Leadership is a tool that drives the workplace and it determines whether the organization can actually achieve its goals and objectives. However, there are different types of leadership all which may achieve similar goals at the end. However, there is more to leadership than the goals and it is these that separate exceptional leaders with the average leader who can equally deliver the material results. the healthcare setting of the contemporary day is significantly designed as a business model that seeks to achieve sustenance as well as an appeal to the society within which it has been designed to serve (American Nurses Association, 2010).
Madeleine Leininger is one of the beacons of nursing that I have found to be an inspiring entity. The life of Madeleine Leininger revolved around nursing and care giving. She would either be doing it directly or she would be designing and seeking ways to improve care outcomes as provided by the nurse. Madeleine Leininger is famously known for her advancing the concept of transcultural nursing (Ray, 2011). However, she is a leader from whom we can learn a lot. Despite her involvement as a scholar, educator, theorist, researcher, consultant, administrator as well as a public speaker, Leininger was driven by the need to work with the people to advance a cause that will impact the larger group. Her leadership was based around change and therefore presented as a change-oriented leader (Ray, 2011).
Leininger believed that it was better working with people and communities as opposed to developing ideas and letting them be. Her inspiration in nursing works is a clear example of that aspect. She was inspired by the death of her aunt who succumbed to congenital heart disease and she thought that she could help the larger society so that no one else suffers the same fate as her family. The drive to pursue nursing to help the community and her passion for new ideas that would improve the care delivery of nurses is based on the attribute of intuition (Walia & Marks-Maran, 2014). She wanted to pursue where others have not and she wanted to set out a new path that would impact the society and the world. Her passion for nursing was not nurtured but triggered and therefore indicating that she was more driven by feelings and perception as opposed to seeking a static path that would be destined to lead her to a recognizable place (Ray, 2011). Leininger regarded her role as a change agent and a firm believer in the fact that the world is dynamic and we should equally be dynamic in responding to the needs of the self and the others (Walia & Marks-Maran, 2014).
Ideally, I believe that Leininger’s leadership and attributes are similar to what I hold. In the current healthcare setting, the needs of the population are increasing on a daily basis. This can be attributed to an increasing population as well as the increasing patient complexities. As a healthcare professional I have to respond appropriately and that includes showing my innovativeness and creativity in managing the issues that are presented (Ray, 2011). However, that is only possible when one has an open mind and is ready to learn and discover. I appreciate that evidence-based practice has become a core competence for nurses since we are prepared to serve in an environment where change is inevitable and the nurse has to drive that change (American Nurses Association, 2010).
The healthcare setting today seeks to place the patient at the helm within the concepts of patient-centered care. This can only be possible in a setting where as a nurse I can allow for communication with the patient and ensure that we can negotiate all that would afford the patient the best care outcomes (American Nurses Association, 2016). We cannot be static in care delivery within the current healthcare setting considering that patient centered care is best described as that which tailors the interventions to the individual patient. Intuition and perception which are key aspects of decision making rather than judgment and thinking which restrict us to a conventional method of acting are the key attributes that I associate with Leininger as well as myself (Walia & Marks-Maran, 2014).
References
American Nurses Association. (2010). Nursing: Scope and standards of practice. Silver Spring, MD: Author.
American Nurses Association. (2016). Professional Standards. Retrieved from http://www.nursingworld.org/nursingstandards
Ray, M. A. (2011). A celebration of a life of commitment to transcultural nursing: Opening of the Madeleine M. Leininger Collection on Human Caring and Transcultural Nursing. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 22(1), 97-97.
Walia, S., & Marks-Maran, D. (2014). Leadership development through action learning sets: An evaluation study. Nurse education in practice, 14(6), 612-619.
