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Professional Activity Nana Henewaa Stratford University NSG 470: Leadership, Management and Current Professional Issues in Nursing Professor Benjaga April 29, 2021

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Professional Activity Nana Henewaa Stratford University NSG 470: Leadership, Management and Current Professional Issues in Nursing Professor Benjaga April 29, 2021. 2 Professional Activity Nurse leaders are essential in health care because they play a vital role in quality care delivery. They ensure safe and quality care delivery and must be aware of the relationship between stronger teams and high-quality and safe care (Murray et al., 2017). As a result, nurse leaders must be well-informed on the safety standards and protocols of the health care professionals and those of their place of work. Their role is to supervise and guide members of their team to ensure every patient receives optimum care. A nurse leader should also know how to integrate long-term strategic steps into daily practice. For this activity, I interviewed Sarah, an RN BSN nursing Supervisor, at a Senior Assisted Living Facility(Goodwin House). Before the interview, I asked to shadow her for a few hours during a typical work shift and observe her interaction with other nurses and patients. During the interview, I was keen to observe and deduce Sarah's skills and qualities that were demonstrative of a nurse leader's character. I interviewed Sarah to identify the skills and qualities that help her perform her duties effectively as a leader. I chose Sarah because I believe that being a nurse leader is a challenging position that requires the highest level of qualifications, skills, and characteristics to ensure that patients receive safe and quality care. The main objective of the interview is to explore a leader's roles and objectives, skills, and qualities required to deal with day-to-day challenges at the place of work. The interview added to my knowledge of what it takes to be a nurse leader and be a productive and effective leader. From what I deduced from her responses, Sarah seems to have all the characteristics of a nurse leader. For instance, she is emotionally intelligent because she helps her peers cope with daily workplace challenges and stress. Sarah also demonstrates exceptional integrity, demonstrated in her ability to make unbiased and ethical choices during patient treatment and care. She is also a critical thinker, which helps her makes decisions in complicated health care matters. Her articulation of 3 responses also demonstrated good communication skills, which I believe is why she gets along and is respected by her team members, and consistently achieves the intended objective in collaborative care. When I asked Sarah about her strengths and weaknesses, she explained that leadership does not happen in isolation. Therefore her strengths lie in influencing change by assisting others in achieving their objectives. She explained that emotional and social intelligence are vital qualities of a leader and a crucial factor of effective leadership. However, Sarah's weakness presents in the need to be liked by everyone. She admitted that it is hard to be authoritative without having a few people disliking you, which makes her sad and sometimes doubtful of whether some decisions are too stringent. Her leadership style is motivational. Embree et al. (2018) describe a motivational leadership style as one where leaders motivate their team members and guide them into actions that meet organizational or team objectives. One of Sarah's incidents that demonstrated her leadership style was a communication error that she solved by scheduling a meeting with the involved nurses in the care team, immediately realizing the mistake. She said that to avoid repeating the mistake, Sarah now schedules regular meetings with the nurses under her supervision to brainstorm real and hypothetical scenarios that could interfere with patient care. She has also helped to resolve multiple conflicts between her co-workers. Sarah believes that it is essential to recognize conflicts early to prevent unresolvable conflicts. Her regular scheduled meetings help construe impending conflict because how people communicate in informal and formal settings can show warning signs of a conflict. In case of a conflict, she actively listens to the other person while staying calm, which helps her identify the issue and provide a solution. Further, Sarah manages stress through practical organization skills, asking for advice from her seniors and peers, staying positive, and ensuring clear communication channels. Sarah believes that a leader should foster a healthy workplace, and therefore she works with 4 others as partners with mutual respect and collaboration. As a result, everybody is happy, and patient outcomes are improved, medical errors are reduced, lower turnover, and fewer communication problems. Additionally, critical thinking is vital in decision-making. Critical thinking helps in collecting and interpreting data necessary for decision-making. According to Sarah, teamwork and collaboration are fostered by setting clear team goals, clearly communicating the organization's expectations, motivating team members, and leveraging team members' strengths. During the interview, the essential communication skills that I used include observation, listening skills, friendliness, and respect. The role of nurse leaders is essential in nursing practice because the nurse leaders ensure safe and quality care delivery. Further, nurse leaders are associated with enhanced patient outcomes, improved staff retention, reduced turnover, and decreased medical errors. Nurse leaders also maintain evidence-based practices in their teams which informs patient care choice. Additionally, nurse leaders monitor patient care to ensure team members are providing optimum quality care (Alexander, 2017). They respect patients' views and solve their complaints appropriately, achieving high-quality experiences for nurses and patients. Nures leaders also provide a supportive culture and environment by addressing barriers such as communication and workplace conflict. In essence, nurse leaders are essential in health care because they guide and supervise members to ensure safe and quality care. They also ensure effective collaboration and teamwork. The interview with Sarah helped me appreciate the skills and qualities of an effective leader. Communication skills and the ability to solve workplace conflicts proved vital to ensuring a healthy and stress-free working environment. Essential leadership characteristics that I was able to observe included respect, emotional intelligence, integrity, critical thinking, and good communication skills. 