, E., & Broome, M. (2017). Transformational leadership in nursing: From expert clinician to influential leader (2nd ed.). Springer.
Murray, E. (2022). Nursing Leadership and Management for Patient Safety and Quality Care (2nd ed.). F.A. Davis Company.
Stanley, D. (2017). Clinical Leadership in Nursing and Healthcare: Values into Action (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Please include an introduction with a purpose and a conclusion as per rubric Instructions Explain your self-assessment in relation to the nurse leadership competencies. Be sure to identify your strengths and potential gaps in relation to these competencies. Describe at least four goals for nurse leadership development that you would like to pursue, given the results of your self-assessment. Be specific. Explain why these goals are pertinent to your development as a nurse leader. How will developing these leadership competencies support your healthcare organization or nursing practice? Be specific. Some references 1) American Organization for Nursing Leadership (n.d.). AONL https://www.aonl.org/resources/nurse-leader-competencies 2) https://www.jointcommission.org/-/media/deprecated-unorganized/imported-assets/tjc/system-folders/topics-library/sea_57_safety_culture_leadership_ 3) Johannessen, T., Ree, E., Strømme, T., Aase, I., Bal, R., & Wiig, S. (2019). Designing and pilot testing of a leadership intervention to improve quality and safety in nursing homes and home care (the SAFE-LEAD intervention). BMJ Open, 9(6) doi:https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-027790 4) http://www.healthcareleadershipalliance.org/ Leadership Assessment Assignment Discussion Paper
Review the Learning Resources for this week and reflect on qualitative research methods and designs. Select a topic or issue in nursing practice to focus on for this Discussion. Consider a qualitative research question that you might develop to address the topic or issue in nursing practice that you selected. Reflect on how a qualitative research design might best support a research study to address your research question. Focus of the discussion. Please, address each item Post a qualitative research question in relation to your topic or issue of interest. Explain why a qualitative research design is best suited to support this research question. Then, describe potential ethical considerations you should keep in mind in relation to your qualitative research question. Be specific and provide examples.