Leadership Journal: Humility

Leadership Journal: Humility

Grand Canyon University

NUR 670

Leadership Journal

Leadership experience

Attending clinical with my preceptor on the same day each week has allowed me to experience the necessary repetition to understand the importance of each scheduled meeting on such day. Each of the meetings or huddles I attended bring the attention to the departments needs for the following day or days to come. The first meeting of the day begins with the morning huddle of the operating room, then the regional safety huddle, next is the perioperative scheduling huddle and lastly the post anesthesia unit huddle. The rest of the day is consumed with being visual to the staff along with various bouts of desk time that includes answering emails, approving purchase orders (or denying them) as well as other management duties. In observance of my preceptor and her participation in each of these meetings, I have realized she has a significant obligation to her staff, department as well as to the organization.

This week I had the perfect opportunity to display humility with a hospital recognition event which was celebrated with an ice cream social. For the greater part of the afternoon, leaders of each department were scheduled to share their appreciation for staff who attended the celebration by thanking the staff after getting their celebratory ice cream sundae. Sharing our appreciation to everyone by saying, “thank you for all you’ve done and contributions to the success of the organization,” this was an ideal way of showing humility. Standing there as each unfamiliar staff walked out showing them a smile and giving them thanks, was a humbling experience all together as they smiled back in gratitude. Faces upon faces, as they walked out of the area with their refreshing treat, each showed a small amount of happiness for coming into work today.

Lead with humility

National Nurses Week occurred during this semester and recognizing the staff for all the hard work and the sacrifices the nurses endure was the intentions of the leaders here at the facility I was at during the national recognition week. For their efforts, the hospital provided the director of each department with a gift for each nurse within their nursing units. I was given the opportunity to distribute these gifts to each of the staff in the perioperative department. The gift was as back up battery charger with the organizations logo on it, not too expensive but enough to show thoughtfulness in a gift many of us find useful when our phone battery is running low. While distributing these gifts to the staff, I humbled myself to praise each nurse with the gift and some simple words of praise like, “thank you” and “thanks for your hard work.” This experience gave me the opportunity to understand how humility is accepted from others and especially from many of them being unfamiliar to myself. Much of the nurses expressed sincere gratitude and a few were surprised to even receive a gift and there were a rare few who were unsettled as to say, “is this all we get?”

Humility goes a long way for us as nurses as we are overshadowed by having National Nurses Week during the same week as Teacher Appreciation week. The nursing profession and teaching profession can both be viewed as similar and different at the same time. Both professions are respectable and one can argue in favor of one over the other or argue their many differences. Both professions spend time with other people to facilitate learning in some manner. According to the Gallup poll on honest and ethic professions, nurses are at the top of its rank and have been for greater than the past decade because nurses are with patients at every moment in the health care setting (Gardenier, 2014).

Be humble

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves (Philippians 2:3, NIV). Finding a balance between being proud in what you do as a nurse or especially as a nurse leader may be the challenge for many of us leaders attempting to implement the principles of servant leadership. Pride may be an emotion we have been embedded with since early childhood, from competing in sports to representing our family name in the journey of life. Many of us may be proud of the organization we work for or the department we represent and we express this proudly every day we step into facility with our badges that say RN or NURSE and what department we work in. Pride, for the most part, is and has been a primary motivator with every endeavor I have every begun. I am proud of the accomplishments I have already achieved and upon the completion of this graduate program, I will surely be proud of being an advanced educated masters prepared nurse.

On the other hand, humility may consist of a lighter, less vocal or visual version of pride. Studying as well as practicing the characteristics of a servant leader has and is an ongoing learning experience filled with the challenges of humility over pride. After experiencing the video lessons on servant leadership, I have realized there is a fine line between expressing pride and being humble, as a servant leader may always be humble (DelHousaye & Brewer, 2004). Overcoming this emotion and replacing it with the characteristic of humility is a renewed personal leadership goal and the process of implementing the characteristics in my future leadership role will have my full attention. Giving rather than the getting mentality is a beneficial leadership quality for one to have and being humble can positively affect an organization a servant leader represents (Archangel, 2015). If being too proud can impact innovation in an organizations leadership, I hope to have an opportunity to one day lead an organization with humility (Hiller, 2015). I have faith a prominent nursing department, organization, institution or facility will obtain my skillset as a nursing leader as I lay my trust in the Lord.

References

Archangel, P. P. (2015). The Mighty Ones. Leadership Excellence Essentials, 32(6), 28.

DelHousaye, D & Brewer, B. (2004). Servant Leadership: Seven Distinctive Characteristics. SBC Press: Scottsdale, AZ. Retrieved from http://gcumedia.com/digital-resources/sbc/2004/servant-leadership_-the-sever-distinctive-characteristics-of-a-servant-leader_ebook_1e.php

Gallup poll: Nursing most trusted profession. (2016). American Nurse, 48(1), 6.

Gardenier, D. (2014). Is Being the Most Trusted Profession A Good Thing? JNP-Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 10(3), 160.

Hiller, N. H. (2015). Leadership Competency Model. Leadership Excellence Essentials, 32(4), 23.