Leadership Styles in Professional Nursing
Introduction
Leadership ability is the most important role of all nurses, and to be a great leader one must know the different styles of leadership. Developing future nurse leaders is a great challenge in today’s nursing profession and powerful leadership skills are needed by all nurses in every aspect of the profession. Leadership quality is the way an individual inspires a group of nurses to achieve greatness in the established goal that has been set in front of them (Sellgren, Ekvall, & Tornson, 2006). According to Hood (as cited in Agnes, 2005) “Leadership is defined as a process of influencing others or guiding or directing others to attain mutually agreed upon goals” (p. 457). This paper will describe four different leadership styles, and the effectiveness of each style as dependent upon the situation.
Review of the Professional Nursing Literature All nurses are leaders but may not recognize the different types of leadership or traits of an effective leader (Sims, 2009). There are four leadership styles to consider, the first one is autocratic or authoritarian. The autocratic leader is someone who usually needs to dominate others. The autocratic approach is often one-sided and the leader is likely attempting to achieve a single goal or objective (Sims, 2009). Autocratic leadership is a behavior in which a leader makes choices with no involvement from any peers, regardless if those ideas are better suited for the organization. This type of leader requires constant pressure and direction to get the task done. This type of leader provides clear expectations for what, when, and how a process should be done without consulting employees. Organizations that have this type of leader tend to see a high turn-over of employees and absenteeism for the simple fact that employees don’t feel valued. This approach would not be the way to get the best performance from the team. The implementation of this style of leadership could be used in a situation where
Leadership ability is the most important role of all nurses, and to be a great leader one must know the different styles of leadership. Developing future nurse leaders is a great challenge in today’s nursing profession and powerful leadership skills are needed by all nurses in every aspect of the profession. Leadership quality is the way an individual inspires a group of nurses to achieve greatness in the established goal that has been set in front of them (Sellgren, Ekvall, & Tornson, 2006). According to Hood (as cited in Agnes, 2005) “Leadership is defined as a process of influencing others or guiding or directing others to attain mutually agreed upon goals” (p. 457). This paper will describe four different leadership styles, and the effectiveness of each style as dependent upon the situation.
Review of the Professional Nursing Literature All nurses are leaders but may not recognize the different types of leadership or traits of an effective leader (Sims, 2009). There are four leadership styles to consider, the first one is autocratic or authoritarian. The autocratic leader is someone who usually needs to dominate others. The autocratic approach is often one-sided and the leader is likely attempting to achieve a single goal or objective (Sims, 2009). Autocratic leadership is a behavior in which a leader makes choices with no involvement from any peers, regardless if those ideas are better suited for the organization. This type of leader requires constant pressure and direction to get the task done. This type of leader provides clear expectations for what, when, and how a process should be done without consulting employees. Organizations that have this type of leader tend to see a high turn-over of employees and absenteeism for the simple fact that employees don’t feel valued. This approach would not be the way to get the best performance from the team. The implementation of this style of leadership could be used in a situation where
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