Personal Reflection and Strategies for Leadership Challenges

Discuss about the Leading and Learning for Journal of Hospitality Management.

My discussion in the essay will be based on the issues that were raised in the story concerning my professional development as a leader and a learner (Gaudin and Chaliès, 2015, pp. 41-67). In the essay, the discussion will begin with a personal reflection based on the feedback from my tutor then, a discussion of the best strategies to solve the leadership challenges identified in the story will follow. Finally, the essay will be concluded with what the story has taught me.

“When Chicken soup isn’t Enough” by Suzanne Gordon is an inspiring book concerning nursing practice and how nurses can stand up for their patients, profession and themselves. After going through the stories, I found the story “The Real Pain” really enchanting and it challenged my thinking as a beginning student nurse (Schneider and Pomidor, 2014, pp. 306-31). The story is about a neurosurgical nurse with the duty of taking care of surgery patients, for example, managing their pain (Doody  and Doody 2012, pp. 1212-1218).  In the story, the nurse is taking care of a patient who had had a herniated disk surgery.

The scenario was very significant since it taught me how a practicing nurse can apply personal values like compassion, care, communication, competence, assertiveness, accuracy and precision and commitment to one’s duty (Farh and Chen, 2018, pp. 97-110). The story enabled me to understand that competence in very important in nursing practice Also, the scenario has taught me that communication is very important in nursing care. As a nurse, I should foster good communication between me and the patient in order to be able to understand the patient’s condition well and capture some details that can be very essential in the road to recovery (Edmondson and et.al., 2016, pp. 65-83). 

The story made me feel proud as a nursing student in seeing how the nurse applied her professional competence and assertiveness in identifying the patient’s problem and suggesting the best medication to be given to the patient (Fumagalli and et.al., 2015, pp.384-394). Moreover, I felt challenged by the nurse’s ability to accurately and precisely prescribe the right medication for the patient’s pain which was due to her competence and assertiveness (Links,  Ross and Gunderson, 2015.pp. 753-763). I felt that I needed to do more in for me to develop competence and assertiveness for my future practice so I can be able to negotiate with the doctor and other team members to promote good patients care.

Learning Opportunities from Real Life Scenarios

In the scenario, the surgeon assumed that the patient was not in pain despite his years of experience in the dealing with pain patients. The scenario was not good since the patient was suffering because of the surgeon’s assumptions (Goold and Maslen, 2014, pp. 60-86). Also, the surgeon had become frustrated with the patient that when the nurse talked to him concerning the best drug to help the patient, he just agreed. However, the scenario was good since the nurse was able to apply his competence, assertiveness and critical thinking to solve the patient’s problem.

The scenario made sense to me in that I learned that I should develop my professional competence in order to be able to solve patient’s problems in my future practice as a nurse. I learned that is should learn to use courage to communicate my view to my fellow healthcare in order to help patients (Hakojärvi, Salminen and Suhonen, 2014, pp. 138-144). Moreover, the situation made me realize that I should not assume that the senior doctors or surgeon is always right and I should use my skills and knowledge to advise them accordingly without.

Finally, if a similar situation faces me in the future, I will apply the growth mindset to Adsuggest the best solutions to patient’s problem to the doctor or surgeon. Team intelligence to understand things beyond my scope like the nurse understood the best pain medication to enable me to negotiate with the surgeon concerning the best medication (Brown and McCormack, 2016, pp. 2921-2932). Also, psychological safety will enable me advice the surgeon on the best medication using my creative thinking Edmondson, courage and professional competence to promote good patient care.  

My preferred leading style is transformational leadership. Using this style, every member of the team feels free to apply their talents, creativity, and skill to promote good patients care .This model enables the team member to cultivate their skills to promote good healthcare outcomes (Engelen and et.al., 2015,pp.1069-1097). In the nurse in the scenario was able to apply her creativity professional competence to suggest the best pain medication for the patient. On the other hand, my preferable learning style is work-based learning as it promotes personal growth.

The leadership challenges identified include psychological safety and having a fixed mindset. Psychological safety is defined how members of a healthcare team view the interpersonal risks consequences in the place of work. Psychological safety comprises of beliefs and assumptions concerning the response of members of the team in case one member decides to report a mistake, propose a new idea, seek feedback or ask a question. In this situation, the individual puts himself or herself on the line (Guchait, Pa?amehmeto?lu and Dawson, 2014, pp. 28-37. The healthcare team members should have the required safe psychological space to enable them to feel free to promote positive healthcare outcomes by challenging their superiors without disregard, humiliation or fear. They should also be able to pinpoint problems and stop action where necessary and ask questions if need be (Edmondson and et.al., 2016, pp. 65-83). 

Professional Competence and the Importance of Communication in Nursing Care

In the context of the story “Real Pain”, the nurse tries to communication the surgeon about the pain the patients are going through but the surgeon insists that the patient should not be in pain since such pain should go away in one day and that the patient was assuming his pain (Sethi, 2016, pp. 2323-2327). It seemed like the surgeon disregarded the nurse in that he could not believe that he could have more experience in pain management than him. The surgeon, therefore, does not create a good platform for the nurse to communicate her suggestions (Sorokin and  Cadeddu, 2017.pp.231-233).

The leadership challenge of growth mindset in which the person qualities can be increased by doing work hard. For this, they put the better techniques and induce from another’s. The continuous way of learning can be through talent, skills, implementation of abilities and intelligence in the workplace. In healthcare sector, the nurse can learn and enhance opportunities by adopting leadership challenges of growth mindset. The benefits from this mindset are that employees adopt the changes in the workplace in effective manner (Gino and Staats, 2015, pp.110-118). The main usefulness of the growth mindset for the leaders is that can able to deal with changes in the technology and also not face failure in future (Parke, Seo and Sherf, 2015.pp. 917). They also control the procedure and able to stay their original plan to attain their objectives and goals.

In the story “Real Pain”, there is a challenge of fixed mindset. The surgeon ignores the nurse’s concern for the patient’s pain (Saunamäki and Engström, 2014.pp. 531-540). The surgeon surgeons believe he knows about post-surgery pain and insists that it should clear in a short time just like in other patients he has handled. The surgeon has a fixed mindset which makes him believe that pain is the same for all patients. Despite the fact that the nurse talks to him about the patient’s pain, the surgeon does not bother to come up with solutions to the problem.

According to Edmondson and et.al., (2016), there is a need to promote an environment where all members of the healthcare team can contribute to promoting good patients care. One way of doing this is to create a free and safe psychological space where team members can freely challenge their seniors, ask questions and positively criticize when need be. In a safe psychological space, team members are also able to share concerns and information. As Jain and et.al., (2016) asserts, removing boundaries in the clinical setting can promote psychological safety. Additionally, team members should ensure they eliminate the difference in status in the clinical hierarchy to promote open communication. Everyone in the team should be equal in that everyone has something to learn from others (Hu, Erdogan and et.al., 2018, pp. 313). There is need to train the team leaders to behave in a way that encourages open and free communications without criticism, disregard, and fear. Furthermore, staff coaching and directing is very important in promoting psychological safety in a team of members (Farh and Chen, 2018, pp. 97-110). Team works are also very crucial in improving patient outcomes. Team members should be made to understand other team members’works . 

Leadership Challenges in Nursing: Psychological Safety and Growth Mindset

On the other hand, a fixed mindset can be solved by creating an environment which fosters a growth mindset. A growth mindset can be fostered by adapting the transformational leadership style in healthcare (Jain and et.al ., 2016, pp.1000-1011). Transformational leadership promotes employees developments thus will be effective. Moreover, team members should be trained to engage themselves with work within their scope and even outside their scope to enhance personal growth (Caniëls, Semeijn and Renders, 2018, pp. 48-66). 

The healthcare management should also ensure that the team members are coached to enable them to develop a growth mindset. As with psychological safety, good communication is very effective in promoting the growth mindset. Effective communications promote psychological safety (Liu, Liao and Wei, 2015, pp.107-119). Therefore, for team members to develop a growth mindset, everyone in the team should be considered as a learner and the senior staff should communicate with their subordinates in a way that does not instill fear or showing disregard (Keating and Heslin, 2015, pp. 329-341). Finally, every member of the healthcare team should learn to set learning goals instead of setting performance goals in order to promote a growth mindset. Everyone should know that learning has no limit.

References

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Doody, O., & Doody, C. M. (2012). Transformational leadership in nursing practice. British Journal of Nursing, 21(20), 1212-1218.

Edmondson, A. C., Higgins, M., Singer, S., & Weiner, J. (2016). Understanding psychological safety in health care and education organizations: A comparative perspective. Research in Human Development, 13(1), 65-83.

Engelen, A., Gupta, V., Strenger, L., & Brettel, M. (2015). Entrepreneurial orientation, firm performance, and the moderating role of transformational leadership behaviors. Journal of Management, 41(4), 1069-1097.

Farh, C., & Chen, G. (2018). Leadership and member voice in action teams: Test of a dynamic phase model. Journal Of Applied Psychology, 103(1), 97-110. doi: 10.1037/apl0000256.

Fumagalli, L. P., Radaelli, G., Lettieri, E., & Masella, C. (2015). Patient empowerment and its neighbours: clarifying the boundaries and their mutual relationships. Health Policy, 119(3), 384-394.

Gaudin, C., & Chaliès, S. (2015). Video viewing in teacher education and professional development: A literature review. Educational Research Review, 16, 41- 67.

Gino, F., & Staats, B. (2015). Why organizations don’t learn. Harvard Business Review, 93(11), 110-118.

Goold, I., & Maslen, H. (2014). Must the surgeon take the pill? Negligence duty in the context of cognitive enhancement. The Modern Law Review, 77(1), 60-86.

Guchait, P., Pa?amehmeto?lu, A., & Dawson, M. (2014). Perceived supervisor and co-worker support for error management: Impact on perceived psychological safety and service recovery performance. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 41, 28-37.

Hakojärvi, H. R., Salminen, L., & Suhonen, R. (2014). Health care students’ personal experiences and coping with bullying in clinical training. Nurse education today, 34(1), 138-144

Hu, J., Erdogan, B., Jiang, K., Bauer, T. N., & Liu, S. (2018). Leader humility and team creativity: The role of team information sharing, psychological safety, and power distance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103(3), 313.

Jain, A. K., Fennell, M. L., Chagpar, A. B., Connolly, H. K., & Nembhard, I. M. (2016). Moving toward improved teamwork in cancer care: The role of psychological safety in team communication. Journal of oncology practice, 12(11), 1000-1011.

Keating, L. A., & Heslin, P. A. (2015). The potential role of mindsets in unleashing employee engagement. Human Resource Management Review, 25(4), 329-341.

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Saunamäki, N., & Engström, M. (2014). Registered nurses’ reflections on discussing sexuality with patients: responsibilities, doubts and fears. Journal of clinical nursing, 23(3-4), 531-540.

Schneider, M. A., & Pomidor, M. A. (2014). The value of a progressive care environment for neurosurgical patients. Journal of Neuroscience Nursing, 46(5), 306-311.

Sorokin, I., & Cadeddu, J. A. (2017). A query on da Vinci robot console preferences: insights for the novice surgeon. Journal of robotic surgery, 11(2), 231-233.