Introduction
Servant leadership is a theory used in many industries to focus on helping others. Servant leadership is a leadership concept that views leadership as serving the people and thus focuses on the needs of the people. The theory stands in stark contrast to traditional business leadership theories, which for the most part, concentrate on dominance. The approach includes ten key points to guide leadership in the right way. These characteristics fit perfectly with the nursing profession because they are similar to general nursing theories in many ways. Leadership and management is a complex process that requires responsibility and awareness. Nurses, especially family and general practice nurses, need to pay attention to organizing themselves. I found the theory of Servant Leadership to be the most interesting because following its precepts can significantly improve health care quality.
Applying Servant Leadership to Family Nurse Practioner
Servant leadership theory contains ten main characteristics, and they can all be applied to nursing practice. However, I want to focus on only five that should receive more nursing attention. They are self-awareness, conceptualization, striving to grow people, community building, and stewardship. Characteristics such as empathy, listening, and healing are also important, but they are a must while the first five are neglected.
Self-awareness
A leader’s personality is a systemic phenomenon that determines their self-awareness and attitude toward and treatment of others. Self-awareness allows one to adequately evaluate one’s actions and understand why one should make decisions. Self-awareness also includes reflecting on one’s actions and assessing their impact on others. In nursing, self-awareness is firmly linked to empathy and reflection, as these together in many cases allow one to identify a person’s impaired social needs. Nurses’ emotional intelligence contributes significantly to the way they conduct their work. White & McPherson examine the impact of nurses’ self-awareness in palliative practice. The authors point out that nurses’ awareness of how their feelings affect their work allows them to adjust their behavior. In addition, the authors observed that the nurses revised their attitudes about their work and made an effort to take time for personal feelings. It is important to understand that family nursing practice here is also essential to ensure the comfort of relatives. They need to be able to manage their emotions to support people.
Conceptualization
Conceptualization relates to the process of visualizing a future outcome; it allows for the creation of a comprehensive, competent approach and the conditioning of its necessity. Having an idea based on observation and evidence helps organize future work. For nursing, conceptualization provides the ability to comprehend abstract and complex concepts related to the health and illness of individuals and groups. In addition, communicating these ideas and applying them increases the effectiveness of the care provided. It is crucial for family nurses to understand that the idea must be used by the entire family, taking into account individual characteristics. Nurses need to know how their advice will affect the course of chronic illness. The topic of nutrition and wellness is relevant here: the nurses may often not follow the recommendations correctly or may ignore them altogether. In Hasson et al. study nurses were offered the PHeel-PLiNe program, which comprehensively encouraged healthy lifestyle behaviors (Hasson et al., 2018). The nurses were more likely to use nutritional lifestyle recommendations and counsel families about healthy eating after the program.
Stewardship
Stewardship can be considered the most challenging of all the criteria for the ministry theory because it requires strength and skill. It involves analyzing experience and understanding how to apply it. It is also the ability to take responsibility and be guided by moral principles in the performance of any action. It is taking responsibility for the acts and results of your team and taking responsibility for the role that team members play in your organization. In the case of a family medical practice, stewardship is the ability to help and achieve results and calculate the likelihood of failure. The WHO released data in its 2020 report showing that leadership and sound management in nursing have contributed to increasing the quality of care provided (WHO, 2020). The organization also commented on this progress due to teaching nurses to be aware of their role in shaping healthy families.
The Commitments to People Growth
All leaders want their company to grow; they want to improve the effectiveness of their employees and help them realize their potential. It helps overcome barriers and challenges that are a big part of servant leadership. The desire is consistent with systems approach theory, and together they provide a directed approach to the situation and its solution. In family practice, nurses are interested in ensuring that each family member can overcome an ailment and generally promote recovery. Looman suggests using the FN-AIM tool, which allows family practice nurses to visualize outcomes and organize interventions so that patients can support personal growth (Looman, 2019). The authors call attention to the need for a systematic approach in practice because social needs disorders affects the entire family. The development of people in medicine reflects the nurse’s ability to support people on the road to recovery.
Building Community
Community building is a characteristic that stems from people’s growth, as high-performing people create a literate community. In the case of a family medicine practice, leadership ministry is realized by creating a healthy community. Each nurse practitioner has several families with whom he or she works. The strategies used are generally the same: care, counseling, and assistance. The need for cooperation among family practice nurses arises to develop evidence-based work plans and provide comprehensive care. It was especially evident during the pandemic when people were getting sick in whole families (Aquilia et al., 2020). Nurses tried to create standard rules for the management of such families and to help keep other families safe. In addition, the nurses exchanged experiences and engaged in a focused search for ways to help people.
Conclusion
Servant leadership theory is essential to organizing the right approach to managing people in health care settings. This theory is based on the premise that leaders work to meet the needs of subordinates and promote their goals, equally striving to achieve the organization’s primary mission. Servant leadership theory contains ten basic tenets that managers should trust. Five can be identified as the key ones: self-awareness, conceptualization, stewardship, striving to grow people and building community. They are essential to the work of the family practice nurse. Self-awareness is necessary to reflect on one’s feelings and understand their impact on the outcome of illness. Conceptualization allows you to choose an approach to practice that will solve the problem at hand and contribute to the quality of health. Management will enable nurses to be aware of the responsibility for their actions and to engage all possibilities. The pursuit of human growth and community building are inextricably linked as they seek to create healthy families through motivation and support.
References
Aquilia, A., Grimley, K., Jacobs, B., Kosturko, M. & Mansfield, J. (2020). Nursing leadership during COVID-19: Enhancing patient, family and workforce experience. Special Issue: Sustaining a Focus on Human Experience in the Face of COVID-19, 7(2), 136-143.
Hasson, R., Stark, A. H., Constantini, N., Polak, R., Verbov, G., Edelstein, N., Lachmi, M., Cohen, R., Maoz, S., Daoud, N., Soltz-Aharony, H., & Stein-Zamir, C. (2018). “Practice what you teach” public health nurses promoting healthy lifestyles (PHeeL-PHiNe): Program evaluation.The Journal of ambulatory care management, 41(3), 171–180. Web.
Looman, W. S. (2019). Teaching systems thinking for advanced family nursing practice: a theory-based tool.Journal of Family Nursing, 26, 5-14. Web.
White, L., & McPherson, C. (2017). Touch(ed) in palliative care nursing: Moving with/in an uncertain practice. In M. Rovers, J. Malette, & M. Guirguis-Younger (Eds.), Touch in the Helping Professions: Research, Practice and Ethics (pp. 177-194). University of Ottawa Press.
World Health Organization. (2020). Nursing in a context of broader workforce and health priorities. In State of the world’s nursing 2020: investing in education, jobs and leadership (pp. 5-10). World Health Organization.