Advanced Communication in Systems Leadership Chamberlain College of Nursing NR534 Healthcare Systems Management

Advanced Communication in Systems Leadership Chamberlain College of Nursing NR534 Healthcare Systems Management Advanced Communication in Systems Leadership My approach to this paper began with an analysis of my personal leadership style and personality profile. This began with the completion of two questionnaires, The Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid and The Jung Typology Test. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on past communication practices, apply the newly identified personality profile and leadership style and explore how new communication skills can be applied to these new developments. This will be accomplished through reflective exercises that help me to identify my communication preferences, how those correlate to my identified styles, conflicts that may be encountered because of my communication preferences and how I can work to overcome those obstacles. The goal of this paper is to identify ways to become a better communicator and an overall better leader. I think it is important to understand, in order to get an appropriate picture of our true management style we have to give honest answers to these test questions. It is easy to answer the questions how we want to be viewed but in order to accomplish the purpose of this paper, we have to take a deep look at ourselves and answer them based on past practice. Personal Leadership Profile According to the Jung Typology Test my dominant personality preferences are Extraversion (25%), Intuition (3%), Feeling (38%) and Judging (6%), translating in to an ENFJ personality profile. My extraversion preference makes it important for me to communicate in an interactive environment where energy is present. The way I perceive that information is by connecting the facts with the relationship and combining that in to one overall picture. My decisions are based on creating harmony and appreciating the values of all those involved in the situation. Once a decision or consensus has been reached, I like to proceed by thoroughly planning and using schedules to stay organized and focused on accomplishing the task at hand (Plonien, 2015). According to the Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid, the leadership dimension that I operate out of is “Team Leader”. A team leader is largely focused on keeping concern for people and concern for productivity at the forefront of their leadership practices. ENFJ’s commonly become team leaders because of their natural tendency to lead and organize groups of people (Zbihlejová, Frankovský & Birknerová, 2018). It is important to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses associated with each, when combining these two traits, so you can best optimize their combined potential for communication. While engaging in the communicating cycle ENFJ’s can quickly assess preferences of the receiver, this allows them to send information that appeals to the receiver thru adaptation of self: seeing themselves in the receiver’s eyes. ENFJ’s also tend to empathize with the group they are engaging, which helps them to process information from a prospective other than their own. These adaptation skills can create conflict between the team leader role and the ENFJ personality type, because of a desire to remain loyalty to people and relationships, while still maintaining the leader role. An ENFJ could compromise a project outcome while trying to protect a relationship (Rojas, 2017). Reflection # 1 Negotiation Experience My management team at work is predominantly consists of Introvert, Sensing, Thinking and Perceiving (ISTP’s) personalities so we have had to work hard on maintaining open transparent communication. One experience that I vividly remember was a situation where we I was trying to follow the union contract and enforce a clearly outlined attendance policy. I had spoke with the employee regarding the situation and she was in agreement with the contract language. When I took this to my management team they were insistent that we could not move forward with the change because this had not been past practice. They suggested we involve Employee Labor Relations (ELR) and give a 30-day notice to all employees prior to the practice being changed. I debated the situation and assured them there would be no repercussions because of my relationship with the employees and the fact that I had received buy-in prior to moving forward. Finally after much back and forth, I gave in and contacted ELR who then advised me not to do anything contrary to clinic past practice. As you can imagine I was not very unhappy because this was going outside of the contract language. I felt that by following the clinics incorrect past practice, I was then making it my current practice. Begrudgingly, I abided by their suggested guidelines and informed the employee we would be proceeding in a different way then previously discussed. Reflection In this situation my extraversion and the rest of my management teams introversion largely came in to play while assessing the situation. I was relying on my own interactions with the employees to make a decision regarding the current situation, while the rest of the team was relying on their ideas and prior experiences. When the decision piece came in to play, their thinking preference dominated because they were objectively assessing the situation and working to figure out a solution that would apply to all situations moving forward. My approach was to make a decision based on following the contract despite