Assessment Description
Journaling provides a valuable tool for recording, reflecting on, and reviewing your learning. This approach provides an opportunity for you to \”connect the dots\” and observe the relationships between and among activities, interactions, and outcomes.
Unlike a personal journal of thoughts and feelings, this leadership journal is a record of your activities, assessments, and learning related to this academic experience.
Journal entries should include a record of the number of hours spent with your nurse leader each week.
Write a journal entry of 750-1,500 words on the subject of authority, including the following:
Practicum Activities Reflection: Provide observations and thoughts on the activities in your practicum setting during Weeks 3-4.
Application of Leadership: Reflect on how change management is handled in your professional life. How is this related to strategic management principles? Explain your answer and provide an example.
Practicum Project Preparation: Explain how your project goals align with the mission and vision of your organization, as well as with the organizational needs. Is it important that these align? Provide your rationale.
Leadership Video Reflection: Reflect on at least two things you learned from the \”Servant Leadership – Issue of Authority\” video.
Use the \”Leadership Journal Template\” to complete this assignment.
APA style is not required, but solid academic writing is expected.
This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. A link to the LopesWrite technical support articles is located in Class Resources if you need assistance.
Leadership Journal
Name:
Weeks Covering:
Preceptor/Mentor:
Clinical/Practicum Site:
Hours Worked (past 2 weeks):___
Total Hours: ____/150 total of all hours worked up to this point
Practicum Activities Reflection:
The practicum activities completed in the clinical setting during weeks 3 and 4 generated numerous insights about leadership and change management. With the help of my preceptor, I was able to successfully complete 25 hours of practice during the two weeks period. My preceptor regularly attended meetings with departmental managers and directors to discuss issues related to increased admissions at the practicum site. The mental health unit recorded the highest admission rates in a period of one month. The beds in the unit were fully occupied and the nurses in the unit expressed concerns regarding increased workloads. I was motivated by these experiences to choose a project that will help to reduce patient admission rates at the practicum site.
The project that I am working on is about reducing short-term observation or admissions for patients who could be discharged from the emergency department ED to home with resources and/or home health. The case managers will be working in real-time in the ED with not only the ED physicians but also the admitting physicians to determine if the above mention patients are able to be discharged from the ED. This will reduce the number of inappropriate admissions and not take the hospital’s census to 100% which will allow other patients who have a higher acuity or need resources that are not available as out of the hospital. The project will require 2-3 case managers to be hired and assigned to work in the ED. One thing that I have noticed during this time is that the project will require patience and working on a relationship to build trust with the physicians. At this point, the physicians perceive that we are telling them what they can, and they cannot admit that a problem exists. This will take some effort for the project to get through.
I must state that I have had a very fascinating experience at the practicum site in the past two weeks. An important observation that I have made about leadership is that a leader is someone who utilizes his or her position to influence others to execute change in their organizations. As Peyton et al. (2019) explain, effective leaders usually use their positions to shape other people’s behaviors and motivate them to embrace self-determination to achieve the desired goals. The nurse leader in my unit encouraged departmental leaders and directors to develop and implement action plans that are aimed at improving patient outcomes.
Application of Leadership:
I have learned a lot about change management and strategic management principles in my professional life and in the practicum setting. Healthcare organizations that I have worked for employed change management strategies to implement reforms and transitions that are aimed at improving healthcare quality and patient outcomes. For example, my organization recently utilized change management principles and methodologies to successfully integrate telehealth into healthcare delivery in order to increase healthcare access for patients remotely during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Harrison et al. (2021) support the value of change management methodologies in guiding quality improvements in healthcare contexts. Change management in healthcare is related to strategic management principles in that during change management, healthcare organizations must engage in strategic thinking, strategic planning, and strategic momentum in order to successfully implement reforms (Naamati, 2020). For example, in my clinical setting, combining change management with strategic management principles created a structured system in which decisions could be made to ensure successful change adaptation. This ensured that the issues at hand were effectively addressed.
Practicum Project Preparation:
My project goals adequately align with the mission and vision, as well as with the needs of the organization. The mission of the organization is to provide the best care possible to patients through collaboration and research. Its vision is to become a trusted healthcare facility in the region for high-quality health care. The organization’s current need is to reduce the admission of patients who can recover at home. The project’s goal is to hire 2-3 additional case managers who will work to ensure that patients arriving at the ED receive the best possible care and are discharged to recover at home. This will help the organization to achieve its mission and mission and to address its current needs. It is highly imperative that the project’s goal aligns with the mission, vision, and needs of the organization. The rationale for alignment is that it will enable the project team to engage in activities that are beneficial to the organization both in the short and the long run.
Leadership Video Reflection:
Today’s nurse leaders should learn effective leadership skills from successful leaders. The leadership video titled ‘Servant Leadership-Issue of Authority’ explores the concept of authority as it pertains to servant leadership. From the video, I have learned that servant leaders are able to exercise authority when they possess the legitimate right to influence others to perform activities that they want them to perform. I have also discovered that one of the characteristics of servant leaders is the ability to move from formal authority, where their positions give them the right to make decisions, to informal authority, where who they are, gives them the right to make decisions.
References
Harrison, R., Fischer, S., Walpola, R. L., Chauhan, A., Babalola, T., Mears, S., & Le-Dao, H. (2021). Where do models for change management, improvement and implementation meet? A systematic review of the applications of change management models in healthcare. Journal of Healthcare Leadership, 13, 85–108. https://doi.org/10.2147/JHL.S289176
Naamati, S., L. (2020). Strategic management as adaptation to changes in the ecosystems of public hospitals in Israel. Israel Journal of Health Policy Research, 9(1), 65. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13584-020-00424-y
Peyton, T., Zigarmi, D., & Fowler, S. N. (2019). Examining the relationship between leaders’ power use, followers’ motivational outlooks, and followers’ work intentions. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2620. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02620