LEADERSHIP

Are You Ready to Be a Leader?

You may be thinking, “I’m just beginning my career in nursing. How can I be expected to be a
leader now?” This is an important question. You will need time to refine your clinical skills and
learn how to function in a new environment. But you can begin to assume some leadership
functions right away within your new nursing roles. In fact, leadership should be seen as a
dimension of nursing practice (Scott & Miles, 2013). Consider the following example:

Billie Thomas was a new staff nurse at Green Valley Nursing Care Center. After orientation, she
was assigned to a rehabilitation unit with high ad- mission and discharge rates. Billie noticed that
admissions and discharges were assigned rather hap- hazardly. Anyone who was “free” at the
moment was directed to handle them. Sometimes, unlicensed as- sistant personnel were directed
to admit or discharge residents. Billie believed that this was inappropriate because they are not
prepared to do assessments and they had no preparation for discharge planning.
Billie had an idea how discharge planning could be improved but was not sure that she should
bring it up because she was so new. “Maybe they’ve already thought of this,” she said to a
former classmate. They began to talk about what they had learned in their leadership course
before graduation. “I just keep hearing our instructor saying, ‘There’s only one manager, but
anyone can be a leader.’”
“If you want to be a leader, you have to act on your idea. Why don’t you talk with your
nurse manager?” her friend asked.
“Maybe I will,” Billie replied.
Billie decided to speak with her nurse manager, an experienced rehabilitation nurse who seemed
not only approachable but also open to new ideas. “I have been so busy getting our new
electronic health record system on line before the surveyors come that I wasn’t paying attention
to that,” the nurse manager told her. “I’m glad you brought it to my attention.” Billie’s nurse
manager raised the issue at the next executive meeting, giving credit to Billie for having brought
it to her attention. The other nurse manag- ers had the same response. “We were so focused on
the new electronic health record system that we overlooked that. We need to take care of this
situa- tion as soon as possible. Billie Thomas has leadership
potential.”

Leadership Defined

Successful nurse leaders are those who engage others to work together effectively in pursuit of a
shared goal. Examples of shared goals in nursing would be providing excellent care, reducing
infec- tion rates, designing cost-saving procedures, or challenging the ethics of a new policy.

Leadership is a much broader concept than is management. Although managers need to be

leaders, management itself is focused specifically on achievement of organizational goals.
Leadership, on the other hand:

. . . occurs whenever one person attempts to influence the behavior of an individual or group—up, down,
or sideways in the organization—regardless of the reason. It may be for personal goals or for the goals
of others, and these goals may or may not be congru- ent with organizational goals. Leadership is influ-
ence (Hersey & Campbell, 2004, p. 12).

In order to lead, one must develop three important competencies: (1) diagnose: ability to
understand the situation you want to influence, (2) adapt: make changes that will close the gap
between the current situation and what you are hoping to achieve, and

(3) communicate. No matter how much you diag- nose or adapt, if you cannot communicate
effec- tively, you will probably not meet your goal (Hersey & Campbell, 2004).

What Makes a Person a Leader?

Leadership Theories

There are many different ideas about how a person becomes a good leader. Despite years of
research on this subject, no one idea has emerged as the clear