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Strengths Based Leadership Scholarly Paper

Caroline Kissam

Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing

NUR 4246 Servant Leadership

Karyn Schultz, DNP, RN, Assistant Professor

September 4, 2021

“I pledge…”

Strengths Based Leadership Scholarly Paper

I am the director of nursing in a large, urban health care system. My nurse manager has

resigned, and I am in the process of interviewing candidates to fill that position. The department

has experienced an increase in incidences of conflict, a decrease in employee morale and team

work as well as deteriorating intra professional relationships. This situation began prior to the

managers’ resignation. I am looking for a nurse manager with self-assurance, connectedness,

futuristic, developer and positivity to introduce a new team dynamic that will unite the staff and

re-energize them.

Because there is conflict among the team members we need a leader who is self-assured.

Having this strength is important when your team has conflict. You need confidence to rise

above the conflict and be able to stand with confidence and doesn’t need others to agree. I think

it will take someone with this attitude to break through the disagreement between the staff. They

are already in the habit of conflict, so the new manager will have to stand alone at first and feel

comfortable with this. Positivity will also help in leading this team that has been in conflict for

some time. Conflict tends to take the energy out of teams and decrease morale. Positivity will

bring energy and optimism to a team. Connectedness will bring the team together and help them

look beyond their disagreements and see how they can come together on mission. This team also

needs a developer, or someone who can see the potential in people and challenge them to

develop their strengths. This strength works well with connectedness and will unify the team for

a common goal. Lastly, the new manager needs to be futuristic in order to see the possibility of

team and can unite the team around new ideas and goals. These strengths fall under the themes

of influencing, strategic thinking and relationship building.

My strengths include arranger, learner, belief, individualization and deliberative. They

fall under the themes of executing and relationship building. I am strongest at executing. I love

to see a need or a project and develop efficient ways of achieving a goal. I see how processes

should go and the best way to make things happen. I am good at planning and creating a new

process or creating and designing a new project. I am not good at influencing others. I need a

nurse manager that can do that for me. I do not do well at rallying the troupes and getting people

excited about things. A manager with positivity, self-assurance and futuristic strengths can do

this so he/she would complement me by being able to unite the team to follow my ideas. I do

have a strength in relationship building. That is a big need with this team, so I am also looking

for a manager that has that strength as well. A team that works well together and is united on a

common goal can do amazing things.

At the 90-day evaluation of my new manager I would expect to see certain measures of

success. I would expect to see the team looking to the new manager for direction instead of at

each other in disagreement. I would expect to see the manager working on identifying the

strengths of the people on the team coming up with some ideas that can unite them and reduce

the conflict. At 6 months, I would expect to see new relationships forming and the memory of

the former team a distant memory. At one year at would expect to see a completely new

atmosphere and a team that works together and supports each other and is excited about their

work and how they come together to deliver excellent care. Also, at one year I would expect to

see the team collaborating on new initiatives and new ideas to improve not only at a unit level

but at a system level.




References

Rath, T., & Conchie, B. (2008). Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why

People Follow. Gallup Press.