Personal Leadership Philosophy: Becoming a Transformative Leader

NURS 6053
Assignment: Personal Leadership Philosophies
Many of us can think of leaders we have come to admire, be they historical figures, pillars of the industry we work in, or leaders we know personally. The leadership of individuals such as Abraham Lincoln and Margaret Thatcher has been studied and discussed repeatedly. However, you may have interacted with leaders you feel demonstrated equally competent leadership without ever having a book written about their approaches.
What makes great leaders great? Every leader is different, of course, but one area of commonality is the leadership philosophy that great leaders develop and practice. A leadership philosophy is basically an attitude held by leaders that acts as a guiding principle for their behavior. While formal theories on leadership continue to evolve over time, great leaders seem to adhere to an overarching philosophy that steers their actions.
What is your leadership philosophy? In this Assignment, you will explore what guides your own leadership.
To Prepare:
• Identify two to three scholarly resources, in addition to this Module’s readings, that evaluate the impact of leadership behaviors in creating healthy work environments.
• Reflect on the leadership behaviors presented in the three resources that you selected for review.
• Reflect on your results of the CliftonStrengths Assessment, and consider how the results relate to your leadership traits.
The Assignment (2-3 pages):
Personal Leadership Philosophies
Develop and submit a personal leadership philosophy that reflects what you think are characteristics of a good leader. Use the scholarly resources on leadership you selected to support your philosophy statement. Your personal leadership philosophy should include the following:
• A description of your core values
• A personal mission/vision statement
• An analysis of your CliftonStrengths Assessment summarizing the results of your profile
• A description of two key behaviors that you wish to strengthen
• A development plan that explains how you plan to improve upon the two key behaviors you selected and an explanation of how you plan to achieve your personal vision. Be specific and provide examples.
• Be sure to incorporate your colleagues’ feedback on your CliftonStrengths Assessment from this Module’s Discussion 2.
Required Readings
Marshall, E., & Broome, M. (2017). Transformational leadership in nursing: From expert clinician to influential leader (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Springer.
Chapter 1, “Expert Clinician to Transformational Leader in a Complex Health Care Organization: Foundations” (pp. 7–20 ONLY)
Chapter 6, “Frameworks for Becoming a Transformational Leader” (pp. 145–170)
Chapter 7, “Becoming a Leader: It’s All About You” (pp. 171–194)
Duggan, K., Aisaka, K., Tabak, R. G., Smith, C., Erwin, P., & Brownson, R. C. (2015). Implementing administrative evidence-based practices: Lessons from the field in six local health departments across the United States. BMC Health Services Research, 15(1). doi:10.1186/s12913-015-0891-3. Retrieved from https://bmchealthservres(dot)biomedcentral(dot)com/articles/10.1186/s12913-015-0891-3
Your Signature Themes
SURVEY COMPLETION DATE: 
DON CLIFTON
Father of Strengths Psychology and
Inventor of CliftonStrengths
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SURVEY COMPLETION DATE: 09-25-2019
Many years of research conducted by The Gallup Organization suggest that the most effective people are those who understand their strengths and behaviors. These people are best able to develop strategies to meet and exceed the demands of their daily lives, their careers, and their families.
A review of the knowledge and skills you have acquired can provide a basic sense of your abilities, but an awareness and understanding of your natural talents will provide true insight into the core reasons behind your consistent successes.
Your Signature Themes report presents your five most dominant themes of talent, in the rank order revealed by your responses to CliftonStrengths. Of the 34 themes measured, these are your "top five."
Your Signature Themes are very important in maximizing the talents that lead to your successes. By focusing on your Signature Themes, separately and in combination, you can identify your talents, build them into strengths, and enjoy personal and career success through consistent, near-perfect performance.
