In my major, which is nursing, professionals share the view of patient-centered care. This places the patient at the forefront of every decision made about that patient’s care, and puts the final say on decisions with the patient. This also entails working together as one cohesive health care team, what we would call the interprofessional or interdisciplinary team. This means that different professions must work together in order to provide care for the patient, which differs from the past, where the doctors might work separate from the nurse, who works separate from the dietician, and so on and so forth. The expectation of leaders in this field is that each leader among the different disciplines do their best to provide the highest possible standard of care with the patient’s desires in mind. Also, in patient-centered-care, the patients themselves can be viewed as leaders, driving the direction of their own care. It is the understanding that each of the disciplines in a team working with a patient is a “leader” in their own field of health care, with the common goal of providing the best possible care for a patient, which shortens hospital stays for that patient and reduces the chance for errors, which can result in longer stays and hospital acquired conditions. Sometimes, however, ethical dilemmas can come about through the paradigm of patient centered care. For example, the patients have the right to refuse any medication or treatment they want to, even if it means improving their condition or saving their life. Also, another ethical dilemma exists after the diagnosis of a patient, in disclosing information about that patient’s condition. The patient has the right to inform or withhold information about their condition from anyone, including family members and other loved ones, even if that knowledge could lead to loved ones being tested for their likelihood to contract the same condition. Ultimately, in order to show ethical leadership in the field of nursing, or in any health care-related field today, means to put patient’s desires and requests first when at all possible, no matter what medical knowledge or training might tell you. This is the current paradigm shared by health care professionals, the world of patient-centered care.
To me, the definition of leadership is not only an individual or group taking charge of a tasks among others, but that the individual elevates the standard, work ethic, and finished product of work of others in the group. In the world of sports, athletes like LeBron James and Tom Brady, and coaches like Urban Meyer, set the example of how to play or coach their respective sports, and through their example elevate their fellow teammates and players’ performance, making them better players themselves. This definition also fits into the everyday working world, where a good boss elevates the work of his employees by setting a standard of work quality. Also, the more employees and players enjoy working with a good boss or team leader, the more they will be driven to improve performance towards a common goal. The second part of leadership that I think is crucial is that a leader must be willing to adapt to changing times. Our world is a rapidly developing one, due to in most part the development of technology. If a leader is not willing to change with the times, he or she could be missing out on chances to boost workforce morale, increase efficiency, and improve the overall quality of work. A third piece of leadership that I believe is important is that a leader must be open to continuous learning, and to the ideas and concerns of his employees, or any other type of follower. Once a leader is willing to accept that he may not always have the best option for every answer, and that his employees can contribute more than following through with what the leader says, he facilitates critical thinking on ideas to come up with the best possible solution to get the job done. All of these important pieces lead to the real purpose of leadership, not solely to be in charge of a project, but to work towards accomplishing a common goal. If there is no common goal to work towards, a leader’s situation can result in the leader making orders for the sake of his followers’ obedience of the orders. With no drive towards a common goal, this situation becomes much like the saying, “the blind leading the blind.”
My favorite leadership experience that I have comes from my experience as one of the senior leaders of my high school’s spirit committee. After my freshman year, there was a noticeable drop off in the number and quality of pep rallies and other spirit committee-led activities. Entering my senior year, my fellow senior leaders and I decided that this needed to change. Every meeting we had, we came together from different social groups to talk about what hadn’t worked in the past, and what we could do to make our senior year our best one yet. I would liken this experience to the symphony metaphor given in the book in that it was our responsibility as leaders, much like the maestro, to effectively lead and make use of the talents of everybody in the spirit committee, like the different musicians with differing talents and instruments, to come up with the best sounding songs possible, in our case the best pep rallies and school activities. What made this leadership experience great for me was being able to appreciate the different groups people in the committee came from, that it wasn’t just athletes or people from one social group. It was awesome for me to see the different ideas people came up with, and the passion our group had in carrying out ideas towards a final product, even if that idea wasn’t a certain person’s own idea. We finished with several fun pep rallies and activities, a great black-out t-shirt for a rivalry game, and a cheer that is still one of the most popular cheers at the school three years later. That is what makes me most proud of this leadership experience on the spirit committee, feeling like we left our own impact of a continuing tradition of passionate school spirit. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
April 2015
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