How To Advance, Improve & Expand Your Leadership Skills In The Nursing Sector

Whether you are looking to advance and expand your skills of leadership within your professional, working life or perhaps instead are wanting to become generally more assertive and competent in your personal life, you will be overjoyed to learn there is a plethora of different options available to you

With that in mind, continue reading for a detailed guide packed with hints and tips on how to advance, improve and generally expand your leadership skills.

How Do You Quantify & Qualify The Nature Of Leadership Skills?

As with any other group of specific skillsets, it can often be particularly difficult to identify and be objective about one’s own competency at leadership and generally how good you are at taking charge, both in your personal and professional life.

To help, some excellent examples of attributes, skillsets, and general personality traits that good leaders often possess:

• Self-Control

The art of self-control and discipline is a prevalent trait of someone who either has the potential to be, or indeed already is, a good leader. If a person can look beyond short-term accomplishments in the here and now and instead plan for the future and identify potential long-term benefits, this is always a proverbial good sign of things to come.

• Prioritization

Focusing on important and time-sensitive tasks, goals and objectives is another excellent example of good leadership, when the individual delegates less important tasks to other people.

• Open Conversation

Good leaders are honest and genuine and markedly open in conversations and communication, and this leads to a reciprocated level of respect from others, be those colleagues, employees, or friends and family members.

• Conflict Management

Whether you are a manager or have a large number of employees who work for you, or else a member of a local community group or even the director of an amateur dramatics’ society, where there are people, there is always inevitable conflict. Your ability and coping mechanisms for handling both direct and indirect conflict is an important strength in leadership development, and if this is something you feel you may feel short on, it is important to concentrate   on developing this area.

Enroll In Higher Education

As you will already be well aware, the field of nursing and the various associated nursing specialisms are constantly and continuously changing and updating. As a nurse, to ensure you are able to treat patients to the absolute best of your professional (and personal) ability, it is not only advisable but frankly necessary to be as up-to-date and informed on the latest practices, treatments, theories, and methodology as possible.

A fantastic way to enhance your leadership skills as an already-qualified and professional working nurse is to embark on a DNP-ENL degree course at a respected and renowned establishment such as Baylor University Online.

Teachers, another group of qualified working professionals who may want to improve their skills of leadership and management, can take a master’s postgraduate degree in their chosen specialist subject, and possibly consider moving up to teach older children or even young adults.

Ask For More Responsibility

As is often the case in a wide variety of different situations in life, one of, if not the best, way of wholeheartedly improving your skills at leadership, organization, and general productivity is actively seeking more responsibility, be that professionally or in your private life.

Regardless of your professional situation and no matter what your job role is or the industry in which you work, there is always room for career progression and for individual improvement. Prepare a detailed and well-organized pitch to your superior and keep it as powerful yet succinct as possible. Always be prepared to compromise and remember that, if you have expressively asked for more responsibility, to approach the new tasks with a clear head and high level of objectivity.

Start Every Day Afresh

If you feel, on a particular day or even in a certain week, that you have neglected to exercise your proverbial leadership wings, it is important not to be disheartened and let your ambitions become a more expressive and authoritative person fall by the wayside.

With that in mind, start every day completely anew and concentrate on making assertive and more spontaneously effective decisions, be that in a work or office setting or at home or when out with friends. For example, if you are dissatisfied with a recent purchase and intend on taking the item back to the shop from whence you bought it, stand firm in your opinions, and do not let the store assistant or store manager bamboozle you and deny your request.

Set Achievable & Transparent Goals

Another effective way of honing and improving your leadership skills is to set achievable and transparent goals, both for yourself on a personal level and for your employees in a more professional setting.

The human condition is that, upon the successful acquisition of a completed job well done, that you will find the next task or project not only easier to complete but easier to get started and, most importantly, feel in a more competitive position to lead.

There is a wide plethora of benefits to goal setting, which include but are in no way limited to:

• The provision of accountability and the motivation of a future, be that in a year’s time or the next day, whereby you have successfully achieved that goal.
• The provision of direction is an important stimulant and energizing factor in propelling an individual forward in pursuit of something that they want or need
• Your action is guided and mapped out in front of you, which means you will save a large amount of time and also have more free time and intellectual and emotional freedom to pursue other tasks or goals
• A much greater level of efficiency and productivity
• The provision of a much higher level of focus and, directly from this, higher concentration levels meaning your goal is achieved faster