Strategic
The Strategic theme enables you to sort through the clutter and find the best route. It is not a skill that can be taught. It is a distinct way of thinking, a special perspective on the world at large. This perspective allows you to see patterns where others simply see complexity. Mindful of these patterns, you play out alternative scenarios, always asking, “What if this happened? Okay, well what if this happened?” This recurring question helps you see around the next corner. There you can evaluate accurately the potential obstacles. Guided by where you see each path leading, you start to make selections. You discard the paths that lead nowhere. You discard the paths that lead straight into resistance. You discard the paths that lead into a fog of confusion. You cull and make selections until you arrive at the chosen path—your strategy. Armed with your strategy, you strike forward. This is your Strategic theme at work: “What if?” Select. Strike.
Learner
You love to learn. The subject matter that interests you most will be determined by your other themes and experiences, but whatever the subject, you will always be drawn to the process of learning. The process, more than the content or the result, is especially exciting for you. You are energized by the 1217916527 (Abu Kamara)
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Steady and deliberate journey from ignorance to competence. The thrill of the first few facts, the early efforts to recite or practice what you have learned, the growing confidence of a skill mastered—this is the process that entices you. Your excitement leads you to engage in adult learningexperiences—yoga or piano lessons or graduate classes. It enables you to thrive in dynamic work environments where you are asked to take on short project assignments and are expected to learn a lot about the new subject matter in a short period of time and then move on to the next one. This
Learner theme does not necessarily mean that you seek to become the subject matter expert, or that you are striving for the respect that accompanies a professional or academic credential. The outcome of the learning is less significant than the “getting there.”
Futuristic
“Wouldn’t it be great if . . .” You are the kind of person who loves to peer over the horizon. The future fascinates you. As if it were projected on the wall, you see in detail what the future might hold, and this detailed picture keeps pulling you forward, into tomorrow. While the exact content of the picture will depend on your other strengths and interests—a better product, a better team, a better life, or a better world—it will always be inspirational to you. You are a dreamer who sees visions of what could be and who cherishes those visions. When the present proves too frustrating and the people around you too pragmatic, you conjure up your visions of the future and they energize you. They can energize others, too. In fact, very often people look to you to describe your visions of the future. They want a picture that can raise their sights and thereby their spirits. You can paint it for them. Practice. Choose your words carefully. Make the picture as vivid as possible. People will want to latch on to the hope you bring.
Arranger
You are a conductor. When faced with a complex situation involving many factors, you enjoy managing all of the variables, aligning and realigning them until you are sure you have arranged them in the most productive configuration possible. In your mind there is nothing special about what you are doing. You are simply trying to figure out the best way to get things done. But others, lacking this theme, will be in awe of your ability. “How can you keep so many things in your head at once?” they will ask. “How can you stay so flexible, so willing to shelve well-laid plans in favor of some brand-new configuration that has just occurred to you?” But you cannot imagine behaving in any other way. You are a shining example of effective flexibility, whether you are changing travel schedules at the last minute because a better fare has popped up or mulling over just the right combination of people and resources to accomplish a new project. From the mundane to the complex, you are always looking for the perfect configuration. Of course, you are at your best in dynamic situations. Confronted with the unexpected, some complain that plans devised with such care cannot be changed, while others take refuge in the existing rules or procedures. You don’t do either. Instead, you jump into the confusion,
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Devising new options, hunting for new paths of least resistance, and figuring out new partnerships—because, after all, there might just be a better way.
Responsibility
Your Responsibility theme forces you to take psychological ownership for anything you commit to, and whether large or small, you feel emotionally bound to follow it through to completion. Your good name depends on it. If for some reason you cannot deliver, you automatically start to look for ways to make it up to the other person. Apologies are not enough. Excuses and rationalizations are totally unacceptable. You will not quite be able to live with yourself until you have made restitution. This conscientiousness, this near obsession for doing things right, and your impeccable ethics, combine to create your reputation: utterly dependable. When assigning new responsibilities, people will look to you first because they know it will get done. When people come to you for help—and they soon will—you must be selective. Your willingness to volunteer may sometimes lead you to take on more than you should.
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