FINAL LEADERSHIP REFLECTION
Abstract
Authentic leadership is a key factor to ensure not just organizational success, but also team
member engagement in exhibiting positive intent to achieve outcomes in a sustainable
application process. Healthcare leaders continue to struggle understanding leadership alignment
with their own moral and ethical beliefs. Organizations with operations having a direct
relationship to healthcare have recently shifted from leadership that is focused specifically on
outcomes to a leadership approach that leans into integrity, team member focus and
transparency. The ability for a leader to exhibit a vulnerable state builds bridges of trust within
the team they lead. An atmosphere of leadership trust transfers into achieving positive
organizational outcomes and decreased events causing harm to community members that receive
care throughout the organizational enterprise. Authentic leadership comes from the heart of a
leader and can be truly inspirational. This inspiration is what creates best practices,
organizational achievements and produces high quality of patient care.
Keywords: Authentic Leadership, Transparent, Honest, Positivity, Trust
FINAL LEADERSHIP REFLECTION
Final Leadership Reflection: Authentic Leadership
Reflecting on leadership, it is hard to define a clear style of leadership that fits everyone.
Each healthcare leader has a distinct leadership style, which allows for them to achieve
organizational outcomes. While there are many leadership styles and theories, such as authentic,
transformational, servant and laisse-faire, so mention a few, leaders may shift between styles and
characteristics based on the current situation or outcomes desired. This learner has experienced
several different educational opportunities based on organizational requirements within the
expectations of leaders who practice within their healthcare organization. Experiences, both
positive and negative, within healthcare organizations support the growth and development of
leaders to define how they would like to lead their team forward.
Personal experience within leadership, both as a learner and a professional nurse leader,
this learner has evolved and personalized my own leadership style. This learner’s leadership style
was built on feedback, self-awareness, and desire to learner and empowerment of others. The
ability to operationalize programs or protocols by defining goals, allows for teams to
successfully create the framework needed to achieve the goal. As a leader of leaders, this
learners team views her as someone who is not a micromanager, leads within a flat hierarchy and
encourages and supports personal growth and development. Engaging with a practice of leading
with a true sense of self, providing vulnerability with interaction and listening are characteristics’
of the leadership that this learner practices and believes in.
As a leader, recognizing that team member values and practices are aligned with
leadership values and practices which support achieving organizational goals and outcomes.
Understanding the foundational approach of authentic leadership requires a leader to be
evolutionary in practice to align with the four dimensions: Moral Perspective, Balanced
FINAL LEADERSHIP REFLECTION
Processing, Transparency and Self-Awareness (Puni & Hilton, 2020). Within healthcare, as a
leader, the intersection of leadership characteristics and quality of care intertwine. Authenticity
of an organization as well as the authenticity of its leaders is known to product a positive impact
on team member engagement, innovative implementation of strategic care, maximizing
productivity and solid patient experience scores (Authentic leadership, 2021). As a leader, this
learner recognizes that practices and behaviors that are exhibited are tied to ethical beliefs, which
in turn, reflects within leadership actions.
Leadership across the continuum of care places perspective across the question about
how to positively engage team members to participate in achieving organizational goals. The
need for diversity among leaders and team members with not just culture, but also diversity
within ethics and values support successful empowerment and dedication of the front line teams
to achieve outcomes (Bradley, 2020). Research has proven that this is a direct relationship
between authentic leadership and team member engagement, retention, commitment and
satisfaction (Megheirkouni, 2021). Healthcare leader directly impacts patient care outcomes and
quality of care provided so it is instrumental to be able to engage team members in a positive
relationship to focus on the organizational mission, vision and values to support the community
that is served.
The positivity that authentic leadership promotes is not just beneficial to the team
members, but also aligns with several other leadership styles that provide positive engagement
and outcomes when practice aligns with an ethical approach (Lee, et al., 2019). A powerful
attribute within an authentic leader is ability to have self-awareness and vulnerability to focus on
self-development. Establishing trust within the team, a leader can then begin to build a team
focused on positive intent, transparent communication and psychological safety. Behavioral
FINAL LEADERSHIP REFLECTION
skills for leaders support the transition of the team to a trusting team to be able to see the leader
as an authentic member of the team to engage in forward movement to achieve organizational
outcomes (Mehmood et al., 2020).
Measuring authenticity and authentic leadership can be challenging due to intrapersonal
connections, which are not directly visible to researchers for assessments (Gardner et al., 2020).
Through experience, this learner can understand the difficulties in correlating and understanding
the perception of the team members to feel the authenticity and trust the leader. Moving away
from transactional leadership is which the leader checks the box for meeting each goal,
exemplifying ones true self is not just a box to check, but a true practice in which vulnerability is
exhibited. Experiencing failures, this learner was able to recognize the transactional approach in
which the manipulation of emotional intelligence led to the belief that this learner was being
truly authentic. Team members are able to understand when their leader is being truly authentic.
As a leader, this learner is focused on patient outcomes by removing barriers for
supportive leaders and team members to provide high quality care to those they serve. Being able
to meet patient needs thought empathetic, caring and positive approaches achieves high quality
outcomes (Puni & Hilton, 2020). Exhibiting empathetic listening allows for transparency and
trust to be built, leading to positive outcomes that are achieved.
Blending leadership styles is skillfully accomplished through leadership experience.
Clear insight to self, seeking proactive feedback, and being vulnerable builds trust within the
team to be proactively engaged to achieve outcomes and quality of care to the patient. Without
practicing with authentic leadership, team member retention, engagement and satisfaction would
be low, interfering with patient care outcomes and decrease the quality of care. This learner has
FINAL LEADERSHIP REFLECTION
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