Required Readings
Marshall, E., & Broome, M. (2017). Transformational leadership in nursing: From expert clinician to influential leader (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Springer.
- Chapter 1, “Expert Clinician to Transformational Leader in a Complex Health Care Organization: Foundations” (pp. 7–20 ONLY)
- Chapter 6, “Frameworks for Becoming a Transformational Leader” (pp. 145–170)
- Chapter 7, “Becoming a Leader: It’s All About You” (pp. 171–194)
At least 3 citations. APA Format 7th Edition.
Discussion 2: Your Leadership Profile
Do you believe you have the traits to be an effective leader? Perhaps you are already in a supervisory role, but as has been discussed previously, appointment does not guarantee leadership skills.
How can you evaluate your own leadership skills and behaviors? You can start by analyzing your performance in specific areas of leadership. In this Discussion, you will complete Gallup’s StrengthsFinder assessment. This assessment will identify your personal strengths, which have been shown to improve motivation, engagement, and academic self-conference. Through this assessment, you will discover your top five themes—which you can reflect upon and use to leverage your talents for optimal success and examine how the results relate to your leadership traits.
To Prepare:
Complete the StrengthsFinder assessment instrument, per the instructions found in this Module’s Learning Resources.
Please Note: This Assessment will take roughly 30 minutes to complete.
NOTE: Please keep your report. You will need your results for future courses. Technical Issues with Gallup:
If you have technical issues after registering, please contact the Gallup Education Support group by phone at +1.866-346-4408. Support is available 24 hours/day from 6:00 p.m. Sunday U.S. Central Time through 5:00 p.m. Friday U.S. Central Time.
· Reflect on the results of your Assessment, and consider how the results relate to your leadership traits.
Post a brief description of your results from the StrengthsFinder assessment. Then, briefly describe two core values, two strengths, and two characteristics that you would like to strengthen based on the results of your StrengthsFinder assessment. Be specific
StrengthsFinder Assessment
Your Top 5 Themes
1. Strategic
2. Learner
3. Restorative
4. Responsibility
5. Input
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Strategic
SHARED THEME DESCRIPTION People who are especially talented in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced
THEME DESCRIPTION People who are especially talented in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.
YOUR PERSONALIZED STRENGTHS INSIGHTS What makes you stand out?
It’s very likely that you automatically generate numerous ways to enhance, upgrade, revise, correct, or revamp a process, action plan, or itinerary. Your suggestions often influence how a project will unfold in the coming months, years, or decades. You tend to find fault with your own and even other people’s talents, skills, and/or knowledge. Fixing people or things ranks high on your favorite activities. Instinctively, you invent original ideas of your own. Your imagination is typically stimulated when you collaborate — that is, team up — with future-oriented thinkers. By nature, you can reconfigure factual information or data in ways that reveal trends, raise issues, identify opportunities, or offer solutions. You bring an added dimension to discussions. You make sense out of seemingly unrelated information. You are likely to generate multiple action plans before you choose the best one. Driven by your talents, you probably feel very good about yourself and life in general when you know the exact words to express an idea or a feeling. Language has fascinated you since childhood. Your ever-expanding vocabulary often earns you compliments. Chances are good that you appreciate straightforward, plainspoken, and concise conversations. Often you have these exchanges with people who are as comfortable speaking about their ideas as you are.
Questions
1. As you read your personalized strengths insights, what words, phrases, or lines stand out to you?
2. Out of all the talents in this insight, what would you like for others to see most in you?
3Learner
SHARED THEME DESCRIPTION People who are especially talented in the Learner theme have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. In particular, the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them.
YOUR PERSONALIZED STRENGTHS INSIGHTS What makes you stand out?
