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7: Naming What We Do

DOI:

10.1891/9780826123923.0007

Abstract

This chapter switches gears, away from what leadership means from the view-point of personal qualities to the perspective of what one need to do to achieve the goals of our workplace. Leadership is increasingly defined as the ability to work successfully with others to achieve the organization’s mission and goals. Stereotyped views of nursing stress virtue and busyness but not strength and innovation, thus reinforcing the notion that nurses are helpers, not leaders. The point of naming what one do is for others to see what one does and how one contributes to the organization as a whole. The more others see the contributions of nurses to the organization, the more nurses will be included in key decision-making forums. The more all nurses are expected to be leaders, the more nurse leaders cannot operate from a command-and-control framework but must lead by developing the leadership of others.