Both management and leadership play a critical role in the sphere of nursing, as a nurse manager cannot secure a good team’s performance without being a role model and inspiration for colleagues. However, while these aspects frequently overlap, they still obtain some core differences in terms of their characteristics. Thus, according to Grand Canyon University (2018), one of the primary dissimilarities is the fact that a manager is an officially assigned position, whereas leaders are rather defined by the scope of authority they have over others. Moreover, while managers are driven by specific job descriptions and goals to secure efficiency, professionalism, and productive interaction within the team, the responsibilities of a leader, are not limited to specific duties and may be motivated by the leader’s personal vision. Finally, in the paradigm of management, the ultimate objective is to achieve certain organizational goals, whereas leadership places emphasis on the team’s empowerment in order to secure beneficial long-term outcomes.
However, despite the presence of some differences, nurses are to define the ways in which these aspects overlap and make use of both. Examples of such overlaps include serving as an agent of change and long-term planning that empowers colleagues to grow professionally (Grand Canyon University, 2018). For instance, when a nurse manager creates a long-term shift schedule, the lack of leadership will lead to the manager’s linear thinking in terms of achieving tangible goals without accounting for the team’s feelings about the new schedule and their personal preferences. Once leadership is incorporated, the long-term shift schedule planning includes empowering personnel to share their ideas and concerns. As a nurse manager, I would manifest practical adoption of combining management and leadership through securing positive professional outcomes and meeting organizational objectives through participative servant leadership. Servant leadership presupposes that the focus shifts from one authoritative figure to the whole team. Hence, with the help of active listening to every team member without judging and exercising one’s authority over others, leaders become role models without being superior (“Jesus the CEO,” n.d.). Hence, when applying such a leadership model, nurses will feel included in the decision-making process and bear equal responsibility for the team’s performance. As a result, no team member will feel excluded from decision-making, allowing the manager to optimize the workflow among the staff and, consequently, improve productivity and team outcomes.
References
Grand Canyon University. (2018). Nursing leadership and management: Leading and serving [E-book]. Web.
Jesus the CEO. (n.d.). Jesus Central. Web.