A Nursing Leadership Theory?

With our knowledge on the different leadership theories that can be grouped either in the Trait approach to leadership, or the Behavioural School, or the Contingency Leadership, or Leader and Follower, or Dispersed Leadership, is it really necessary to come up with a new leadership model to guide nurses in the performance of their functions for a healthier work environment, and thus, provide safe and effective care to patients?

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I think that if other theories suffice what people who descerns an effective leadership model asks for, Theorists wouldn't find gaps on those and wouldn't bother to make new theories. The thing that I like about the Authentic leadership theory, though there are many terminologies to delve on, is that when you read it, it gives you a moment of musing or pondering especially when you are in a leadership role. A compilation of old theories given a new perspective is something that I wouldn't negate.

Yes. I think one of the best words to find in the article of Wong is “authenticity”. By identifying your genuine/true/real you – desires, core values, beliefs, and purpose - will change you and the people that surrounds you. The theory of authentic leadership is a good model that focuses on the leader-follower positive characteristics that will eventually lead to a strong relationship that will present a healthy work environment in a health care setting. Thus, nurses provide safe and effective care because their values are consistent with their actions. also by ethically performing care to every patient. They consider others authenticity and could bring out the best from any patient and have a good relationship. Every nurses have their own choice and preference on what leadership style best suit them. It’s his or her decision to apply leadership in any way that is in line with his strengths and capabilities to be as effective as he can be all along.

Authentic leadership may not be the only solution to various problems in our current diversified society, for the theory, as stated by Wong and Cumming, has flaws and weaknesses. On the other hand , the authors have likewise emphasized that it is the root construct of positive forms of leadership, therefore it has been developed as a leadership style at its best.

One leadership style is not the most effective in any given situation. When it comes to managing people effectively, the atmosphere and type of work environment often means you have to "switch" your leadership style in to a different gear. Good leaders can do this instinctively; they understand what needs to be done and the people they are leading.

Much of what dictates the leadership style in any given situation depends on a few factors such as whether the environment is stable, conservative or constantly changing. Whether the work to be done is something new or routine, and the level of skill possessed by your team all factor in to the most effective leadership style for that team.

Most people in management develop a leadership style that becomes consistent and fixed. The members may think of you as bossy, picky, or easy to get along with. The fact is, most environments are ever-changing, and in order to be most effective for the benefit of hospital and team, you must realize that it takes more than one leadership style.

I think it is inevitable that as future scholars, we must further create researches on previous works of others thus come up with "new" concept of leadership. I say it is inevitable because due to the diversified time and environment that we are in today, changes might have been unavoidable. The task as well as personal attributes of a leader decades ago, might not be the type of leader we want or need at the present time. Moreover, in line with the creation of new concept, I think applicability of researches must be examined. A lot of leadership theories have already been created. And yes, I must say that they all gave in-depth analysis or description about leadership. But the question remain, if we, the readers were able to understand those theories, how are we going to put it into practice that can result into a healthier working milieu? The challenge for us today is putting into action what we have read. The choose is always ours, we just have to be careful and meticulous of what leadership styles we would like to conform since it it can affect not only us,nurses, but the patients as well. A lot of consideration must be included in choosing the leadership style that one must practice, what is of essence is if it conforms with the present environment and needs of the people in the institution..

establishing the ideal leadership styles does not necessarily mean that we are forced to use it against our will. Thus the models serve as a guide for us to know what appropriate style we should utilize in different situations we are into. as for an example, a patient is in cardiac arrest and a code was ordered, an autocratic style, where decisions should be made by one authority only or in the hospital ward where democratic leadership style shhould be made, collaborating with every healthcare professionals in attaining an optimal goal for the patient's health. Having a new model is a concrete evidence that experts and even us should not stop and be contented on what we already know but to further explore and discover new ideas supported by empirical evidences, responding to the ever demanding profession we have

Every one has the right to choose his leadership style. What's important is that the leadership style is applicable to the scenario or the working environment

I think this new leadership model is just a derivation from the old kinds of leadership. Every human being is unique and has the freedom to choose which leadership style would fit them. Application of different kinds of leadership is dependent on the type of situation nurses are experiencing. In the authentic kind of leadership, it focuses only on the positive traits of a leader. This kind of leadership can only work if your followers have this characteristics and values same as their leaders. For me, it is not necessary to just follow the leadership models that were proposed. Each and every one of us can be leaders even in simple ways. What important is to have a healthy working environment in order for us to render safe and quality health care to our clients.

personally speaking...., observing the current happenings in our country today, it would justify such creation of new leadership model that would guide nursing practice... there has been various models like that of Wong, but it seems that none has been effective so far since the condition of our health care system haven't change that much in terms of leadership... nevertheless, i think we still need to consider the fact that MAYBE, there was less recognition of the previously established model, and it was not utilized or tried yet by the institutions that's why creation of new models is apparent...

i think the models that were created didn't necessarily require nurses to "do this and that"; but rather, try to illuminate means and guidelines of how to become an effective leader which in a way, enable us to make reflections in understanding ourselves and our capacities as individuals...