By nature, you see yourself as a contributing member of the group. You enjoy partnering with intelligent people. You like to exchange information, share observations, or offer tips for doing things more easily, efficiently, or swiftly. You are happiest collaborating with individuals who are not stingy with what they know. You have an ability to figure out how everyone on the team can benefit from each other’s knowledge, skills, experiences, or wisdom. Driven by your talents, you channel your efforts into the task at hand. You persevere until you have gained the knowledge and skills needed to attain a goal. You can toil for many hours to secure your objective. You probably work hardest and most productively at a particular time of day. Chances are good that you not only buy books or check them out from the library; you also read them. Your investigative mind is restless until you have collected lots of information about factors that produce various outcomes. You are motivated to read more about topics of personal and professional interest. These can range from history to science, from politics to mathematics, from entertainment to sports, or from art to law. Instinctively, you have the extra energy to work hard whenever you are acquiring information to broaden your base of knowledge. You desire to deepen your understanding of various topics, opportunities, problems, solutions, situations, events, or people. Because of your strengths, you fill your mind with new ideas by asking questions, reading, studying, observing, or listening. Normally, you accumulate facts, data, stories, examples, or background information from the people you meet. Determining what they want to accomplish in the coming weeks, months, or years generally satisfies your curiosity. These insights also allow you to understand why individuals behave the way they do in different situations.
Questions
1. As you read your personalized strengths insights, what words, phrases, or lines stand out to you?
2Out of all the talents in this insight, what would you like for others to see most in you?
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Restorative
SHARED THEME DESCRIPTION People who are especially talented in the Restorative theme are adept at dealing with problems. They are good at figuring out what is wrong and resolving it.
YOUR PERSONALIZED STRENGTHS INSIGHTS What makes you stand out?
By nature, you are honest with yourself about yourself. You can admit your shortcomings. You speak frankly about the areas where you need to do things better and more completely than you have done them in the past. Instinctively, you gather candid feedback from trustworthy individuals to heighten your awareness of areas you need to upgrade. Their frank comments fuel your desire to continually correct things. Because of your strengths, you usually offer people useful suggestions about what needs to be fixed, upgraded, renovated, or done better. It’s very likely that you conclude that life is a lot more fulfilling when you concentrate on conquering your shortcomings. This explains why self-improvement programs appeal to you so much. You probably gravitate to those that teach techniques you can immediately put into practice. Driven by your talents, you easily detect areas of weakness and concentrate on them. You seize opportunities to improve in the things you do poorly at worst and average at best. You help people pinpoint targets for personal and professional growth. You strive to compensate for shortcomings that prevent you and others from being successful.
Questions
1. As you read your personalized strengths insights, what words, phrases, or lines stand out to you?
2. Out of all the talents in this insight, what would you like for others to see most in you?
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Responsibility
SHARED THEME DESCRIPTION People who are especially talented in the Responsibility theme take psychological ownership of what they say they will do. They are committed to stable values such as honesty and loyalty.
YOUR PERSONALIZED STRENGTHS INSIGHTS What makes you stand out?
Driven by your talents, you probably are the team member who wants to be held accountable for the results you produce and the obligations you assume. You can readily admit when you are wrong. You usually accept without complaining the consequences of your words and deeds. It’s very likely that you have a reputation for showing care and precision in whatever you do. Your distinct and noticeable attention to detail can be seen in your financial records, personal appearance, study notes, home, workplace, closets, drawers, or computer files. You want to keep things orderly. You also are impelled to do things right. When you are ultimately held accountable, your need for order and structure intensifies. By nature, you bring an exceptionally mature perspective to your team. Most people regard you as the dependable and reliable one. Instinctively, you are the team member whom others count on to do what is right. You make sure your job and assignments are done correctly. You customarily conduct yourself in such a way that your ethics are above reproach — that is, anyone’s disapproval. Because of your strengths, you genuinely feel pleased with yourself and life in general when you do tasks correctly and behave in accordance with your core values.
Questions
1. As you read your personalized strengths insights, what words, phrases, or lines stand out to you?
2. Out of all the talents in this insight, what would you like for others to see most in you?
SHARED THEME DESCRIPTION People who are especially talented in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like to collect and archive all kinds of information.
