Formal and Informal Leadership and My Personal Leadership Philosophy

In my perspective, the leader is one who has self-awareness about their strengths and weakness and has the qualities to influence other people. I believe that leaders should share their experiences with coworkers to motivate them in the right direction. A good leader should always actively listen to other team members and tries to reach the root cause of every problem before making any decision. A true leader is one who analyzes and utilizes the coworkers’ qualities into the work. So that every person can enjoy their work and it also provides job satisfaction to coworkers. It ultimately help to achieve the desired goal. Leadership is a kind of strength where one individual can affect another person's values, conduct, and attitude. A leader with a powerful management capacity is a role model for his staff, as a leader who can accomplish excellent results or performance gain their employee's confidence and admiration and that helps to change their values, beliefs, conduct, and attitude (Yazdanifard, 2015).

I follow the democratic leadership style because it includes every member of the team in the process of decision making. In this style, everyone is considered equally important, and everyone's views are highly used in the project. And it also provides satisfaction to team members because of their involvement in the decision (Rose Ngozi Amanchukwu, 2015).

Formal Leadership

'Formal leader is a member of the organization who has given authority by his position to influence other members of the organization to achieve organizational goals' (Anderson, 2018).

Role of Formal Leadership

• Formal leader has more decision-making power.
• A formal leader can give a direct order to do any task.
• The relationship in this type of leadership is like top to bottom. For example, the ICU unit in-charge has the authority to handover any task to nurses, and here the nurse needs to follow the instruction of in-charge nurses because of power.
• A formal leader is a member of the organization who has empowered the organization to achieve the organizational objective.

Informal Leadership

An individual in an organization regarded as a listener because of his apparent experience and reputation. The unofficial leader has no official power or authority over the colleague who chooses to be in charge but can impact other people's choices (Krueger, 2013).

Role of Informal Leadership

• Informal nursing leader is clinically highly qualified nurses who acknowledged as a specialist. This sort of pioneer is influencing a group of people.
• Informal ruler does not have the authority to employ, fire, or compensate other people but are often charismatic, open-minded, and willing.
• Many non-formal leaders can be trouble-shooters, super users and volunteer champion for additional employment, on unit or hospital committee, and in mutual governance boards (Krueger, 2013).

Example

As a nurse, I participated as an informal leader. One day, I was on the night shift, and on that day, there were 8 patients in the ward, and they place one student with me because of the lack of staff on that day. So, I knew that I must manage and live with it because no one was going to give more team. So, I decided to work both together, and I ask the student to take vital of the patient and side by side. I will provide the medication to the patients. Everything was going well, but suddenly one patient's health started deteriorating. So, I just went and checked the patient's condition, and the patient was not responding correctly. So, I decided to activate the code blue as a warning sign. I ask the student to enable the code blue. Until that, I bring out all the necessary equipment near to the patient, and when the team arrived, I explain the patient's condition to the team leader and then he gives the instruction to us. So, In this situation, I made the right decision to save the life of the patient.

Nursing Professional Association Influence Leadership Philosophy

Nursing professional associations in Canada have greatly influenced my leadership philosophy because they provide guidelines and regulations for the nurses to follow and sustain that practice in the nursing profession. Professional association provide evidence-based practice which results in offering proper care to the patient and receive a better outcome. I knew that the patient is in the center of attention. I need to develop a relationship at all levels in the hospital and need to make an empowered workplace. Even if I don't have any formal leadership authority, then also I can utilize my informal leadership daily to provide quality of care to the patient. Leadership practices that contribute to a proper job setting can enhance the result and experience of patients and customers. Even health care providers, who cannot see themselves as leaders, can take on this position as unofficial leaders and enhance their working atmosphere considerably (Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, 2013).

In a nutshell, I want to say that leadership plays an essential role in everyone's life. Experiences and role models help me to develop my leadership qualities. Leadership skill is the skill which I learn through knowledge, mistakes, and by following my role model. A leader is one who has the capabilities to lead their followers and has a passion for achieving the goal at a given time. I always try to influence other people in the right way and take team member opinion before making any decision.