Personal Leadership Style Reflective Essay

Leadership Style Reflective Essay Instructions

This assignment focuses on the importance of self-assessment and reflection.

Self-Assessment

Self-awareness is essential for developing leadership skills. Recognizing your own strengths, weaknesses, and values, and understanding emotional intelligence and learning styles can help you to be a more effective nurse leader.

For this assignment, you have the opportunity to take a variety of self-assessments to learn more about yourself and identify your assets and weaknesses as a leader. This will assist you in discovering how you can improve your own self-leadership skills. You will be asked to think critically about your results and submit a reflection as directed below.

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Select three of the following self-assessments and complete them. Be sure to document the results of each assessment to assist you in completing the reflection portion of the assignment below.

  1. Emotional Intelligence Assessment: “Emotional Intelligence Test”: ttps://www.psychologytoday.com/us/tests/personality/emotional-intelligence-test 
  2. Personality Assessment: “Free Personality Test”: https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test
  3. Learning Styles Assessment: “Values Profile”: http://vark-learn.com/the-vark-questionnaire/
  4. Values Assessment: “Values Profile”: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/tests/personality/values-profile
  5. Values Assessment: “Rokeach Values Survey”: http://faculty.wwu.edu/tyrank/Rokeach%20Value%20Survey.pdf
  6. Diversity Assessment: “Cultural Competence Self-Test”: https://www.oregon.gov/DHS/SENIORS-DISABILITIES/DD/PROVIDERS-PARTNERS/SCPAconference/Cultural%20Competence%20Self-Test.pdf

Self-Assessment Reflection

Becoming self-aware is an ongoing process requiring introspection. The more often people practice self-reflection, the more opportunities they have to understand their own behaviors and adapt their approaches to working with other people, which can improve both your own and other’s abilities to meet their professional goals.

In a 750-1,000 word reflective essay, address the following:

  1. Briefly summarize why you selected each self-assessment and the results you obtained on each assessment.
  2. Identify the leadership style that closely aligns to your philosophy of care, and explain what appeals to you about that style.
  3. Reflect on how you might incorporate elements of that particular style as you exercise leadership in a practice or health care organization setting.
  4. Discuss any particular areas for improvement the assessments helped you identify and some steps for improving your leadership capabilities.

You are required to cite three to five sources to complete this assignment. Sources must be published within the last 5 years and appropriate for the assignment criteria and nursing content.

Self-Assessment Reflection – Sample Leadership Style Reflective Essay

Self-awareness has traditionally been regarded as one of the most fundamental capabilities that an individual can possess. There is a common consensus amongst the intelligentsia linking the understanding of one’s self with personal development and attainment of subsequent professional goals. According to Eurich (2017), introspection is particularly critical when fashioning a successful leader for it allows individuals to acknowledge their natural inclinations and work towards compensating for their shortcomings (p.35). In this particular task, I selected the Emotional Intelligence Assessment, Personality Assessment and Learning Styles Assessment to aid in the arduous endeavor of solipsism.  The Emotional Intelligence Assessment was an ideal selection which would provide vital information critical in the practice of self-development and information about any inherent blind spots. I also selected the Personality Assessment test as a crucial psychometric that would allow me to gain a comprehensive understanding of my aptitudes and individual personality. The Learning Styles Assessment was also essential in understanding my inclinations, strengths and weaknesses, which are critical when seeking to achieve goals based on one’s ability. My personalized report from the Emotional Intelligence Assessment indicated that I attained a score of 84 in my ability to recognize, distinguish and express emotions. The Personality Assessment test categorized me as a protagonist; typically known for being born-leaders such as Barrack Obama, Maya Angelou and Isobel Crawley. Based on my VARK Questionnaire results from the Learning Style Assessment test, I was categorized as multimodal personality as an indication of my spontaneous nature.

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The transformational style of leadership closely aligns with my philosophy of care. I believe that a nurse should always strive to deliver patient-centered care while ensuring continuity in the services provided. As a provider of care, healthy relationships are critical for patients grappling with debilitating conditions throughout the process of recovery. My philosophy of care also espouses working with patient’s families and loved ones to bolster the support needed during illness. Furthermore, I believe that their spiritual and cultural beliefs should be valued while supporting optimal functioning while in the healthcare facility. Transformational leadership adheres to specific tenets that require staff to observe higher ideals and internal values within the workplace environment. The “greater good” now becomes the most imperative objective as staff members develop altruistic dispositions when attending to patients. Transformational leadership is also an adaptive model which allows flexibility in the healthcare environment which has customarily been over-managed (Khan, 2016, p. 46).. Through inspirational motivation using a top-down approach, managers in healthcare facilities can successfully ensure that the patient’s interests always take precedence. Besides, the principles of transformational leadership ensure that nurses are responsible for all their dealings while implementing the professional practice in the workplace environment. 

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The faultless influence, rousing motivation, intellectual incentive and individual consideration elements of transformational leadership can be incorporated aptly in a healthcare organization setting. A leader can apply the faultless influence element by making sure that they are always charismatic while setting high standards for subordinates. Outstanding professional practice often means that the leader will be revered for their dedication and soon become a source of motivation for others (Marshall & Marion E. Broome, 2016). In a leader in a health care organization setting can devise creative strategies to communicate their vision to staff members during meetings to ensure that they reach set objectives. The rousing motivation element can be applied by guaranteeing intellectual stimulation. By so doing, staff members are challenged to grow, develop and advance innovative solutions to common healthcare challenges. For instance, nurses can be allowed to dabble in evidence-based practices using available assets and applying their findings towards the improvement of care. Staff members are, thus, bound to approach every challenge with a renewed problem-solving mindset which paves the way for a new nursing culture. A leader can apply the individual consideration element by mentoring subordinates and being mindful of emerging career opportunities. The healthcare sector benefits from this practice since the advancement of employees result in future cost-effective and top-notch care. In general, the application of the elements of transformational leadership is capable of causing a paradigm shift; making nurses more informed and participating actively in healthcare reform.

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There are several areas for improvement that the evaluations helped me identify. Although an overall score of 84 in the Emotional Intelligence Assessment is relatively high, it allowed me to pinpoint several blind spots of which I was previously unaware. In particular, self-regulation and empathy were areas of concern that required keen focus. Self-regulation allows an individual to become aware of their emotional state and impulses as a precursor to managing them (Salovey, Brackett, & Mayer, 2014). It would enable one delegate tasks when overburdened and adapt to any sudden change. Self-regulation, as a leadership capability, can be improved by responding appropriately to stressful situations and always taking responsibility whenever culpable. Likewise, empathy allows a leader to identify and comprehend specific emotions in the employees. Staff members interoperate empathy as care for the team and an expression of genuine concern. Adopting compassion as a leadership practice allows one to gauge the emotional state of subordinates through, for example, their body language and responding appropriately to their debacle.

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