Commonwealth Steering Committee for Nursing and Midwifery

Atlantic Region Workshop

Grenada 15th – 16th February 2010

“Leadership and Influencing Skills in Nursing”

Leadership

Leadership has been defined in many ways in the literature. According to Joosle 2004, “Leaders are not merely those who control others but they act as visionaries, who help employees to plan, lead, control and organise their activities”

Leadership

Several features are common:  A process   Involves influence  Occurs in a group setting   Involves attainment of goals and exists at all

levels

Leadership

 Autocratic   Bureaucratic   Participative

Leadership means

 Speaking out when needed  Avoid hypocrisy  Seeing the larger picture  Keeping priorities straight  Accepting responsibility

Leadership means

Courage to begin task that are longer than our lives.

Catherine McAuley

General Agreement in the literature on characteristics of Leadership

Key Elements that stood the test of time in attributes of Effective Leadership

!  Vision !  Confidence and Trust !  Political Skill !  Review and Change

Leaders therefore

  Inspire a shared vision   Challenge the process   Enable others to act   Model the way   Encourage the heart

Such leaders are perceived as

"  Having a high degree of personal credibility "  Being effective in meeting job related demands "  Being successful in representing their entities "   Having high performing teams

As described by Bethel S. M. Beyond Management to Leadership 21st Century Leader

"  Servant leadership "  Creating and Communicating vision "   Promoting and initiating change "   Building partnerships "   Valuing diversity "   Managing information and technology "   Achieving balance

Create emphasis on human and personal qualities

Example: Leadership model stresses learning, listening, coaching, experimenting, networking with others, fostering a climate to create more leaders

#  Confident and modest #  Authentic #  Leaders are listeners #  Good at giving encouragement #  Unexpected connections #  Leaders provide #  Protect from danger – expose to reality #  Do not blame #  Make change and stance

Effective Leadership (Recap)

$  Vision $   Influence $   Motivation $   Confidence and task $   Political skill

Positive Influencing Skills

Behaviour – link between intent and results, that is all too often neglected Not enough emphasis Enables increase in credibility Helps to achieve more when working with others

Why influence?

Three sources of authority

$   Technical authority $   Organisational authority $   Personal credibility

Developing Credibility

 Key characteristic of high performance   Important area of interpersonal competency  Talent and Learned competencies

Developing credibility

1.Achieving your goals

2.Managing task

3.Managing people

4.Managing yourself

Positive influencing skills are:   Non-manipulative, persuading behaviour   People feel good about interacting with you   Essential within the core management role

  Agreeing targets   Giving feedback   Coaching people   Resolving differences of opinion

Fundamental principles

  Pull do not push   Involvement is effective than passive   Persuade - do not manipulate   Think behaviour rather than personality   Seek to understand than be understood

Influence and Personality

  Few of us are naturally gifted persuaders   Self insight is critical to self development   Two basic questions can exist  Why can’t I influence people the way I want

to?  What can I do about it? (Golson 2006)

Reasons why persons do not have the influence they require

  A negative attitude towards selling and a little appreciation for the need to influence.

  Lack of confidence and political sensitivity   Lack of experience, practice or skill

Five Core influencing Skills

  Probing and listening   Getting on the same wave length   Persuasive selling   Assertiveness (standing up for your rights,

listening and having a reasonably high self-esteem

  Awareness of body language

Persuasive Behaviours

 Behaviour is at least as important as the content of what you have to say.

 If your behaviour is inappropriate it could detract from your message

 KEY  A strong enthusiastic voice  Fluent speaking without hesitation( urs

and urms)

Key Persuasive Behaviours

  Avoid yes and no’s   Answers that begin with What, When,

Where, How and Who   The use of silences and pauses rather than

filters and non words such as ok, right, you know

SUMMARY   Soft skills (interpersonal persuasion) are

necessary to build on the effective application of hard skills

  Task oriented problem solving   Your words does not always speak for you   A lack of soft skills are the most frequently

observed developmental gaps in successive executives

SUMMARY

  If you do not influence the process then someone else will

  You need to be visible to those who have power over your career

LEADERSHIP

 According to Dwight D Eisenhower, “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it”.