Assignment

1. Personal Leadership Portrait

The health care environment is complex, requiring leadership that is comprehensive and collaborative in the field. It is essential for leaders to be well-versed in a range of areas (practice, research, education) as a means of effective engagement with interprofessional communities. Effective leaders have heightened awareness of self and individual leadership styles, leading to professional growth, career advancement, and the ability to develop leaders for the future across the fields of practice (nursing, health administration, public health).

Note: Because this assignment requires you to develop a self-assessment, you may write using first-person voice. However, it is important for your development as a practitioner-scholar to recognize that writing in the first person is not usually acceptable in academic papers, which are written in the third person. Consequently, you should always carefully consider departing from this norm. If you have any questions about academic writing style, please contact your courseroom instructor, or post a question in the Ask Your Teaching Assistant area of the NHS Learner Success Lab.

Instructions

You have been offered the opportunity to apply for a leadership position in your organization. As a part of the application process, your potential employer uses the National Center for Healthcare Leadership's (NCHL) competency model of leadership development (NCHL, 2016), which includes a 360-degree evaluation. The evaluation is an assessment that includes anonymous, confidential feedback from those around you, such as your peers, supervisor, direct reports, stakeholders, as well as a self-assessment on behavior (relational), technical and operational skills, and strategic ability. As a part of this 360-degree evaluation, you will complete the self-assessment component. (You should use the information from the Leadership Self-Assessment you completed in Unit 8 for this component of the assignment.) This information will be shared with the interview committee for the position, so it is important that you demonstrate your knowledge and experience in each of the areas outlined below.

• Be clear and concise in your writing.
• Express your main points, arguments, and conclusions coherently.
• Use correct grammar and mechanics.
• Be sure to support your claims, arguments, and conclusions with credible evidence from scholarly sources.
• Cite your sources appropriately. Use correct APA formatting for all in-text citations and references.
• Include a title page, reference page and abstract.

o An APA style paper template and associated tutorial, linked in the assignment resources, are provided to help you in writing and formatting your self-assessment.

Note: The assignment requirements outlined below correspond to the grading criteria in the Personal Leadership Portrait Scoring Guide, so be sure to address each point. You may also want to review the performance level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed.

Example assignment: You may use the Personal Leadership Portrait Example, linked in the Resources, to give you an idea of what a Proficient or higher rating on the scoring guide would look like.

To complete your leadership self-assessment, you will need to:

• Analyze your leadership strengths and weaknesses.

o Identify at least one leadership theory or style that you believe best aligns with your own thoughts of what leadership means.
o Use that theory or style in your analysis. Cite your sources.
o Consider potential biases or underlying assumptions in your analysis.

• Explain how specific leadership characteristics you already possess will enable you to guide, educate, inform, and influence others to manage change in the field of health care.

o Consider examples of past successes.
o Consider strategies or best practices that could be applied to improve outcomes.
o Describe at least two additional leadership characteristics you would like to develop to enhance your effectiveness in this area.

• Explain how your leadership characteristics will serve to help you build and maintain collaborative relationships across, and within, disciplines.

o Consider examples of past successes.
o Consider strategies or best practices that could be applied to improve outcomes.
o Describe at least two additional leadership characteristics you would like to develop to enhance your effectiveness in this area.

• Explain how you can best apply the principles of ethical leadership, given your leadership style.

o Identify the main principles of ethical leadership within your field of practice (nursing, health administration, or public health). Cite your sources.

o Consider examples of past successes.

o Consider strategies or best practices that could be applied to improve outcomes.

o Where do you have room to grow in this area?

o How can you prepare yourself to do so?

• Explain why diversity and inclusion are important to employee relations and the provision of safe, high-quality health care.

o Provide an example you have experienced or read about. Cite your sources.

• Explain how your leadership characteristics prepare you to develop and lead a diverse team of employees and serve a diverse community within an ethical framework.

o In what ways can you address issues of diversity and inclusion, both within an organization and in serving the public?

• Explain how the academic and research skills you develop as a practitioner-scholar can serve you in your role as an effective health care leader.

o How might those skills contribute to your effectiveness and credibility as a leader?

o How will the knowledge and information you have gained from this course, and from your own research, guide your continued leadership development.

Length: 6-7 pages

References minimum 5.