Leadership and Group Collaboration

Hello, Lynnette! I am thankful for the consideration in taking on the leadership position of the proposed project to address diversity. I am excited at the prospect of taking on the challenge of leading others. I believe that the project will be better served with competent leadership to achieve success. In this case, leadership is the practice concerned with helping self and others to do the right thing. The group leader would be expected to set direction, build an inspiring vision, and create something new in the process of working with others. In an ideal situation, the leader would map out what the groups needs to do in order to achieve its goals, with the leader focusing on presenting dynamic, exciting and inspiring approaches that would keep the other stakeholders interested. Even as the leader sets and maps the group’s direction, there is a need to apply management skills that guide the group members towards the desired direction in a smooth and efficient way (Raingruber, 2017). The present letter discusses some of the unique leadership qualities that are necessary for the ideal project leader.

It is my strong belief that I would be the ideal leader for the diversity project since I exhibit unique leadership skills that are of value to the project’s successful completions. I have worked at this facility for four years, during which time I have gained an awareness of the organization’s culture, approach to diversity, and existing problems. As the project leader, I would exhibit two significant leadership qualities that are of much value to this project that tackles diversity. This is particularly so in the face of cultural diversity, gender differences, and group dynamics at the facility (Stewart & DeNisco, 2019). Firstly, I have a good understanding of cultural stereotypes. As the project leader, I would leverage this quality to avoid stereotyping and personal biases while being open minded to the differences that exist. A good understanding of cultural stereotypes is important for genuinely valuing others for their contributions and not for their social identities or demographics. Failure to be conscious of cultural stereotyping and addressing them would result in the failure to build trust and productivity while hindering commitment. In addition, the awareness helps with developing an objective leadership approach that deals with facts and does not rely on assumptions. Besides that, it helps with setting a good example and activing as a role model on what the desired conduct entails. Additionally, this quality helps with enabling the leader to respect others and support them in reaching their full potential. This quality focuses on leveraging respect and aspects of ethics and morality to lead and support others to avoid developing negative stereotypes (Butts & Rich, 2018).  Leadership and Group Collaboration Discussion Paper

Secondly, I have self-awareness of my weaknesses and strengths as a leader. This is important as it determines how the leader would react to situations demanding decisions. Having knowledge of self-limitations, strengths, weaknesses and behavior patterns helps the leader to be a more effective performer across the different cultural settings. This quality helps the leader to capitalize on advantages while overcoming stereotypes, all key responses for addressing diversity. Furthermore, the quality helps the leader to appreciate any differences that exist between individuals thereby developing an awareness of the complex and multicultural environment in the organization. This helps with appreciating the uniqueness among individuals. Every individual in the organization and part of the project team has specific cultural background, life experiences and values that shape how they behave. An understanding of these differences is vital for appreciating the diversely valuable insights that each individual brings into play. Moreover, having an understanding and appreciation of similarities is important for narrowing the existing cultural gaps (McEwen & Wills, 2018). The two identified leadership qualities would be invaluable for leading the diversity project.

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If I were to pick a nurse leader from outside of this organization to lead this project, then I would choose Barbara Nichols. She is the first African American president of the American Nurses Association. She broke the cultural barriers to take on a leadership position in a national organization, a journey that required her to regularly confront cultural and race barriers. She started practice nursing in the 1950s, at a time while the profession was subject to institutionalized discrimination that kept the ethnic minority groups from practicing as nurses and advancing in the professional ladder. As a novice nurse, Barbara was faced with segregated hospitals and nursing education institutions. The institutionalized discrimination targeted ethnic minority groups through a rigid quota system. Few nurses from minority groups had an opportunity to earn a Bachelor’s degree or other advanced degrees, and fewer were able to take on leadership roles in the profession. Barbara surmounted all these hurdle and eventually created new history as the first African American nurse to be elected into state-level and national-level leadership positions in nursing. All through her career, Barbara was able to help others from minority backgrounds to enter and advance in the nursing profession, a mission she is passionate about. Barbara describes her career as one that has been spent raising the issue of ethnic and racial exclusion in nursing, and looking for effective ways to include the excluded groups into the profession (Sullivan, 2013). Barbara has been a role model in tackling the issue of diversity and would leverage her extensive experience in leading the project.

