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Lorri A Bradley
Delaware Technical Community College
NUR 400
Nursing Leadership Theory
December 3 2021
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Nursing is a very dynamic profession that at times requires the current

environment to make changes from minute to minute with each new patient. As
an advocate for their patient, the nurse has a natural element of leadership built
into their jobs (Krepia, Katsaragaskis, Kaiteidou, & Prexerakos 2018). There are
many types of leadership style, however the transformational leadership style
promotes a better work environment for nurses and best relates to my work
experience as a nurse in my current practice.

Transformational leadership is when leaders help workers exceed their

minimal expectations by promoting change to the workers values, norms, and
personal interest, which leads to improved organizational effectiveness (Choo,
Kim, & Kang, 2017). Being a leader does not mean one has to be a manager.
Managers are placed in a position to manage staff and departments, which are
looked upon as resources. Leaders earn their status with a willingness to work
harder, continue improving one’s self through educational components, as well as
mentoring willing peers. There are formal as well as informal leaders in every
organization and at times the informal leaders are just as effective as the formal
leaders. Informal leaders are essential to the organization because they can get
peer buy- in easily. If peers see the informal leaders doing the job and not having
a formal title or compensation they tend to follow or emulate them.

Nurses are the front-line contact to advocate for patients and therefore it is
important for nurses to become leaders or have leadership behaviour. By
mentoring new staff, it keeps the work place environment less hostile between
the inexperienced and the experienced nurses. Nurses can utilize a
transformational leadership style in all areas of nursing, from bedside patient
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care, to first line management, such as charge nurses, and upper management
such as the hospital’s Chief Executive Officer.

First line managers primarily consist of nurses and play an important role in
achieving a good workplace environment because they influence the employee’s
psychosocial working environment (Keisu, Ohman & Enberg 2018). It is imperative
that nurses take an active role in leading both in the patient care role as well as a
management role and using the transformational leadership style promotes a
good and healthy workplace environment.

Learning to develop into an effective transformational leader involves focus

on staff development as well as embracing change as a positive factor that needs
to be consistent in the medical field.

The characteristics of the transformational leader include self-confidence,

self-direction, honesty, energy, loyalty, commitment, and the ability to develop
and implement plans (Finkelman 2020). Utilizing these characteristics along with
continuing education, will allow the nurse leader to be an effective mentor to the
new staff. Encouraging continuing education will empower staff, leading to better
more efficient work production. Building good relationships with other employees
promotes a positive work environment which in turn increases staff satisfaction,
which will lead to increased patient satisfaction and benefits the organization as a
whole. Highly motivated staff is the foundation for excellent nursing care,
reported by the patient as well as the nursing staff (Mantynen, Vehvilainen-
Julkunen, Partanen, Turunen, Miettinen, & Kvist, 2014). Transformational leaders
need to be emotionally investing in their staff which in turn will have a positive
effect on the organization.
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Lifelong learning is critical in the healthcare field when working in the role
of a patient advocate. A transformational leader needs to be able to embrace
change, especially in the healthcare field where changes are always taking place.
Self-direction is one of the characteristics of a transformational leader. Continuing
education will increase the nurse’s ability to provide care for the patients at the
bedside, improve patient education, and better advocate for their patients.
Patients expect and deserve to have the highest level of care and through
continued education nurses can keep up with the latest evidence-based practices
that will lead to better patient outcomes.

Communication and collaboration with healthcare team members, as well

as administrators, is vital to becoming a successful transformational leader.
Transformational leadership involves empowering the staff to collaborate with
managers on decision making. It is critical that a nursing leader communicates
with administrators to understand the vision of the organization in an effort to
achieve long term goals. Although staff is empowered, it is the responsibility of
the transformational leader to maintain structure when striving to reach the goals
of the organization.

Collaborative communication among interdisciplinary teams, such as

nutrition, primary care, physical therapy, benefit the patient by keeping everyone
on the same page and providing an overall greater healthcare experience. Open
communication is a valuable and crucial characteristic of a successful healthcare
team.

My aspirations as a nurse leader are to continue my both my academic and

practical education. I will maintain a willingness to assist my manager or
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managers, my peers, and both the inexperienced (new) or experienced nurses, by

keeping an open line of communication. I will also continue my goal of becoming
a nurse practitioner which will aid in my ability to provide the best patient care
and be an advocate for my patients. I want to advocate for those that I come in
direct contact with through my practice and also advocate for those in the
community by volunteering in health clinics. I believe that developing or assisting
in local community events such as immunization clinics or serving the under-
served population such as the homeless can improve the lives of many in my
community or other countries. Continuing education and continued work on my
communication skills as well as developing contacts in the community will help
me become a better nursing leader and patient advocate.

I believe in being the best nurse and patient advocate that you can be and
by doing so you need to wear many hats.

Transformational leadership plays an important by increasing the quality of

nursing work life (Suratno, Ariyanti, &Kadar, 2018). Transformational leadership
will guide future endeavors by maintaining open communication and
collaboration between tams in order to meet the needs of the patients their
support system, communities and organizations. Nurses are leaders because of
the inherent nature of the job and leadership is an important aspect of nursing
that should be continually improved up.
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References

Choi, S., Kim, K., & Kang, S. (2017). Effects of transformational and shared

leadership styles on employees’ perception of team effectiveness. Social

Behavior & Personality: An International Journal, 45(3), 377–386. doi:

10.2224/sbp.5805

Finkelman, A. (2020, October 19). Leadership and management for nurses: core

competencies for quality care, 4th edition. Pearson. BryteWave. Retrieved

from https://shelf.brytewave.com/#/books/9780134046464/

Keisu, B., Öhman, A., & Enberg, B. (2018). Employee effort – reward balance and

first‐level manager transformational leadership within elderly care.

Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences, 32(1), 407–416. doi:

10.1111/scs.12475

Krepia, V., Katsaragakis, S., Kaitelidou, D., & Prezerakos, P. (2018).

Transformational leadership and its evolution in nursing. Progress in Health

Sciences, 8(1), 189–194. doi: 10.5604/01.3001.0012.1114

Mäntynen, R., Vehviläinen-Julkunen, K., Partanen, P., Turunen, H., Miettinen, M.,

& Kvist, T. (2014. June 10). Changes in transformational leadership and

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empirical quality outcomes in a finnish hospital over a two-year period: A

longitudinal study. Nursing Research & Practice, 1–9. doi:

10.1155/2014/218069

Suratno, K., Ariyanti, S., & Kadar, K. S. (2018). The relationship between

transformational leadership and quality of nursing work life in hospital.

International Journal of Caring Sciences, 11(3), 1416–1422. Retrieved from

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