Since the field of Nursing is changing all the time and Health care reforms bring new questions , I think that it is just logical that the leaders of the Nursing World will try to find also the best leadership model that will be suited to the Health care System. These changes and questions will bring about the best in our leaders as they will try to come up with the most effective way of bringing reforms and changes in the field of Nursing. Man's constant pursuit to perfection drives him to find answers to life's complexities. In the end, we as nurses and future nurse will have abundant resources which we can utilize in our own pursuit to success.

The Authentic Leadership theory consists of characteristics culled from different leadership models, but with new and added features. The idea of Wong’s paper on Authentic Leadership, actually, was to extract from the different leadership models a common concept to discover what authentic leadership really means. It appears that the main focus of the study was to find a leadership model that could best suit the nursing environment. This arises from the uncontested view of a shortage of nurses and an unhealthy and unsafe nursing work environment. Under these circumstances, the need for a strong and positive nursing leadership must be addressed with an appropriate leadership theory. Hence, the author proposes the Authentic Leadership Model.

A person who has the attributes of self-awareness, unbiased processing of information, authentic behaviour, and relational authenticity, generates high levels of trust and organizational advocacy among followers. In a nursing work environment where nurse managers hold a pivotal role in creating and sustaining healthy work environment, some nursing literatures have recommended authentic leadership. The study, therefore, suggests that positive relationship between authentic leadership and healthy work environment has to be established through leadership actions that can generate higher levels of nurses’ trust in management.

Wong’s study compares authentic leadership with three other nursing leadership theories, which it has determined to be positive forms of leadership. Indeed, the closest that the authentic leadership theory can be compared with has been the Transformational Theory which Wong said, sets it apart from authentic leadership in the sense that Transformational leaders have vision which authentic leaders may not necessarily have. Transformational leadership has four components:

1.Idealized influence. Charismatic vision and behaviour that inspires others to follow.
2.Inspirational motivation. Capacity to motivate others to commit to the vision.
3.Intellectual stimulation. Encouraging innovation and creativity.
4.Individualized consideration. Coaching to the specific needs of followers. (Transformational Leadership: Characteristics and Criticisms, Iain Hay)

However, as compared to other leadership theories, authentic leadership, with its emphasis on positive moral/ethical perspective and positive psychological capacities, can very well address the problems of nursing practice. Wong discussed the components of relational focus, morality/ethics, positive leadership orientation, and the importance of leader-follower development in advocating for authentic leadership in nursing practice.

An authentic leader inspires others by not only imbibing the ethical attributes of character, integrity and, in a study of Wood to be discussed later, altruism, but also modeling the positive organizational states of confidence, hope, optimism, and resiliency (Effective Modeling of Authentic Leadership, Academic Exchange Quarterly, Summer, 2007 by Jo Ann Brown, William L. Gardner, quoting Luthans, 2002, p. 59: Luthans & Avolio, 2003, p. 245). In a study conducted by Jo Ann Brown on modelling of authentic leadership, the results indicate that respondents in the study recognized the qualities of authentic leaders and viewed these attributes as worthy of emulation. Respondents had exerted considerable effort toward emulating these attributes and reported high levels of success.

Authentic leadership complements the leader attributes with leader-follower relationships. Personal qualities of the leader are undeniably valuable but they are not enough to exercise leadership to achieve a positive and sustaining healthy environment in nursing practice. A leader’s effectiveness is measured not only by his attributes but how well he can influence his followers to follow him.

In another study by Gabrielle M. Wood (Authentic Leadership: Do We Really Need Another Leadership Theory?, 2007), she stated that Authentic Leadership can be defined as bearing the attributes of transparency, altruistic actions, and behavioral consistency to direct the activities of a group toward a shared goal.

