Assessment Description
Journaling provides a valuable tool for recording, reflecting on, and reviewing your learning. This approach provides an opportunity for you to “connect the dots” and observe the relationships between and among activities, interactions, and outcomes.

Unlike a personal journal of thoughts and feelings, this leadership journal is a record of your activities, assessments, and learning related to this academic experience.

Journal entries should include a record of the number of hours spent with your nurse leader each week.

Write a journal entry of 750 words on the subject of purpose, including the following:

Practicum Activities Reflection: Provide observations and thoughts on the activities in your practicum during Week 5, 6 and 7
Week 5- Strategic planning and budgeting
Week 6- Servant Leadership And The Christian Worldview
Week 7- Servant Leadership And The Christian Worldview Continued

Application of Leadership: Describe your preceptor’s leadership style. How does this affect the people they lead. Do staff members express feelings of support and helpfulness? Are there examples of dictating rather than leading? Does the leader say or do things designed to “build up” staff or have you seen missed opportunities?

Practicum Project Preparation: Describe your communication plan for your stakeholders. Who will be notified of what and at what time? What education is needed and for whom?

Leadership Video Reflection: Reflect on at least two things you learned from the “Servant Leadership – Issue of Rule” video.  Leadership Journal Template Essay Discussion Paper

Please use the “Leadership Journal Template” to complete this assignment.

APA style is not required, but solid academic writing is expected.

Practicum Activities Reflection:

Discuss some of your activities with your preceptor/mentor, what projects you are working on, and what observations about leadership you have made during the past two weeks. This does not need to be a step by step diary.  Instead, this is a place to reflect on how your observations and activities have compared to what you have learned in your courses thus far.

Leadership Journal

Practicum Activities Reflection:

Week 5- Strategic planning and budgeting – There is a new understanding that strategic planning and budgeting have a subtle relationship. On one hand, strategic planning is all about making decisions and presenting plans for action based on established policies while budgeting is all about providing information on accountability and planning. The two have a subtle relationship because planning determines how resources are used while budgeting determines the resources that are available for planning. This shows that while the two (strategic planning and budgeting) are complementary, they serve distinct purposes (Buppert, 2020).

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Weeks 6 & 7 – Servant Leadership and The Christian Worldview – There is a new awareness of the concepts of servant leadership and Christian worldview in health care delivery. In reviewing the two concepts, it becomes clear that Christian worldview provides the basis for servant leadership. The Bible, in Luke 9:23 (KJV) encourages Christians to impact culture by living a life that makes a difference in terms of denying themselves and taking up the cross daily. This implies that Christianity is a call to serving others, thus acting as the basis for servant leadership. To be more precise, living as a Christian obedient to the word of God as presented in the Bible implies expressing the love of God in all things, and being transformed to be a servant for others (Colossians 3: 23-24). Overall, the vocational call to servant leadership flows out of a Christian life that is sacrificially committed and transformed.

Application of Leadership:

The preceptor applies a unique leadership style that is oriented towards transformational leadership style with elements of mentorship. It is characterized by the preceptor leveraging knowledge, experience and skills to nature others while encouraging them to learn, grow and upskill. Through this leadership approach, those who are mentored are empowered to not only perform better in the professional roles, but also to progress further in the career (Marshall & Broome, 2017). The hallmarks of the leadership approach that identify it as transformational leadership style is the creation of an environment of intellectual stimulation, and the ability to inspire others through effective communication. Besides that, the preceptor has invested in quality training by helping others to engage more with their roles. As students learn valuable new skills, they are encouraged to put them more into practice at work (Finkelman, 2019). Additionally, the preceptor takes an interest in the students as people at a personal level. This does not imply having interactions at social events. Rather, it implies active listening, understanding who the students are, their strengths and weaknesses, how they interact with others, and so on. Also, the precentor is open and honest even with mistakes made. This leadership approach has made the students feel more empowered to pursue the available opportunities. They are appreciative of the support offered by the preceptor, leveraging that support to become better professionals (Vana & Tazbir, 2021).

Practicum Project Preparation:

The practicum project engages stakeholders as an innovative nursing solution is deployed to clinical users. Although it does not require any education for the stakeholders, it has necessitated the development of a communication plan, as the absence of a sound communication plan would create a breakdown where the stakeholders do not clearly understand the benefits of the project and the solution it presents. Towards this end, the communication plan includes five elements. Firstly, it includes a vision, mission and goals that explain why the practicum project is being carried out. This includes an explanation of what is being improved and solved, and how the organization and stakeholders benefit. Secondly, it identifies the target audience and segment. This is important since their roles and opinions are likely to be different. If the communication is made to all stakeholders in the same way, then the communication is likely to miss the opportunity to resonate with the stakeholders. As such, the communication plan has identified the target audience for communication, and outlines the patient, organization and direct benefits for each stakeholder. Then, the communication is segment on the interests, benefits and roles of each stakeholder (Garcia-Dia, 2019). Thirdly, it identifies the key positioning and messaging of each communication. This makes it easy for the stakeholders to understand the value of the project for their role. This focuses on positioning the project as a solution that is helpful to the stakeholders. The message must be consistent (building on a storyline, goals and results that do not change), concise (limited and non-verbose), and clear (using plain words and terms that the audience can understand). Fourthly, it identifies a timeline driven by the organizational change management. This is built around the ADKAR components of awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement. Finally, it is delivered through internal communication campaigns (Garcia-Dia, 2019).

Leadership Video Reflection:

The video “Servant Leadership – Issue of Rule” offers significant insight on significant aspects in servant leadership. Firstly, a servant leader is only successful if the team is successful. They focus on the subordinates as they are tied into the team success. As such, a servant leader will always follow up with subordinates to identify the areas in which they are facing difficulties and how these can be addressed to ensure team success. They are not there to judge if the team members have done their jobs or not. Rather, they are there to help the team members to get the job done. Overall, servant leadership focuses on the team members, figuring what they need in order to succeed since if the members succeed, then the leader would also succeed. Secondly, ego has no place in servant leadership. That is because the leader understanding that he/she cannot do everybody’s job in the team. The leaders job is to help the team to excel by being the best at their roles. This involves focusing on developing the subordinates, recognizing and rewording good performance, providing direction and guidance, getting the know the subordinates so that the experience can be personalized, being flexible with policies, and communicating effectively and openly (Beauvais, 2018).

References

Beauvais, A. M. (2018). Leadership and Management Competence in Nursing Practice: Competencies, Skills, Decision-Making. Springer Publishing Company.

Buppert, C. (2020).  Nurse Practitioner’s Business Practice and Legal Guide (7^th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC.

Finkelman, A. (2019). Professional Nursing Concepts: Competencies for Quality Leadership (4^th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC.

Garcia-Dia, M. (2019). Project Management in Nursing Informatics. Springer Publishing Company.

Marshall, E., & Broome, M. (2017). Transformational Leadership in Nursing: From Expert Clinician to Influential Leader (2^nd ed.). Springer.

Vana, P. K., & Tazbir, J. (2021). Kelly Vana’s Nursing Leadership and Management (4^th ed.). John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Leadership Journal Template Essay Discussion Paper