5 References Alexander, S. (2017). Leadership in nursing: The importance of influence. Clinical Nurse Specialist: The Journal for Advanced Nursing Practice, 32(6), 309–310. https://doi.org/https://www.nursingcenter.com/journalarticle?Article_ID=4353546&J ournal_ID=54033&Issue_ID=4353450 Embree, J. L., Wagnes, L., Hendricks, S., LaMothe, J., Halstead, J., & Wright, L. (2018). Empowering nurses to lead interprofessional collaborative practice environments through a nurse leadership institute. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 49(2), 61–71. https://doi.org/10.3928/00220124-20180116-05 Murray, M., Sundin, D., & Cope, V. (2017). The nexus of nursing leadership and a culture of safer patient care. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 27(5-6), 1287–1293. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.13980 Professional Activity NSG 470 Leadership, Management and Current Professional Issues in Nursing Select and arrange to interview a nurse leader. This may be a nurse leader from your work, a hospital, an educator, a friend, but the nurse must hold a leadership position. Possible interview questions, but you may create your own: When was the activity completed? • Name of the person interviewed? Job title and job description based upon interview questions. • What was the reason for selecting this nurse leader for the interview? • What were the objectives of the interview? (you should write objectives if you are interviewing a leader and share them at the beginning of the interview) • What is the nurse leader’s leadership style? • What are some of your leadership strengths and weaknesses? • Has there been a situation during your career when you made a communication error? If so, how did you resolve it? • How would you resolve a conflict with a coworker, patient, or physician? • How do you manage stress at work? • What do you believe is the role of leadership in fostering a health workplace? • How does critical thinking influence decision-making observed during the activity or for the person interviewed? (you will have to prepare for this by looking up critical thinking skills) • How is teamwork and collaboration fostered? What essential communication skills did you use during the interview? Provide a specific example? Analysis: How does the nurse leader’s position impact nursing practice? This is an APA formatted paper. Have the nurse leader sign a copy of this rubric verifying the time and date of the interview. Level of Proficiency Criteria Introduction Exemplary Constructs well thought introduction clearly preparing reader for contents of paper. 10 Accomplished Constructs introduction preparing reader for contents of paper. Main idea clear 8 Developing Constructs introduction with minimal preparation for contents of paper. Main idea vague 6 Beginning Introduction disorganized. Main idea vague or missing. 1: no introduction earns a zero (0) Conveys essential elements of the interview related to the objectives Expression of how the activity or nursing impacts nursing practice Well-stated written paper of the essential elements and clearly relates the intervew to the objectives 15 Good paper of the essential elements and clearly relates the intervew to the objectives 12 Good paper of the Disorganized essential elements summary with and clearly relates multiple gaps. 5: the intervew to the objectives identifiable gaps. 8 Well-stated analysis of how the activity/nurse leader position impacts nursing practice 10 Analyzes how the activity/nurse leader position impacts nursing practice 6 Analyzes how the activity/nurse leader position impacts nursing practice with identifiable gaps 4 Poor analysis of how the activity/nurse leader position impacts nursing practice with identifiable multiple gaps 2 Conclusion Constructs well thought conclusion clearly summarizing contents of paper. 10 Constructs conclusion summarizes contents of paper. Main idea clear. 8 Constructs conclusion with minimal summary of contents of paper. Main idea vague 6 Conclusion disorganized. Main idea vague or missing. 1; No conclusion earns a zero (0) Attribution ___ All sources properly attributed, no plagiarism, paraphrasing and direct quotes where appropriate 5 ___ Sources properly attributed, no plagiarism 4 ___ Attribution present but significantly incomplete, papers contains plagiarism 2 ___ No attribution which leads to plagiarism 0; may result in paper earning zero points. APA format ___ Entire paper is double-spaced with 1" margins___ 12 pt font, New Times Roman___ Correct running head (header) with pagination___ Title, name, school name centered and doublespaced (please also include course number and title, date and instructor's name)___ Length sufficient to properly develop written communication with respect to the main idea, subtopics, etc. (ca. 5-7 or perhaps a few more pages)5 ___ Adheres to APA format but lacks 1-2 elements 4 ___ Adheres to a small number of APA elements 2 ___ Does not adhere to APA elements 1 References & Citations ___ References on separate titled page (centered, bolded) ___ In correct APA format (all information included and appropriate for type of source) ___ Listed alphabetically ___ Hanging indent ___ Each source is cited at least once and all cited sources are included in references ___ All in-text citations complete and correctly applied 5 ___ References on separate titled page (centered) ___ Not all in correct APA format (all information included and appropriate for type of source) ___ Less than the following (listed alphabetically; hanging indent; minimum of four credible, accurate and appropriate sources; each source is cited at least once and all cited sources are included in references, citations complete and correct) 4 ___References present but significantly incomplete, unclear or otherwise minimally acceptable 3 ___ No references for unoriginal work 0 - may result in a zero for the entire paper.