NURS 6730: Public Health Nursing Leadership | Week 5

Leadership expert Leonard Rowitz (2018) identifies five essential skills necessary for being a successful public health leader:

1. Knowledge with the intelligence to use it;
2. Empathy and the ability to motivate others;
3. Risk-taking with action and follow through;
4. Ability to communicate at many different levels; and finally,
5. Systems thinkers with an understanding of how complexity affects their work.

An important part of your unique development as a public health nurse leader is the ability to look inward and reflect on public health leadership at the personal level. What kind of leader are you right now? What kind of leader do you wish to become? What essential leadership skills do you possess, and which ones do you need to acquire to become a more effective leader? These are all important questions that only you can answer!

This week you will identify leadership skills that you currently possess as well as your own unique leadership style. You will also create a professional leadership plan at which you identify your goals for developing yourself as a public health nurse leader.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

• Create personal development checklists (D)
• Create personal leadership philosophy statements (D)
• Create leadership contracts (D)
• Apply personal growth and development tools to future professional growth development (J)
• Identify professional mentors (J)
• Apply leadership competencies to personal growth and development goals (J)

Discussion: The First Level of Leadership: Tools for Personal Growth and Development

In the first week of this course you reflected on past experiences with leaders — both positive or negative. Although many contributing factors may have existed, to what extent do you think attention—or lack of attention—to personal growth and development may have had a role in their quality of leadership? Personal leadership development is foundational, and it influences all other levels of leadership.

For this Discussion, you consider your personal style of leadership and specific strategies for effective leadership development at the personal level.

Prepare:

• Complete the Myers Briggs Leadership style assessment in the Resources, and reflect on your personal leadership style in various settings.
• Review the leadership style’s video in this week’s Resources.
• Review this week’s Resources, and focus on personal development tools described by Rowitz (2018).

By Day 3

The following completed tools:

• A Personal Development Checklist
• A Personal Leadership Philosophy Statement
• A Leadership Contract

Read a selection of your colleagues’ responses.

By Day 6

Respond to at least two of your colleagues by taking on the role of a coach or mentor and offering suggestions to strengthen at least two of their tools.

Leadership Journal: Personal Level Leadership

“As leaders, we need to keep our eyes and ears focused on many things and issues in the course of a working day. Our journals prevent us from losing many of these high-speed ideas.” (Rowitz, p.60)

As presented in this week’s resources, journals are used in many ways, both in format and application. As you examine the various levels of leadership, in the coming weeks you will practice the skill of intentional journaling for professional development. Use this practice in the course to create your own routine and a journaling practice that works for you outside of this course. If you already have a journal practice, look for ways to improve your practice based on the resources and journal assignments in this course.

For this Leadership Journal assignment, you will reflect on your personal growth and development and take specific actions for continued development.

To prepare:

• Review the tools you focused on for this week’s Discussion and the feedback/support you received from colleagues.
• Review Rowitz (2018) for his explanation of the leadership journal and how its best applied by leaders.
• Consider how you might incorporate a leadership journal outside of this course (style, format, ease of integration into daily work, etc.)

The Assignment:

Respond to the following prompts:

1. How will you use the resources developed in this week’s Discussion? How can you ensure that you will utilize them beyond this course? Which of the personal leadership tools did you find most useful?
2. Consider an experienced professional who could serve as your mentor. Who might you reach out to? Identify at least two people. Explain why you selected these individuals. What questions might you ask them related to personal growth and development?
3. Identify how the leadership competencies from ANA (2013) align with your personal growth and development goals.
4. Make note of any additional insights and resources regarding leadership at the personal level you would like to pursue further. Consider how topics covered in the previous weeks of this course inform your personal leadership goals.