Leadership Theory

Introduction

Proper leadership style is an important aspect of effective nursing (Jackson et al., 2009). The purpose of this paper is to determine my own style and then investigate the leadership style of Mother Teresa, in nursing and health care. After that, my leadership style and the style of Mother Teresa will be compared.

Assessment Inventory

In order to become an effective leader, I should find my own leadership style. This style must meet my needs and the necessities of the institution. After completing the Myers-Briggs assessment inventories, I determined that I have to follow the authoritative style. It means that I tend to mobilize my team towards a certain vision that is the same for the whole institution. I also explain the end aims. However, I do not demand employees to apply certain methods. They can choose means on their own. It is possible to describe the authoritative style by a phrase “Come with me.” This style is relevant for the teams that need a new vision due to changing of circumstances. It is also effective for organizations that do not require explicit guidance. Leaders of this style inspire an entrepreneurial spirit and enthusiasm for achieving the objectives. On the other hand, it is not suitable for companies that consist of experts that know more than a leader (Sullivan, 2013).

Other distinguishing characteristics of the authoritative leadership style are high responsiveness as well as supportiveness of team members. Besides, the authoritative leader demonstrates demandingness towards employees. Some experts also say that leaders of this style put high demands and, at the same time, provide a significant support to employees. Finally, they are very productive because their focus on action and innovation. On the other hand, they make decisions on their own with listening to advice of their employees (Feldman et al., 2011).

Leadership Analysis

The individual under consideration is Mother Teresa. She demonstrated servant leadership. This style is characterized by focusing on good sides of team members or the people that are being led. Serving becomes a fundamental thing for such leaders. Moreover, they put needs, interests, wishes and well-being of other people higher than their own. In the context of a modern organization, a servant leader tries to ministry to stakeholders in the way that provides them welfare benefits. It makes a leader credible and reliable. Such leading manner inspires others as well as surprises them because a real concern for the welfare of team members is not common nowadays (Caldwell et al., 2012). As for Mother Teresa, she served to poor people in India and symbolized ministering to others for more than 45 years. The desire to help the poor appeared in her head during teaching at a convent school in Calcutta. She saw there terrible living conditions of local people. Therefore, Mother Teresa received permission from Catholic Church to found the order “The Missionaries of Charity”. Its mission was to help people that had nobody to look after them. Over some time, her organization has begun to care about ill and poor people all over the world. The world community noticed her devotion to the humanity and gave her many international awards including the Nobel Peace Prize (Caldwell et al., 2012).

I believe that servant and authoritative leadership have certain common characteristics. First, leaders of both kinds inspire people. They are supportive and responsive to the difficulties of other people. However, an authoritative leader is more demanding, whereas a servant one does not pay attention to the work of others because his/her main aim is to help. Nevertheless, they both worry about welfare of a team. Besides, a servant leader as well as an authoritative leader has certain mission. They share it with their team. Another common feature is that they allow people choosing their means for achieving the end goals. I believe that an authoritative leader is more valuable for an organization because team members under leadership of a servant leader can stop listening to him/her and executing orders.

The standard 12 of the American Nurses Association (2010) states that “the registered nurse demonstrates leadership in the professional practice setting and the profession”. The identified strengths of authoritative leadership style demonstrate the mastery of the following standard.  First, a nurse of this style is able to offer a different expected approach to treatment of patients. Second, such nurse is effective when other team members have less experience or skilled. On the other hand, an authoritative nursing leader does not try to listen to advice from other nurses during making the decision and only informs them about final resolution. It does not motivate team participation and deteriorates the moral climate in an organization (Feldman et al., 2011). In addition, it does not allow team members to improve their leadership skills in order to become nurse managers in the future. Therefore, I believe that an authoritative leadership style is not suitable enough for a leader that works in nursing sphere (Jackson et al., 2009).

Summary

To sum up, Myers-Briggs assessment inventories demonstrate that I am an authoritative leader. It means that I tend to set vision and end goals to my team members without demanding following certain means for achieving them. However, the weakness of this style is that my employees cannot participate in making a decision. It is not effective in healthcare because consultations of different specialists can help to find better approach to treatment of patients. I tried to compare my leadership style with the style of Mother Teresa. They have many common features, particularly supportiveness to other people, caring about their welfare and inspiring other people. The strengths of authoritative leadership style demonstrate the mastery of American Nursing Association’ standards, however, there are also many arguments against applying this style.