Personal Leadership Philosophies
As a result of consequential leadership, nursing leadership requires a buildup of habits over time that can build others and oneself (Broome & Marshall, 2020). Habits occur unconsciously as opposed to leadership values. However, good habits can breed strengths in leadership. Not all leaders are the same; each leader got their strengths and weaknesses (Wise & Church, 2022).
Nevertheless, the success of their leadership is matched against the outcomes of their decisions and the end results of the process. The purpose of this paper is to discuss my leadership strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities that I wish to improve in the future.
My Core Values
My undergraduate studies and practice as a registered nurse have enlightened me and changed my perception of nursing leadership. In the process, I have developed a set of core values that have since guided my clinical and administrative practice, hoping to lead at the highest level one day. Some of the values were innate, while others were more or less related to my personality.
My core values relating to leadership are honor, humility, commitment, and empathy. I value ethical principles as well as legal policies in leadership decision-making. I have felt that this is the honorable way to avoid conflicts and avert crises.
I seldom show any pride in myself or my achievements in front of my seniors and juniors but at the same time recognize little milestone achievements in the leadership journey. I often feel driven by my focus on my goals in the clinical setting. Out of humility and concern, I tend to put myself in my colleagues’ shoes before making conclusions.
Personal Mission and Vision Statement
My mission statement is to apply my core values, clinical skills, and leadership attitudes to inspire teammates to commit to a common goal and achieve collective success. I believe that collective success is sometimes priceless and has far-reaching impacts on team spirit and positive organizational culture.
Therefore, by synergistically combining skills, efforts, and strengths, one can achieve an outcome greater than the sum of the individual input. In my health organization, I work with teammates who understand team spirit and are self-driven to succeed in private and public life. After graduation, I see my career as an APRN as a product of this team spirit and collaboration.
Upon graduation, I see individuals that I will work with as a source of complementary knowledge and skills. Therefore, I will utilize this opportunity to transform myself through unending learning and target quality care through team collaboration.
My CliftonStrengths Assessment
My CliftonStrengths Assessment returned five key themes: context, achiever, deliberative, focus, and responsibility. This assessment showed that I am someone who looks back to find answers to an unstable present to improve the future. I also showed a constant need for improvement, an achiever. I am a deliberative person who seeks to understand the hidden risks by looking beneath the calm surfaces of situations.
I am guided by goals and vision to excel. I, therefore, ask myself where I am headed before committing to deliberative goals. Lastly, I also take psychological ownership of my actions and those of my team because apologies are not enough to rectify broken situations. Therefore, these CliftonStrengths Assessment outcomes portray me as s transformational leader with an eye for team contribution and deliberation.
Behaviors to Strengthen
Sometimes, I get hard on myself for failures associated with actions, decisions, or values. I blame myself for poor outcomes and use it as a stepping stone to achieving greater results tomorrow. This might seem like a virtue, but sometimes I also self-blame to the point that it can shake my focus on the greater goals.
Failure to accept failures and unconscious self-blame are two behaviors that I need to strengthen. I understand that failures are part of the process of success. However, seeing them as setbacks can derail the progress. I, therefore, see setbacks and self-blame as behaviors that require improvement.
Plans to Improve Behavior and Achieve my Vision
Therefore, I intend to adopt remediation strategies and consisting my mentors whenever in self-blame situations (Lewis et al., 2019). The mindfulness-based strategy would enable me to reflect on the situation of self-blame to achieve self-regulation. Mindfulness-based strategies will also improve self-awareness and intentional growth in leadership and interprofessional interactions (Crego et al., 2021).
Other strategies, such as anaerobic exercises, have been shown to help reflect and improve mood. I, therefore, intend to exercise often after medication sessions (Demmin et al., 2022). To achieve my vision, I will need my mentor to learn from to sharpen my habits with team regulation and management. Meditations on my goals will also help me achieve my vision by improving my focus.
Conclusion
Awareness of leadership strengths and weaknesses is essential in leadership self-reflection and improvement. My core values are humility, honor, empathy, and commitment. My CliftonStrengths Assessment confirmed that I am focused, responsible, deliberative, reflective, and focused. However, I still feel deficient due to poor handling of setbacks and self-blame. In my plan, I intend to engage my mentor more often and start mindfulness-based strategies for self-reflection and intentional growth.
References
- Broome, M. E., & Marshall, E. S. (2020). Transformational leadership in nursing: From expert clinician to influential leader (M. E. Broome & E. S. Marshall, Eds.; 3rd ed.). Springer Publishing.
- Crego, A., Yela, J. R., Gómez-Martínez, M. Á., Riesco-Matías, P., & Petisco-Rodríguez, C. (2021). Relationships between mindfulness, purpose in life, happiness, anxiety, and depression: Testing a mediation model in a sample of women. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(3), 925. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18030925
- Demmin, D. L., Silverstein, S. M., & Shors, T. J. (2022). Mental and physical training with meditation and aerobic exercise improved mental health and well-being in teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 16, 847301. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.847301
- Lewis, C. P., Johnson, B. H., Donnell, C., Phillips, T., Jackson, D., Backus, M., Payne, A., Greenwell, R. W., & Wentz, A. (2019). The power of mentorship. Nursing Management, 50(7), 38–44. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NUMA.0000558524.37370.ce
- Wise, T., & Church, C. (2022). Insights into the millennial generation of nurses. Nursing Management, 53(5), 28–33. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NUMA.0000829284.89318.27
Assignment: Personal Leadership Philosophies
Many of us can think of leaders we have come to admire, be they historical figures, pillars of the industry we work in, or leaders we know personally. The leadership of individuals such as Abraham Lincoln and Margaret Thatcher has been studied and discussed repeatedly. However, you may have interacted with leaders you feel demonstrated equally competent leadership without ever having a book written about their approaches.
What makes great leaders great? Every leader is different, of course, but one area of commonality is the leadership philosophy that great leaders develop and practice. A leadership philosophy is basically an attitude held by leaders that acts as a guiding principle for their behavior. While formal theories on leadership continue to evolve over time, great leaders seem to adhere to an overarching philosophy that steers their actions.
What is your leadership philosophy? In this Assignment, you will explore what guides your own leadership.
To Prepare:
Identify two to three scholarly resources, in addition to this Module’s readings, that evaluate the impact of leadership behaviors in creating healthy work environments.
Reflect on the leadership behaviors presented in the three resources that you selected for review.
Reflect on your results of the CliftonStrengths Assessment*, and consider how the results relate to your leadership traits. *not required to submit CliftonStrengths Assessment
The Assignment (2-3 pages):
Personal Leadership Philosophies
Develop and submit a personal leadership philosophy that reflects what you think are characteristics of a good leader. Use the scholarly resources on leadership you selected to support your philosophy statement. Your personal leadership philosophy should include the following:
A description of your core values.
A personal mission and vision statement.
An analysis of your CliftonStrengths Assessment summarizing the results of your profile A description of two key behaviors that you wish to strengthen.
A development plan that explains how you plan to improve upon the two key behaviors you selected and an explanation of how you plan to achieve your personal vision. Be specific and provide examples.
Be sure to incorporate your colleagues’ feedback on your CliftonStrengths Assessment from this Module’s Discussion 2.
Using proper in-text citations, the response fully integrates at least 2 outside resources and 2 or 3 course-specific resources.