Although I am no as accomplished in leadership as Barbara Nichols, I believe that I have the capacity to emulate the qualities and skills that made her a successful and memorable leader. While I have not experienced as much discrimination as Barbara experienced, I have witnessed the changes and efforts made to recognize and improve diversity management. In applying similar skills and qualities, I would focus on recognizing capabilities, performance and merit rather than ethnic, social or cultural identifies.

I understand the need for effective leadership as an important feature for ensuring that group members are motivated to provide exceptional performance. As the group leader, I would focus on presenting a culture and environment that encourages participation towards the project success and performance. This is best achieved by applying a democratic leadership approach the focuses in inclusive leadership. This approach helps with building consensus among the group members through shared participation and leadership. All the group members would have an equal opportunity to make contributions towards defining and measuring the project goals. The leadership approach is effective and appropriate for the project since it ensures that the team members take ownership of the project and buy into its decisions, plans and goals. Also, the approach helps to present new and innovative ideas while addressing uncertainties from the members, such as helping a member to understand the importance of a specific activity (Zaccagnini & White, 2017).

If I were to be selected to lead the project, I would apply the discussed leadership quality and approach to effectively facilitate collaborative input from the group members. Leveraging collaboration is important for ensuring that the project team is successful. In fact, collaboration helps in increasing trust levels, engaging the group members, and improving performance. Based on this awareness, as the project leader, I would make collaboration a priority with a focus in integrating cooperative values in the group ethos. I would ensure collaboration among the team members through five approaches. The first approach is repeatedly sharing the group’s objectives. This is important for giving the group members a broad goal for the project, and bringing them together under a common objective even as they worked towards achieving that objective (Butts & Rich, 2018). The second approach is clearly communicating the expectations for the project and the collaboration involved. This would be the minimum standard for ensuring that the persons involved in the project have a good understanding that collaboration has been prioritized in the project. The third approach is identifying and highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the individual team members. This is important for developing knowledge of each member and ensuring that they feel appreciated as the group recognizes their value. The fourth approach is fostering honest and open communication that would make the group members to feel that they can meaningful contributions to the project activities and share ideas that improve the productivity of the project. The final approach is promoting a group mentality and working environment. This helps with creating a sense of camaraderie among the team members so that they feel that their perspectives are important and appreciated. This would motivate the members to put more effort into the group activities (McEwen & Wills, 2018).

I have presented my case for consideration as the diversity project leader and have offer my opinions on the ideal leadership skills, qualities and approach for the project. I believe that this email outlines leadership features that are invaluable for a successful project.

• Instructions

Develop a professional response to the supervisor using the template provided. The letter will have two main components:

1. Identify the qualities of a successful leader and compare them to your own leadership characteristics.
2. Make recommendations on how to lead and foster teamwork.

Submission Requirements

3. Your letter should be 3–4 double-spaced pages in length.
4. Apply correct APA formatting to all in-text citations and references.
5. Use Times New Roman, 12-point font.
6. Express your main points, arguments, and conclusions coherently.
7. Use correct grammar and mechanics.
8. Support your claims, arguments, and conclusions with credible evidence from 2–3 current, scholarly or professional sources.
9. Proofread your writing.
10. Describes in detail desirable leadership qualities that are specifically appropriate for the proposed project.
11. Compares one’s own leadership skills against those of a chosen health care leader, using specific examples or actions that illustrate the similarities and differences.
12. Explains one’s role as project leader in detail, referencing approaches from a selected leadership model with support from academic resources.
13. Describes multiple approaches to effectively facilitate collaboration among a professional team.

Presents a focused purpose through strong organizational skills. Presents evidence through strong paraphrasing/summarizing and appropriate tone and sentence structure.

To successfully complete this course, you will be expected to:

1. Apply qualities, skills and practices used by effective healthcare leaders.
2. Apply practices that facilitate effective interprofessional collaboration.
3. Apply ethical codes and diversity best practices in health care organizations.
4. Produce clear, coherent, and professional written work, in accordance with these writing stand
5. Writing Criteria

• Address assignment purpose Related Competency: Compose a text that articulates meaning relevant to the main topic, scope, and purpose of the prompt.
• Develop strong organization- include the MEAL PLAN Related Competency: Develop text using organization, structure, and transitions that demonstrate understanding of relationship between main and subtopics.
• Incorporate appropriate evidence Related Competency: Integrate into text appropriate use of scholarly sources, evidence, and citation style.
• Use scholarly tone Related Competency: Apply in text the standard writing conventions for the discipline, including structure, voice, person and tone.
• Develop grammatically sound sentence structure
  Related Competency: Produce text with minimal grammar, usage, spelling, and mechanical errors.

 Please note this information is needed for my exceptional letter

          Use the following scenario as a basis to complete Assessment 1.

Imagine that you work in a health care facility and your boss has just stopped by your office      and says the following:

Hi, I just have a couple of minutes – please forgive me for stopping in without advanced notice. One of the results of a recent employee survey at Lakeland Clinic indicates we have some issues to address. The data show 75% of the employees have concerns about at least one of the following: diversity issues, workplace incivility, and poor work-life balance. Senior leadership has asked me how I plan to respond, and my first inclination is to put you in charge of assembling a team to address one of the issues. You have demonstrated effective organizational and communication on other projects and I think you will be a great asset as we move forward. I have to run right now, but I’ll send you an email with more information before I leave today.

See you later!

Subsequent Email:

Thanks for talking with me this morning. I just want you to know that this is really a great opportunity for you. I know you have been interested in taking steps to becoming a leader in this organization and now it’s time to realize your potential. As you know we opened the Lakeland Medical Clinic to serve area residents who were unable or unwilling to use the services offered at the main hospital. The first two months of operation saw strong patient volume. Since then, the numbers have dropped off dramatically. This prompted leadership to start asking some questions, which lead to the internal survey that I mentioned yesterday. I just met with leadership and they determined that the priority right now is the diversity issue because we have the opportunity to improve outcomes for both employees and the community. This is part of an e-mail I got from the clinic director last week: “…after careful examination of all aspects of the organization and talking with some neighborhood leaders we have concluded that residents in the community do not feel comfortable coming to the clinic. It seems the staff are lacking the ability to develop a trusting relationship with the residents primarily because they do not understand the cultural values and norms. The neighborhood residents, which you know are predominantly Haitian, often feel their beliefs, values, and health practices are not understood.

When staff members were hired, we only considered their past work experiences, education and potential. We may have failed to fully consider their ability to work with diverse populations.“ Hopefully the information gives you a better understanding of the issues to be addressed. Time to get started as things need to move quickly. I want you to assemble a committee to clearly define the problem and ultimately provide guidance on solutions. Before introducing you to the clinic director and executive team, I want to review your approach specific to leadership style and collaboration. I want two things from you in a written document. The first part is just for me, but the second part I intend to share with the clinic director.

First, identify and describe a leader you would choose to lead a project like this and explain why. It can be anyone that is qualified, even someone famous. Your choice will tell me a lot about your leadership approach and priorities.

Next, select one of the characteristics that make them successful and compare it against your leadership skills.

The second item is related to leading and fostering teamwork and collaboration among a group of interdisciplinary professionals. We are looking for 4–6 members to serve on a committee who will be considering the diversity issue and ultimately making a recommendation on how to address it. I want you to:

Describe your role and approach to leading the group.

How will you lead and communicate?

Will you be an authoritative, collaborative, democratic, servant, or transformational type of leader?

Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your approach in the context of this project.

Describe how you would facilitate collaboration to maximize team effectiveness. You might consider:

o Communication technologies.

o Practices (accountability, decision making, delegating).

o Techniques for sharing information and ideas.

o Any other ideas you might have.

Remember this information will be shared with the clinic director so keep it clear, focused, and professional. Creativity is important; however, we want to be sure that your ideas and approaches align with current health care organization trends and practices, so include references from current academic or professional resources to support your points.

I have confidence in you!

1. Lynnette

Leadership and Group Collaboration Discussion Paper