Nursing Leadership
For 6 years I worked with whom I consider the best nurse leader I could ever had. Participative (Democratic) style describes exactly how she was. She always took into consideration the staff’s opinions before making any decision, she was humble enough to tell us “hey, great idea! thanks for helping me with your opinion to get to a final determination”. On this theory, everyone is given the opportunity to participate, ideas are exchanged freely, and discussion is encouraged. While the democratic process tends to focus on group equality and the free flow of ideas, the leader of the group is still there to offer guidance and control. The democratic leader is charged with deciding who is in the group and who gets to contribute to the decisions that are made (Kendra Cherry, 2014)
How has your experience been with the nurse leader? Provide a description of your interactions with him or her?
As I mention in the question above, I consider this nurse the best nurse leader I could ever had, besides being an excellent leader she was a great mentor for my professional growth, when I moved from Colombia as a Paramedic to Miami I met her at the first job I had for 6 years, it was a clinical research company and I had no idea this even existed, I just wanted a job, I was recently married and this job was looking for people with experience in the medical field to draw blood, admit patients, etc. I got my EMT but I wanted more, I wanted to go to school for something else, but I was kind of lost in regards to which school should I go? can I rollover some classes from Paramedic school? how can I start? and this great nurse leader had faith on me, she DROVE me to Miami Dade College, she stayed there for almost 3 hours with me waiting for an advisor to help me get the information needed and during the entire program she never let me drop out even though sometimes that’s all I wanted to do, I started nursing school with a 3 month old and it was extremely hard to keep up with home, baby, full time job and school; but this leader was always there. She thought me throughout those years that being a great leader is not synonym of being a selfish leader, work wise she always had the best from me, and research have found that the democratic leadership style is one of the most effective types and leads to higher productivity, better contributions from group members, and increased group morale and this is EXACTLY what she obtained from me. Now, I’m the charge nurse at the GI center where I work and I consider myself to be a democratic leader as well since I totally understood this was the best way to get the whole team involved and to receive their best production.