YOUR PERSONALIZED STRENGTHS INSIGHTS What makes you stand out?
Chances are good that you probably help your teammates understand the pieces, parts, or steps of elaborate procedures or systems. You are likely to outline how all the human or material resources are scheduled for distribution. Instinctively, you have no difficulty diving into books, journals, files, correspondence, or Internet sites to prepare yourself for new assignments. By nature, you are driven to gather lots of information, facts, data, or insiders’ perspectives about an upcoming project. All this newfound knowledge probably prepares you to tackle first-time projects with gusto — that is, vigor and enthusiasm. By nature, you probably gather lots of information, facts, or insights from a variety of written materials. Fortunately, your passion for reading fills you with the reassurance you need to render a proper decision, state the right points, or tackle an assignment correctly. It’s very likely that you enjoy reading as long as you can savor each sentence and consider each idea. Your goal is to comprehend everything you read. It makes no sense to you to rush through books, magazine or newspaper articles, Internet sites, or other forms of written material just to say you finished them. Because of your strengths, you put yourself in the middle of mentally stimulating conversations. You want to gather new ideas, discover new approaches, hear about new theories, consider new concepts, or apply new technologies. Often you are one of the early discoverers of innovations. Others can lag behind if they wish, but you consistently acquire knowledge. You exhibit little need to know precisely where all this information ultimately will lead you.
Questions
1. As you read your personalized strengths insights, what words, phrases, or lines stand out to you?
2. Out of all the talents in this insight, what would you like for others to see most in you?
Many years of research conducted by The Gallup Organization suggest that the most effective people are those who understand their strengths and behaviors. These people are best able to develop strategies to meet and exceed the demands of their daily lives, their careers, and their families.
A review of the knowledge and skills you have acquired can provide a basic sense of your abilities, but an awareness and understanding of your natural talents will provide true insight into the core reasons behind your consistent successes.
Your Signature Themes report presents your five most dominant themes of talent, in the rank order revealed by your responses to StrengthsFinder. Of the 34 themes measured, these are your “top five.”
Your Signature Themes are very important in maximizing the talents that lead to your successes. By focusing on your Signature Themes, separately and in combination, you can identify your talents, build them into strengths, and enjoy personal and career success through consistent, near-perfect performance.
Strategic
The Strategic theme enables you to sort through the clutter and find the best route. It is not a skill that can be taught. It is a distinct way of thinking, a special perspective on the world at large. This perspective allows you to see patterns where others simply see complexity. Mindful of these patterns, you play out alternative scenarios, always asking, “What if this happened? Okay, well what if this happened?” This recurring question helps you see around the next corner. There you can evaluate accurately the potential obstacles. Guided by where you see each path leading, you start to make selections. You discard the paths that lead nowhere. You discard the paths that lead straight into resistance. You discard the paths that lead into a fog of confusion. You cull and make selections until you arrive at the chosen path—your strategy. Armed with your strategy, you strike forward. This is your Strategic theme at work: “What if?” Select. Strike.
Learner
You love to learn. The subject matter that interests you most will be determined by your other themes and experiences, but whatever the subject, you will always be drawn to the process of learning. The process, more than the content or the result, is especially exciting for you. You are energized by the steady and
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deliberate journey from ignorance to competence. The thrill of the first few facts, the early efforts to recite or practice what you have learned, the growing confidence of a skill mastered—this is the process that entices you. Your excitement leads you to engage in adult learning experiences—yoga or piano lessons or graduate classes. It enables you to thrive in dynamic work environments where you are asked to take on short project assignments and are expected to learn a lot about the new subject matter in a short period of time and then move on to the next one. This Learner theme does not necessarily mean that you seek to become the subject matter expert, or that you are striving for the respect that accompanies a professional or academic credential. The outcome of the learning is less significant than the “getting there.”
