Introduction
The effectiveness of leaders is dependent on personality, behavior, and professional competencies. According to Marquis and Huston (2012), personality, behavior, and professionalism influence the nature of leadership styles that leaders apply in various organizations. With a view of enhancing the understanding of leadership styles, management experts have come up with several instruments, which enable individuals to assess their personalities and behaviors about their predisposed leadership styles.
Examples of these instruments are the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, which assesses personality, and DISC as an instrument that assesses the behavior of individuals. To enhance understanding of leadership styles, this essay uses Keirsey Temperament Sorter and DISC in the assessment of personality and behavior respectively, with a view of identifying potential challenges and improving leadership competencies and effectiveness.
Leadership Style
From the leadership inventory of the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, the findings show that the nurse in question is a guardian. A guardian is an individual, who can manage systems such as families, communities, businesses, and organizations because they have logistic skills. Moreover, guardians are cautious, meticulous, loyal, disciplined, trustworthy, and cooperative individuals.
From the leadership inventory of the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, it is evident that the nurse is predisposed to a democratic style of leadership. Democratic leaders can manage individuals, act cautiously, and develop teamwork (Wall Street Journal Staff, 2014). In this view, the results of the Keirsey Temperament Sorter depict the nurse as a democratic leader, who exhibits attributes of guardians.
The inventory leadership of DISC (dominance, inducement, submission, and compliance) assesses the behavior of individuals concerning their leadership styles. The highest dimension is conscientiousness, which shows that the nurse is analytical, systematic, and orderly when dealing with problems. The DISC results show that in the aspect of dominance, the nurse is inquisitive, self-critical, competitive, and self-reliant, while in the aspect of inducement, the nurse is pessimistic, suspicious, and self-conscious.
Moreover, alert, stable, critical, and eagerness are aspects of submission, while courteous, systematic, perfectionist and conventional behaviors are some of the aspects of compliance. These results also depict the nurse as a democratic leader because of the behavioral characteristics displayed. Azaare and Gross (2011) assert that democratic leaders are proactive, systemic critical, stable, independent, and courteous. These behavioral characteristics effectively match that of the nurse as assessed by DISC.
Potential Challenges
The potential leadership challenges relate to the pessimistic and withdrawn characteristics, which fall under the inducement aspect of DISC. The pessimistic, suspicious, and withdrawn characteristics are likely to limit the nurse from exercising a democratic style of leadership. Christmas (2009) argues that effective leadership allows employees to participate in the decision-making process. However, owing to suspicion and pessimism, it would be hard for the nurse to gain the trust of employees.
Additionally, another potential challenge is that the nurse may become a conservative guardian because of the systematic approach to the resolution of issues and adherence to rules. Kouzes and Posner (2009) argue that conservative leaders slow down transformations in organizations. Conservative leaders are reactive rather than proactive in the resolution of problems.
Improvement of Leadership Competencies and Effectiveness
To improve leadership competencies and effectiveness, the nurse should forestall pessimistic and conservative challenges. Since the nurse performs poorly in the aspect of inducement, the acquisition of positive values such as trusting, sociable, influential, and confident is imperative. Christmas (2009) holds that positive leadership skills like trust, influence, and confidence, promote coaching and mentoring of employees. To overcome the challenge of conservative leadership, the nurse should adopt liberal values and principles of leadership.
Conclusion
Leadership styles are subject to the personal and behavioral attributes of a person. The use of assessment tools such as the Keirsey Temperament Sorter and DISC enables learners to understand their leadership styles and improve them accordingly. The assessment of personality using the Keirsey Temperament Sorter shows that the nurse has attributes of a guardian, while the DISC depicts attributes of inquisitive, conscientiousness, stability, and perfectionist in aspects of dominance, inducement, submission, and compliance respectively. Improvement of pessimistic and conservative attributes is essential to enhance the democratic leadership of the nurse.
References
Azaare, J., & Gross, J. (2011). The nature of leadership style in nursing management. British Journal of Nursing, 20(11), 672–676, 678–680. Web.
Christmas, K. (2009). 2009: The year of positive leadership. Nursing Economics, 27(2), 128-133. Web.
Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2009). To lead, create a shared vision. Harvard Business Review, 87(1), 20-21. Web.
Marquis, B. L., & Huston, C. J. (2012). Leadership roles and management functions in nursing: Theory and application. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins.
Wall Street Journal Staff. (2014). Leadership. Web.