previous clinic practices, with the perception that a union grievance would not occur because of established relationships and trust with the staff. Implications In the future I think a deeper examination of weighing the possibilities and potential outcomes of the situation could benefit the entire team. By presenting possible scenarios and compelling to their logical sense, I could have tapped in to the flexibility aspect of their personality and they may have been more willing to attempt a change without involving ELR. Reflection # 2 Conflict Experience When I was pretty new in a previous management role, I found it difficult to have team meetings because my nurse manager and my business manager did not communicate. They had experienced several negative situations involving communication, so they just steered clear of each other and worked in their own silos. I had established a good rapport with them both, so I decided to take it upon myself to help repair their working relationship. Reflection Taking on the role of mediator was a disaster because it placed me in the middle of the conflict and I had a difficult time not taking sides. Because of my personality type, I would empathize with one and then work to help the other see them through my lens rather than their own. I did not take in to account the personality differences among the group, or the fact that we all view experiences in a different way. The situation went on for several months and the team was still not any closer to a resolution. In fact, we became even more divided. All of the micromanaging was emotionally and physically exhausting and draining for me. After a couple of years, I withdrew myself from the situation and moved in to a different management role. Implications When I look at this situation in retrospect, a much better solution would have been to bring the group together with employee relations so we could have explored the root of the conflict. There will always be conflict in the workplace so being able to engage those employees in exercises to identify their communication strengths and weaknesses is beneficial. By recognizing their own communication preferences they can learn to better communicate how they are feeling, as well as understand how they receive information from others. Reflection # 3 Team Leader Experience Prior to becoming a manager, I was asked to lead a team to establish new workflows that adhered to our High Alert Medication Policy (HAMP). The team was region wide so their were participants from various facilities in the Northern California area. Reflection This was a pretty high functioning team; department managers delegated the members of this team, all of who were respected among their peers and they all had a solid knowledge of the current HAMP workflows in their departments. Looking back on this experience I remember how hard it was to coordinate all of our schedules so I often took on tasks that should have been completed by the entire team. I also remember feeling that not everyone was completely engaged in our meetings and I contributed this to the fact that we were dialing in to a conference call, while still trying to multitask the other things going on around us in the department. It felt like a minority of the team was doing a majority of the work. Implications If I were placed in charge of this same task again, my approach would have been much different. I would conduct a survey among the participants to see what mode of communication and engagement they prefer, whether in person or virtual. I would arrange for the meetings to be conducted somewhere outside of the infusion department so team members could focus on the task at hand. I would also solicit others to take on various tasks throughout the project so there was greater participation and buy-in. One reason why this project was so difficult is because I did not assess strengths and weaknesses so I could adapt our communications to support those needs. Summary This paper serves as a reflection on my past communication practices, as well as identifying how I can apply my personality profile and leadership style to improve communication skills and then apply them to future situations. Two areas of self- discovery for me were; (1) I could easily compromise the task at hand by trying to save a relationship and (2) Understanding the personality types of those involved in activities I participate in and activities that I lead, will significantly help to achieve the task at hand (Farrell, 2017). Communication is a vital part of any leadership role. Identifying my leadership and communication preferences helps me to understand how I interpret communication that I receive, as well as guides my response to those communications. Being able to capitalize on this information can significantly increase the effectiveness of my leadership and the influence I have on how these communications are received by others. References Farrell, M. (2017). Leadership reflections: Extrovert and introvert leaders. Journal of Library Administration, 57(4), 436–443. Retrieved from Plonien, P. (2015). Using personality indicators to enhance nurse leaders communication. AORN Journal, 201(1), 74-80. Retrieved from .Org/10.1016/.2015.05.001 Rojas, R. (2017). Emerging team leader dynamics in contingent situations: A doctoral- level simulation. International Journal of Teaching & Learning in Higher Education, 29(1), 186–191. Retrieved from Zbihlejová, L., Frankovský, M., & Birknerová, Z. (2018). Leadership styles of managers from the perspective of gender. International Journal of Organizational Leadership, 7(4), 340. Retrieved from