Followership Summary And Analysis

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Becoming a successful leader and follower takes many skills that must be developed and advanced over time. While being a follower has historically had a negative connotation, a leader cannot be successful without committed followers. That being said, followers cannot be successful in their roles without dedicated leadership to guide them. Leaders and followers both require different, yet cohesive, skills to operate in all capacities and they are vital to each other in order to achieve their goals. This is true for all settings in which healthcare is provided, with multiple members of an organization, including doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers, collaborating as leaders and followers to provide the best patient care available. In …show more content…

There is no one-way to define or describe leadership, as it is multidimensional and ever changing. A leader is not necessarily a person in a position of authority, but rather someone that helps guide others, in order to work towards a mutually decided upon goal. Leaders operate by “sharing fundamental lessons learned and providing guidance from past experience and expertise…that spurs personal and professional development and drives people to take the necessary initiative to create change and enjoy the benefits of effecting improvement” (Batara & Woolgar, 2017, p. 155). Grossman and Valiga (2017) expand on this when they describe that in order to be a leader one must be able to have a vision, have good communication skills, know how to lead and work with change, be a steward, and be able to motivate their followers (p. 23-27). A leader is a person who is willing to explore new opportunities for change, knowing that there is a possibility that those new opportunities may fail. Leaders turn failures into lessons learned through reflection and feedback. Leaders in healthcare look for areas of improvement, often times with patient satisfaction and overall quality of care, and explore unchartered ways to develop these areas. Leaders are at the forefront of research and development of evidence-based practices, adapting to the changes in healthcare. They find people with similar purposes, who …show more content…

I have just started to develop my personal followership skills through working in the nursing program as a student and learning from many different leaders including, but not limited to, teachers, preceptors and other healthcare providers. According to Grossman and Valiga (2017), I have a mixed style of followership, being both autocratic and participative, meaning I am both autonomous but also I appreciate some framework to operate with. One area of followership I believe I need to improve upon is accepting feedback from others. Quite often feedback can make me feel criticized even if not coming in a negative manner, and I believe I would be a more successful follower if I received criticisms more constructively. I plan to do so by debriefing when given performance feedback to learn ways I can improve, ultimately making suggestions a learning lesson. Working on these areas of leadership and followership will make me a better nurse and help me accomplish my career

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