Leadership And Mentorship In Nursing

This assignment will focus on a degree level student nurse’s experience of leadership and mentorship, whilst in practice, in the adult field of nursing. The importance of these skills is highlighted by the professional bodies that govern the nursing profession, The Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (NMC) Standards for competence (2004) states that nurses must provide leadership to develop quality services to enhance patients wellbeing and experiences within healthcare settings, while The Royal College of Nursing [RCN] states that a fundamental role of the nurse is to provide both leadership and mentorship (Scrivener, 2014). Within this assignment I will relate these qualities to my own experiences in practice, I will examine the how learning
There are however common themes to be drawn out of the literature pertaining to leadership, Northouse (2013) writes that there are two types of leader, ‘assigned’ leaders and ‘emergent’ leaders, assigned leaders being a person who is appointed leader due to their role or position whereas and emergent leader is a person who becomes or is perceived by others as a leader based on their behaviour and personality. Leadership and management are often viewed as one and the same, however Northouse (2013) describes leadership as a continuous process developed by both leader and followers, whereas The Oxford English Dictionary (ND) defines management as ‘the process of dealing with or controlling things or people’ when applying this definition to management in nursing it could be argued that this perceived control could lead to a poor view of management within the workforce (SEE APPENDIX), whereas an emergent leader might be viewed in a more favourable light, this is supported by Kotter (1990) who wrote that despite some concurring themes, there are major differences between leadership and management, as he argues the role of management is to give direction and order where leadership aims to bring about changes through
Marquis & Huston (2009) write that one model of leadership will never be compatible with every personality or situation, leaders should be knowledgeable of models and theories so they are equipped to adapt to many leadership