While attending the American Association of Colleges of Nursing in Atlanta, GA, Dr. Maureen Gormley, Director for Management of the National Institutes of Health offered some insights into Healthy Work Environments.
Nurses face several challenges in overcoming gender stigma related to historically being a female dominated profession in addition to negotiating authority struggles related to hierarchal structures in healthcare, such as physician dominated settings. Nurses can overcome these barriers to healthy work environments and move beyond oppressive traditions by exercising Self-Leadership Conceptualization and empowerment strategies embedded in Leader-Member Exchange Theory (LMX). Authentic Nurses make Authentic Leaders.
WHAT DO AUTHENTIC LEADERS FOCUS ON?
- Having genuine interactions (being present and sensitive to the environment)
- Building follower’s strengths by creating self-awareness
- Creating a positive and engaging organizational context
- Instilling self-confidence
- Creating meaningful work
One of the characteristics of a Leader that has always resonated with me is Servant Leadership.
“It was much later that I realized Dad’s secret. He gained respect by giving it. He talked and listened to fourth-grade kids in Spring Valley who shined shoes the same way he talked and listened to a bishop or a college president. He was seriously interested in who you were and what you had to say.” Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot
Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot (born August 2, 1944) is an African American sociologist who examines the culture of schools, the patterns and structures of classroom life, socialization within families and communities, and the relationships between culture and learning styles. She is the Emily Hargroves Fisher professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a 1984 MacArthur Genius.
Another vital aspect of Effective Leadership is Supportive Collaboration. When workers are respected for the impact they are making by those who lead them, they are empowered to develop their Decision-Making skills.
This respect in turn fosters employee empowerment (knowing that one has a voice) which increases the sense of well-being in relationship to the meaningfulness of one’s work, unleashing self-efficacy and facilitating an increase in Organizational Commitment.
In conclusion how does psychological empowerment (self-efficacy) show up in employees?
- Their work takes on Meaning
- They feel and are Competent
- They demonstrate Self-Determination
- They perceive their voice and actions as having an Impact
- They view challenging problems as tasks to be mastered
- They are willing to take risks
- They own their responsibilities, both personal and to the organization
- They develop deeper interest in the activities in which they participate
- They form a stronger sense of commitment to their interests and activities
- They recover quickly from setbacks and disappointments
Drs. Callis and Wickman on a virtual tour of the Tara Plantation (fictional plantation in the state of Georgia, in the historical novel Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell).