Discussion 2: Your Leadership Profile

Do you believe you have the traits to be an effective leader? Perhaps you are already in a supervisory role, but as has been discussed previously, appointment does not guarantee leadership skills.

How can you evaluate your own leadership skills and behaviors? You can start by analyzing your performance in specific areas of leadership. In this Discussion, you will complete Gallup’s StrengthsFinder assessment. This assessment will identify your personal strengths, which have been shown to improve motivation, engagement, and academic self-conference. Through this assessment, you will discover your top five themes—which you can reflect upon and use to leverage your talents for optimal success and examine how the results relate to your leadership traits.

To Prepare:

Complete the StrengthsFinder assessment instrument, per the instructions found in this Module’s Learning Resources.

Please Note: This Assessment will take roughly 30 minutes to complete.

• Once you have completed your assessment, you will receive your “Top 5 Signature Themes of Talent” on your screen.
• Click the Download button below Signature Theme Report, and then print and save the report. We also encourage you to select the Apply tab to review action items.

NOTE: Please keep your report. You will need your results for future courses. Technical Issues with Gallup:
If you have technical issues after registering, please contact the Gallup Education Support group by phone at +1.866-346-4408. Support is available 24 hours/day from 6:00 p.m. Sunday U.S. Central Time through 5:00 p.m. Friday U.S. Central Time.

• Reflect on the results of your Assessment, and consider how the results relate to your leadership traits.
• Download your Signature Theme Report to submit for this Discussion.

By Day 3 of Week 5

Post a brief description of your results from the StrengthsFinder assessment. Then, briefly describe two core values, two strengths, and two characteristics that you would like to strengthen based on the results of your StrengthsFinder assessment. Be specific. Note: Be sure to attach your Signature Theme Report to your Discussion post.

By Day 6 of Week 5

Respond to at least two of your colleagues on two different days by making recommendations for how they might strengthen the leadership behaviors profiled in their StrengthsFinder assessment, or by commenting on lessons to be learned from the results that can be applied to personal leadership philosophies and behaviors.

student one: The results of the Gallup CliftonStrengths Report identified my major strengths in the areas of execution of task and relationship building. I enjoy making sure that the job is efficiently done, therefore it was not too surprising to me that discipline, connectedness, belief, restorative and responsibility stood out as the main. According to the StrengthsFinder assessment, I enjoy structure and routine the most and thus as a leader will like to create an atmosphere of order and clear guidance in the unit. I notice that I love to pay attention to patterns, that can be documented and used to advance nursing care. I also see value in considering the humanity of everyone on the unit as we deliver care(Kunaviktikul, Turale, & Stone, 2018). According to KunaviktikuI (2018), capacity building, establishing collaborations across organizations depends on the connections you can make amongst personnel. I value the actions, reactions or lack of actions of people and use those in the decision making process not only to conserve resources but accomplish more good as a team. The belief strength is intricately tied with my spirituality. I belief that our job as nurses accomplished God’s high purpose on ensuring that his children on earth are healthy and have a good quality of life(Singleton, 2017). There is a strong correlation between one’s beliefs and nursing action (Singleton, 2017). I therefore consider nursing as a worthy profession and this belief keeps me going during enormous challenges like COVID-19 pandemic and cultural awareness situations at work. The last two strengths are restorative and responsibility which in a nut shell summarize my desire to ensure that myself and peers have second chances, find ways to resolve problems that limit performance and keep your word at all times. The exercise has therefore showed me that I take ownership, do what I say I will do, and value routine and order in the care of patients. Based on this assessment I would like my peers to view my leadership style as one that values their input, offers ways to enhance their growth and clear patterns to effectively care for our patients(van Diggele, Burgess, Roberts, & Mellis, 2020).

The two core values that I would like to strengthen in this process of developing a leadership philosophy include creating a vision and influencing peers to follow through. These two areas are critical to become a transformational leader that I aspire to and hope to pick up self-assurance, charisma that will allow me have an impact on the behavior, attitudes, opinions and choices of others. This will involve understanding of organizational intelligence, self and team promotion, trust building skills and ability to build, use and develop good networks(Collins, Owen, Digan, & Dunn, 2020).

Communication and making difficult decision are two strengths that I will very much love to enhance. How do you assign one more admission to a nurse who already has the most difficult 6 patients on the floor compared to others with milder patients, or inform a nurse they will be let go, or cancelled for the night and many others(Men, 2014). I would love to developed these strengths to easily manage such situations as a leader.

Lastly the character traits of a leader that I will also want to improve include learning agility to be valuable to my team and greater self-awareness. To become a strategic thinker to influence others it is important to be able to provide context, strategic input and analysis of different situations. This is why it is important to be able to learn new things and rapidly.

Reference:

Collins, E., Owen, P., Digan, J., & Dunn, F. (2020). Applying transformational leadership in nursing practice. Nurs Stand, 35(5), 59-66. doi:10.7748/ns.2019.e11408

Kunaviktikul, W., Turale, S., & Stone, T. E. (2018). Developing leadership and capacity building: Reflections of a nurse leader. Nurs Health Sci, 20(4), 411-414. doi:10.1111/nhs.12579

Men, L. R. (2014). Strategic Internal Communication: Transformational Leadership, Communication Channels, and Employee Satisfaction. Management Communication Quarterly, 28(2), 264-284. doi:10.1177/0893318914524536

Singleton, J. K. (2017). Evidence-Based Practice Beliefs and Implementation in Doctor of Nursing Practice Students. Worldviews Evid Based Nurs, 14(5), 412-418. doi:10.1111/wvn.12228

van Diggele, C., Burgess, A., Roberts, C., & Mellis, C. (2020). Leadership in healthcare education. BMC Med Educ, 20(Suppl 2), 456. doi:10.1186/s12909-020-02288-x 

student two: Week 5 Initial Discussion Post

The results of the strength finder to my surprise were accurate. My top 5 results placed me as restorative, Responsible, Relatable, an arranger and a person who is able to woo individuals (Rath, 2007). I have always been outgoing individual who takes pride in who I am and I portray who I am inside regardless of how people may take it. I enjoy complex situations and it shows in my ability to maneuver many things in and outside of work. If there is a task I am the first to jump in and figure it out and always a team player. I enjoy helping people bring the good in themselves out whether it is personally, as a patient or as a co-worker. The ideas for action validate that my calling in within medicine. It states since my highest score was in restoration it shows my affinity for patient care and helping those who may not necessarily know how to help themselves.

Studies have shown a significant relationship between the personal and professional values; individuals who desire to help others commonly choose the catering professions, these values act as the guide in performing the ethical behaviors in providing the safe care (Poorchangizi, 2019). The two core values that I stand on each day is integrity and honesty. I am dedicated to my values and beliefs and strive to do the right thing in everything I do but especially in nursing. I tend to be honest regardless of the potential outcome of that honesty. I have learned at times the truth may not be wanted but it needed. I would say that my strengths are critical thinking and versatility. I have always had the ability to adapt to situations and think on my feet. Nurses who have the skills of critical thinking and problem solving can cope with negative feelings and thoughts and produce suitable solutions, and in this way, they can raise the quality of health care service (Midilli, 2020). The two characteristics that describe me would be good lister and compassionate.

Based on these strengths, values and characteristics and the strength finders results I would like to work harder at allowing people to fix their own problems before I intervene, push myself to say no, let it be known that I am relatable regardless of title or status, and be more open to how I do things and why. At times my strengths can be my downfall and I realize and understand that. I want to work on making these areas work for me instead of against. I do not want people to feel like I am overbearing so this is something I work on daily to not let my ability to be helpful or a natural problem solver to be mistaken as taking over.

Midilli, T. S., & Altas, G., (2020). The relationship between critical thinking disposition and problem-solving skills in nurses. International Journal of Caring Sciences, 13(3), 1890-1897. Retrieved from https://ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login?qurl=https%3A…

Poorchangizi, B., Borhani, F., Abbaszadeh, A., Mirzaee, M., & Farokhzadian, J. (2019). Professional values of nurses and nursing students: A comparative study. BMC Medical Education, 19, 1-7. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1186/s…

Rath, T. (2007). Strength Finder 2.0