Power and Influence in the Nursing Field

My most respected lesson that was reviewed was "knowledge helps to build bridges. We have wrote a lot of papers and discussions on what is important in becoming a leader and being great at leadership depends 100% on your knowledge in healthcare and other areas. During all my years in nursing I have see a lot of nurses taking on leadership roles and they have never returned to school to obtain advance degrees or continuing education credits. Basically they graduated nursing school and went to work as a nurse and that is all they have done. They are completely missing the knowledge base that arises with the new leadership roles. My bachelors program and now my graduate program focused totally on how to function in leadership and manager level positions in the new nursing careers.

Don't Let Yourself Become a Wallflower

How much can you contribute to a health care team in a leadership role if you have not continued to attend courses and study that help you understand how this role is carried out. A lot of nurses have been in the hospital for 30 years, but have been nothing but a wallflower and now they step up into management and really don't know how to function to benefit the entire healthcare team. They are used to a certain amount of team members that they have stuck with for the last 30 years and attempted to buck every new change that was introduced. But now that everyone is going back to school and getting degrees and these 30 year nurses are attempting to pull rank and take these positions without any real backup knowledge of what or how to do it.

That is why I tend to prevent myself from becoming a wallflower and keeping myself limited to my abilities and skills. I have been in schools and certificate programs since I obtained my RN and will continue to take as many courses and classes that will benefit me and increase my skill, knowledge and opportunity. (Dr. Mary Wakefield) When I see nurses that really don't have any interest in moving on or increasing their knowledge, I ask them why and inform them of the importance of keeping up with the future of nursing. I don't feel threatened by nurses who want advanced degrees, I feel excited to know that I am in a profession that has the capabilities of anything and there are not limits for us.

Making People Pay Attention to Large Numbers

We as nurses need to make sure that all the other professions out there know what they are up against and bring it to there attention in large numbers. We have a numerous amounts of students in the nursing programs now and there is even a waiting list for future nursing students and that is great to see. Nursing was given such a bad wrap for a while and then once the wages went up and we started getting more respect, you see a lot more people wanting to become nurses. This large amount of increase in numbers will show that we are a growing profession and that we should be taken seriously when we show we want to make changes.( Dr. Mary Wakefield) I really enjoyed the lesson and how empowering it was. Both speakers had a great impact on how I see nursing today and in the future. As a nursing instructor I will use these tools to help influence my students to become the most successful nurses they can be.

References

Power and Influence" (Dr. Diana Mason, Dr. Mary Wakefield)

Philadelphia: F. A. Davis Company (2004) The new leadership challenge: Creating the future of nursing (2nd ed., pp. 121-142).