Wood went on to define the three characteristics of authentic leadership, thus:

1.Transparency - refers to openly articulating one’s beliefs, values, and attitudes. Another term that is used in the authentic leadership literature is relational transparency. Relational transparency involves engaging in open communication and disclosing information about the self (Gardner et al., 2005).

2.Altruistic actions - refer to pro-social behaviors, expressions of selfless service, in the best interests of followers and other stakeholders (Michie & Gooty, 2005). Michie and Gooty (2005) suggested that authentic leadership involves altruistic actions including treating others fairly, treating others with respect, forgoing self-interests for the group, and remaining open to other people’s ideas. Hannah et al. (2005) suggested that authentic leadership involves altruistic behaviors, aimed at helping others beyond the self. According to George (2007), authentic leadership involves leading with the heart, including demonstrating compassion and empathy for followers.

3.Behavioral consistency - refers to aligning actions with stated beliefs, values, and attitudes. Gardner et al. (2005) suggested that authentic leadership involves authentic behavior and others agree (Kernis, 2003; Avolio & Gardner, 2005; Illies et al. 2005; Gardner & Schermerhorn, 2004). Authentic behavior refers to, actions that are guided by the leader’s true self as reflected by core values, beliefs, thoughts and feelings, as opposed to environmental contingencies or pressures from others,. (Gardner et al., 2005; p.347). Illies et al. (2005) suggested that authentic leadership involves demonstrating personal integrity, which is defined similarly to authentic behavior. Shamir and Eilam (2005) suggested that authentic leadership involves behaving in ways that are consistent with one’s self-concept.

In Wood’s study of upper-class military cadets of the US Military Academy, she stated that integrity and altruism are the bases for the three attributes of authentic leadership. Integrity is a character trait in which people are true to themselves, accurately representing privately and publicly their internal states, intentions, and commitments (p. 28, Wood). Integrity was positively correlated with honesty. Altruism reflects the degree to which the leader is more disposed to focus on goals that will benefit the group as opposed to goals that benefit only him or her (p. 29). In the study, altruism was positively correlated with “fairness” and “love for humanity”.

Wood concluded that the attributes of authentic leadership have a positive relationship with performance, but hinted of a possibility that there may be other mediating variables, such as positive other-directed emotion like “gratitude, concern for others, goodwill, and appreciation” (p. 61) to produce authentic action. She ended the discourse by saying that “a leader must be high on both for authentic action to occur. It is likely that leaders with high integrity and altruism would also need to experience other-directed emotions in order to perform effective authentic leadership.” (p.61)

The paper written by Wood was based on a study conducted on cadets of the US Military Academy because in a “challenging environment” such as the military academy, leaders need to display authentic leadership behaviours. This is where we can draw a comparison between Wood’s study and Wong’s paper. We may say that nursing environment is often stressful, and hence can be considered a challenging environment. And the results of Wood’s study on the relationship between authentic leadership attributes and performance may also be tested in a nursing work environment.

It is significant to note that in Wood’s study of authentic leadership, the attributes of integrity and altruism were tested using data from leadership performance and personality scores and written essays. The variables of emotional stability, grit and hardiness, components of resilience of a person in the face of adversities, have been tested on the cadets and they yielded a significant effect on leadership performance.

The moral/ethical dimension, which is the very essence of the authentic leadership theory, as espoused by Wong, may be defined in more measurable terms, so that we can have a more accurate result as to the effect of authentic leadership on trust in nursing practice environment, and thus create favourable work outcome. Wong’s theory which includes positive psychological capacities of hope, trust, positive emotions and optimism are proposed to have a relationship on leaders and followers’ behaviours. These concepts may be defined and also presented in measurable terms to identify the relationships they show with leaders and followers.

Anna Mariner Tomey, on Leadership and Management, states that by familiarizing themselves with the different theories of leadership, such as Great Man Theory, Charismatic Theory, Trait Theory, Contingency Theory, Path Goal Theory, Situational Leadership Theory, Transactional Leadership Theory and Transformational Leadership Theory, among others, the nurse can select and adopt the most suitable approach for dealing with different situations.

With our knowledge on the different leadership theories that can be grouped either in the Trait approach to leadership, or the Behavioural School, or the Contingency Leadership, or Leader and Follower, or Dispersed Leadership, is it really necessary to come up with a new leadership model to guide nurses in the performance of their functions for a healthier work environment, and thus, provide safe and effective care to patients? Or should nurses be left to choose which leadership style would fit them, or the situations they are in?