Introduction
Every person should have practical leadership skills to ensure that they can cooperate and lead others when it is necessary. There are different leadership styles, and each of them implies its own advantages and drawbacks. Thus, individuals should know this information to choose the most appropriate approach to influence others. According to The Foundation of Nursing Leadership’s Leadership Development – Test One, my preferred leadership style is a transformational one, which provides me with particular leadership skills, strengths, and opportunities.
Main body
In the beginning, it is reasonable to comment on leadership skills that I have managed to notice during my self-assessment. Firstly, I can state that I have proper communication and mentoring abilities. These skills are necessary because transformational leadership implies relying on others to achieve specified goals (Fischer, 2017). Secondly, emotional intelligence is another skill that is significant for my professional practice. This competence allows me to understand what others feel and choose appropriate words or actions to respect their feelings and emotions. Thirdly, another skill is the ability to stimulate and motivate others. Since transformation leadership implies that a person demonstrates specific characteristics to introduce any change, it is challenging to overestimate the significance of the given skill.
Simultaneously, the self-assessment helped me identify my strengths and opportunities for improvement. On the one hand, the given leadership style implies numerous advantages. For example, I rely on idealized influence because I try to be an exemplary role model for other team members (Fischer, 2017). Individual consideration is one more strength of my leadership style. According to Fischer (2017), this phenomenon results in the fact that I welcome people’s individualities, which encourages them to contribute to achieving shared goals. On the other hand, the leadership approach under analysis implies some limitations. According to Collins et al. (2019), I should ensure that my leadership approach is not overwhelming for others. In particular, it refers to the fact that this leadership style can make followers feel pressured, leading to adverse consequences. Another opportunity is to ensure that I do not rely on my leadership skills to achieve individual, not organizational, goals.
The given self-assessment allows me to create an action plan to capitalize on the strengths and address the opportunities. Thus, idealized influence implies that I should be the first person who offers a specific response to a situation so that other team members can use my behavior as an example. Simultaneously, individual consideration demonstrates that any decision should only be made after I have analyzed its consequences for every team member. In this case, I should invest in acting as a coach or mentor. Simultaneously, the action plan should also comment on the identified opportunities. Firstly, I should always ask for feedback from my subordinates to ensure that my leadership approach is not overwhelming or pressing for them. Secondly, an essential step is to invest effort in self-control to exclude any possibility that I will use my leadership positions to obtain personal gains.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Test One by The Foundation of Nursing Leadership’s Leadership Development has revealed that I prefer using a transformational leadership style. This information demonstrates that I rely on appropriate skills such as communication, emotional intelligence, and others. This approach also provides me with particular strengths and opportunities. That is why it was necessary to develop a specific action plan to identify steps that could help capitalize on the located strengths and address the opportunities.
References
Collins, E., Owen, P., Digan, J., & Dunn, F. (2019). Applying transformational leadership in nursing practice. Nursing Standard, 35(5), 59-65. Web.
Fischer, S. A. (2017). Developing nurses’ transformational leadership skills. Nursing Standard, 31(51), 54-63. Web.