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The author encourages nurses to reflect and act on the joint potential of leadership and health-care reform.
The vast array of opinions about nursing leadership roles in health-care reform can inspire and overwhelm us.The critical messages embedded in these discussions should be considered so that nurses can locate their common purpose in shared leadership as interdisciplinary healthcare professionals. Nurses must consider their leadership roles so that they can fully develop their contributions as individual and collective practitioners. In this article, themes are explored related to leadership, innovation and knowledge workers as inspired by iconic business leader Peter Drucker. These inextricable core concepts will reflect a leadership model extolled by Drucker on how we are propelled to "be, know, and do" (Army Leadership, 2002,¶ 2). While it may seem provocative to adopt this military leadership model for nursing, this conceptual approach has much to offer.
Being
"In order to lead others, you must first make sure your own house is in order" (Army Leadership, 2002, ¶ 6). Be refers to the inner strength of our character to lead and is defined by our values and attributes. Values include "loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity [and] personal courage" (¶ 12) - note the acronym LDRSHIP. Attributes refer to mental, physical and emotional qualities (¶ 13-14). Nurse leaders require the fundamental ability to critically reflect (Gilbert, 1998; West, 1999) on self, the organization and the broader system context. Although there are limited resources in health care, there is also unlimited potential for change. Truly effective nurse leaders are able to recognize the difference between need and want; resource restrictions warrant that change must be engaged in only when necessary in order to balance productivity (i.e., succeeding at familiar tasks) with innovation (i.e., implementing new and different tasks) (Drucker as cited in DeTienne & Jackson, 2001, p. l).This challenges the message that change is upon us; rather, an effective nurse...