Leadership Theories

Overview
Many leadership theories and models suggest that effective leaders create positive, supportive relationships among teams while remaining focused on the organization’s goals. The transformational leadership model is widely accepted in the healthcare industry and is a core component of the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Magnet Recognition Program. As a transformational nurse leader, you will be able to inspire your teams, encourage initiative and innovation, and lead organizational changes. Reflection and self-evaluation are essential in your leadership journey, as they help you gain insights into your strengths and opportunities for improvement. These insights can be helpful to set goals and formulate self-development plans.

This journal will help you develop the skills to perform a self-analysis, identify gaps in your leadership skills, and formulate a development plan. These skills will help you complete Project One.

Prompt
To complete this journal, you will complete the Transformational Leadership Style Self-Assessment. This survey will assess your leadership behaviors so that you can get a baseline for comparison in your journal. When completing your survey, fill in the details for each of the six sections in the survey. Prioritize at least one strength and two opportunities for improvement for each of the six sections. Then you will address your areas of opportunity for improvement and use those gaps to complete a professional development plan.

Note: Completing the survey is the first step in the journal activity. The survey results are not being submitted with the journal and are not being considered for grading.

Use the findings from the survey to compose a journal. Provide specific evidence from at least one scholarly source to support your claims.

Specifically, you must include the following rubric criteria in your journal:

1. Test assumptions. Reflect on your assumptions about leadership style and consider how your assumptions compare to the transformational leadership style. Explain the rationale for your assumptions. Include one scholarly article to support your claims.
   A. What leadership skills that you expected to see were not included in the survey?
   B. Which leadership skills were in the survey did you not expect to see? Were there any surprises?
2. Assess strengths. Explain the rationale for your assessment for each section of the survey.
   A. Were there any surprising discoveries about your strengths?
   i. You may have identified a skill as your strength that you had earlier considered an opportunity for improvement.
   B. Identify at least one strength from each section of the survey and what makes this a strength.
3. Assess opportunities for improvement. Explain the rationale for your assessment for each section of the survey.
   A. Were there any surprising discoveries from the assessment?
   i. You may have identified a skill as an opportunity for improvement that you had earlier considered your strength.
   B. Identify at least one opportunity for improvement from each survey section and when you experienced this as a limitation.
4. Prioritize skills and opportunities. Select one of your top strengths and one area of opportunity for improvement and explain the rationale for the selections.
   A. How has this strength been demonstrated in your work experience?
   B. How have you experienced this item as a limitation in your work experience?
5. Explain your goal and strategy. Select one skill from the table below to be used as an example for further development. Include the following details:

A. State your goal for further development.
B. Identify at least one strategy for development.
C. Explain how you plan to carry out the strategy.