Restorative
You love to solve problems. Whereas some are dismayed when they encounter yet another breakdown, you can be energized by it. You enjoy the challenge of analyzing the symptoms, identifying what is wrong, and finding the solution. You may prefer practical problems or conceptual ones or personal ones. You may seek out specific kinds of problems that you have met many times before and that you are confident you can fix. Or you may feel the greatest push when faced with complex and unfamiliar problems. Your exact preferences are determined by your other themes and experiences. But what is certain is that you enjoy bringing things back to life. It is a wonderful feeling to identify the undermining factor(s), eradicate them, and restore something to its true glory. Intuitively, you know that without your intervention, this thing—this machine, this technique, this person, this company—might have ceased to function. You fixed it, resuscitated it, rekindled its vitality. Phrasing it the way you might, you saved it.
Responsibility
Your Responsibility theme forces you to take psychological ownership for anything you commit to, and whether large or small, you feel emotionally bound to follow it through to completion. Your good name depends on it. If for some reason you cannot deliver, you automatically start to look for ways to make it up to the other person. Apologies are not enough. Excuses and rationalizations are totally unacceptable. You will not quite be able to live with yourself until you have made restitution. This conscientiousness, this near obsession for doing things right, and your impeccable ethics, combine to create your reputation: utterly dependable. When assigning new responsibilities, people will look to you first because they know it will get done. When people come to you for help—and they soon will—you must be selective. Your willingness to volunteer may sometimes lead you to take on more than you should.
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Input
You are inquisitive. You collect things. You might collect information—words, facts, books, and quotations—or you might collect tangible objects such as butterflies, baseball cards, porcelain dolls, or sepia photographs. Whatever you collect, you collect it because it interests you. And yours is the kind of mind that finds so many things interesting. The world is exciting precisely because of its infinite variety and complexity. If you read a great deal, it is not necessarily to refine your theories but, rather, to add more information to your archives. If you like to travel, it is because each new location offers novel artifacts and facts. These can be acquired and then stored away. Why are they worth storing? At the time of storing it is often hard to say exactly when or why you might need them, but who knows when they might become useful? With all those possible uses in mind, you really don’t feel comfortable throwing anything away. So you keep acquiring and compiling and filing stuff away. It’s interesting. It keeps your mind fresh. And perhaps one day some of it will prove valuable.
Assignment: Personal Leadership Philosophies
Many of us can think of leaders we have come to admire, be they historical figures, pillars of the industry we work in, or leaders we know personally. The leadership of individuals such as Abraham Lincoln and Margaret Thatcher has been studied and discussed repeatedly. However, you may have interacted with leaders you feel demonstrated equally competent leadership without ever having a book written about their approaches.
What makes great leaders great? Every leader is different, of course, but one area of commonality is the leadership philosophy that great leaders develop and practice. A leadership philosophy is basically an attitude held by leaders that acts as a guiding principle for their behavior. While formal theories on leadership continue to evolve over time, great leaders seem to adhere to an overarching philosophy that steers their actions.
What is your leadership philosophy? In this Assignment, you will explore what guides your own leadership.
To Prepare:
· Identify two to three scholarly resources, in addition to this Module’s readings, that evaluate the impact of leadership behaviors in creating healthy work environments.
· Reflect on the leadership behaviors presented in the three resources that you selected for review.
· Reflect on your results of the CliftonStrengths Assessment, and consider how the results relate to your leadership traits.
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The Assignment (3 pages):
Personal Leadership Philosophies
Develop and submit a personal leadership philosophy that reflects what you think are characteristics of a good leader. Use the scholarly resources on leadership you selected to support your philosophy statement. Your personal leadership philosophy should include the following:
· A description of your core values
· A personal mission/vision statement
· An analysis of your CliftonStrengths Assessment summarizing the results of your profile
· A description of two key behaviors that you wish to strengthen
· A development plan that explains how you plan to improve upon the two key behaviors you selected and an explanation of how you plan to achieve your personal vision. Be specific and provide examples.
· Be sure to incorporate your colleagues’ feedback on your CliftonStrengths Assessment from this Module’s Discussion 2.