Formal And Informal Leadership Analysis

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An area that I have not experienced is in managing a nursing unit.

According to Hood, both formal and informal leaders have an important function in professional nursing (Hood, 2018). Furthermore, these leadership roles have the potential to coalesce into something powerful leading to a transformation of culture within the workplace. By extension, this transformation impacts positive outcomes for patients and elevates the level of professionalism among staff.

In my current setting there has been a lot of shifting within the leadership roles. For example, recently our chief nursing officer and nurse manager resigned their positions. Subsequently, there has been a disjointed work environment as everyone is trying to figure out, "what next?". Arguably, this is where the informal leadership that already exists can be utilized to help ease the tension and uncertainty of
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Simultaneously, leveraging the informal leadership can help pave the way for positive changes in the workplace. Change typically is met with some form of resistance and having strong visionary leaders (whether formal or informal) in place can help circumvent frustration and difficulty. If the leadership of our hospital would approach the "influencers" and those who have an informal leadership role - I think it would improve the workplace environment. In order for this to happen, management and leadership must be willing to acknowledge that acquired influence can often yield just as good, or even better results than appointed authority. This grass-roots leadership approach creates a symbiotic relationship between those in actual authority and those in perceived authority - which leverages "nursing influence" to the fullest potential (Hood, 2018