Leadership: Personal Leadership Philosophies

How healthy is your workplace?

You may think your current organization operates seamlessly, or you may feel it has many issues. You may experience or even observe things that give you pause. Yet, much as you wouldn’t try to determine the health of a patient through mere observation, you should not attempt to gauge the health of your work environment based on observation and opinion. Often, there are issues you perceive as problems that others do not; similarly, issues may run much deeper than leadership recognizes.

There are many factors and measures that may impact organizational health. Among these is civility. While an organization can institute policies designed to promote such things as civility, how can it be sure these are managed effectively? In this Discussion, you will examine the use of tools in measuring workplace civility.

To Prepare:

· Review the Resources and examine the Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory, found on page 20 of Clark (2015).

· Review and complete the Work Environment Assessment Template in the Resources.

By Day 3 of Week 7

Post a brief description of the results of your Work Environment Assessment. Based on the results, how civil is your workplace? Explain why your workplace is or is not civil. Then, describe a situation where you have experienced incivility in the workplace. How was this addressed? Be specific and provide examples.

As a future healthcare leader, it is important that we are able to discern the health and wellbeing of our workplace environments. Upon completion of the Clark Healthy Workplace Inventory (2014), my current workplace scored an 84, which is rated as moderately healthy. Areas where I scored lower were based on lack of diverse ideas and compensations, which I felt justified, as we are a state funded agency. Areas which I scored higher were the amount of training, teamwork and advancement opportunities available for employees.

It is my opinion that my workplace has a high level of civility. I have never been involved with a disagreement or argument with a coworker and have not heard of any other problems within the organization. I feel that I am treated with respect and treat others with respect which promotes civility within our company. Also, everyone seems happy to work with one another which promote a harmonious environment. “When we nurture a culture of collaboration, we can synthesize the unique strengths that healthcare workers of all disciplines bring to the workplace” (Clark, 2015).

“Keys to effective communication are self-knowledge and sensitivity to what others want and need to know” (Marshall and Broome, 2017). As leaders, knowing our strengths and weaknesses can promote or hinder effective avenues of communication. I witnessed this first hand while working in the Emergency Department, which is a high stress environment and tests the limits of each individual’s personality. I once saw a Nurse Manager in the ED scream across the busy department for another nurse to “get off their lazy (bottom) and help out”, what the manager did not realize is that the nurse she was communicating to was entering orders for a physician in another emergency situation. This incident resulted in the Nurse Manager being demoted, all due to stress and a failure to properly communicate with her staff. Marshall and Broome states “successful communication is active listening” which would have helped in the aforementioned situation (2017).

References

Cynthia M., C. (2019). Combining Cognitive Rehearsal, Simulation, and Evidence-Based Scripting to Address Incivility. Nurse Educator, (2), 64. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1097/NNE.0000000000000563

Clark, C., (2015). Conversations to inspire and promote a more civil workplace. American Nurse Today 10(11), 18-23. Retrieved on 10/7/2019 from https://www.americannursetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/ant11-CE-Civility-1023.pdf

Laureate Education (Producer). (2009a). Working with Groups and Teams [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

 

Marshall, E., & Broome, M. (2017). Transformational leadership in nursing: From expert clinician to influential leader (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Springer.