Desirable Leadership Qualities
NHS FPX 5004 Assessment 1 Leadership and Group Collaboration
Leading such a project requires one to have qualities that make them effective in coordinating a project team. According to Low (2012), 10 leadership qualities are desirable in an individual who will lead the project team. Among them, there are six that are critical in the context of accomplishing the launch and operationalization of an internal program for promoting diversity and awareness of the needs of racial, sexual, and gender minorities. The first is an inspirational ability, a quality that is evident when one is able to create a vision, articulate it, and inspire the team members and other stakeholders to work towards its achievement. The second is communication capabilities, which enable an individual to relay relevant information about the project goals, team member responsibilities, and performance expectations, and to lead negotiations with different stakeholders.
NHS FPX 5004 Assessment 1 Leadership and Group Collaboration
The third is integrity, which is a demonstration of ethical practices under all circumstances to establish trust with the team members and stakeholders. The fourth is enthusiasm, manifested through a commitment to goals and optimism in their achievement. The fifth is competence because it is necessary for the leader to challenge team members, inspire them to achieve their goals, empower them, and model the performance of the project tasks. The sixth is delegation, which involves trusting the team members and allowing them to perform their duties without micro-management (Low, 2012). With these qualities, one can be an effective leader of the community outreach project.
Leadership Skills
One of the healthcare leaders that have inspired me is Joselyn Freeman-Singleton, a Nurse Manager at Regional One Health who received a 2021 Tennessee Hospital Association Award of Excellence. She received the award for her proactive leadership in establishing a medical oncology program and a new hospital unit for detainees from Mississippi (Regional One Health, 2021). The leader has demonstrated three major skills that are necessary for healthcare project management roles. First, she demonstrated change management skills by identifying a pressing need among oncology patients and championing the establishment of an in-house oncology service at the facility. Change management is a skill that I have still not developed since I have not always shared my visions for the facility and goals for achieving them. This project will give me an avenue to learn change management skills and apply them in bringing the community outreach program to fruition.
NHS FPX 5004 Assessment 1 Leadership and Group Collaboration
Secondly, Freeman-Singleton demonstrated negotiation skills by navigating the external sources of expertise needed to run and operationalize the oncology service (Regional One Health, 2021). I have, through the care coordination role at the hospital, acquired negotiation skills since I have had to navigate the external services that patients typically need (insurance, hospice care, palliative care, and referrals) and get the providers to agree to subsidized fees and plans for needy patients. Third, Freeman-Singleton demonstrated influencing skills by getting the stakeholders to cooperate and collaborate, educating the internal staff on the care requirements, and ensuring that all staff members were trained to ensure consistency in oncology care regardless of the nurses that were on duty (Regional One Health, 2021). Furthermore, she managed to work with multiple stakeholders to create a successful inpatient unit for inmates from a facility in Mississippi. Though not perfect in influencing skills, I have learned how to influence stakeholders to collaborate and coordinate their services, especially when managing the transition of geriatric patients from the primary care facility to hospice care and home-based care.
My Role as a Project Leader
In my project leadership, I will apply principles from the transformational leadership model to define my roles and responsibilities. The model is chosen because it has a positive impact on work engagement among healthcare employees and the creation of safety culture (Ree & Wiig, 2019). The transformational leadership model emphasizes the roles of stimulating, inspiring, and motivating followers to achieve their tasks (Giddens, 2018). Consequently, my primary role as a project leader will be to assemble a team of individuals of diverse professional backgrounds who will be required to ensure the successful operationalization of the diversity initiative. I will then use my leadership position to build the team, inspire the members to achieve the goals of the project and motivate them to perform their tasks at the required times. The transformational leadership model also promotes relationship building within teams and change promotion (Giddens, 2018). Thus, I will also play the role of creating a conducive environment for the team members to build interpersonal relations that will promote the achievement of duties.
NHS FPX 5004 Assessment 1 Leadership and Group Collaboration
Approach for Facilitating Collaboration
Team collaboration will be a necessity for the successful achievement of the project goals. Collaboration is a necessity because the team will comprise a diverse group of highly educated and skilled specialists in various fields including cultural communication, workplace diversity, health promotion, staff training, patient education, and finance management, among others. Gratton and Erickson (2007), writing in the Harvard Business Review, provided eight approaches for facilitating collaboration, which I agree with and will adapt in the project team. They include obtaining executive support, modeling collaborative behavior, creating a culture of gifts, ensuring members have the requisite skills, supporting a sense of community, selecting leaders that are both oriented to tasks and relationships, building the team with members who are acquainted with each other, and defining roles and tasks (Gratton & Erickson, 2007). Executive support is important because the team will need an enabling organizational environment, while the senior leaders at the organization can model collaboration for the project team to emulate. In the team formulation process, I will make sure that most of the team members are familiar with one another to avoid having members who are strangers to each other. Mentorship and coaching will also be part of the team process to foster the “gift culture” and encourage members to be free in their interactions.
References
Giddens, J. (2018). Transformational leadership: What every nursing dean should know. Journal of Professional Nursing, 34(2), 117-121.
Gratton, L., & Erickson, T. J. (2007, November). Eight ways to build collaborative teams. Retrieved from Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2007/11/eight-ways-to-build-collaborative-teams
Low, C. (2012, May 16). Top 10 leadership qualities of a project manager. Retrieved from https://www.projecttimes.com/articles/top-10-leadership-qualities-of-a-project-manager/
Ree, E., & Wiig, S. (2019). Linking transformational leadership, patient safety culture and work engagement in-home care services. Nursing Open, 7(1), 256-264.
Regional One Health. (2021, October 28). Regional One Health Nurse Manager Joselyn Freeman-Singleton earns the Tennessee Hospital Association’s 2021 Nurse Leader of Distinction. Retrieved from https://www.regionalonehealth.org/blog/2021/10/28/regional-one-health-nurse-manager-joselyn-freeman-singleton-earns-tennessee-hospital-association-nurse-leader-of-distinction-award/
