Topic 3 DQ 1 Describe the fundamental principles of servant leadership. Present two qualities of servant leadership and explain how they support interprofessional communication in providing patient care. Expert Answer and Explanation Servant Leadership Fundamental principles of Servant leadership

Servant leadership is the concept of leading by example other than providing instructions and leaving the employees to figure out on their own. The first principle of servant leadership is persuasion where the leader can advocate for collaboration and working with one another to achieve common goal (Gunnarsdóttir et al., 2018).

The second principle is listening where the leader interacts with the members and acquires different opinions from each member and identify the best cause of action. The third principle is commitment to growth of their employees to achieve organizational value. A servant leader invests in their employees through trainings and seminars to ensure continued growth. The leader is able to help the employees find their purpose and stay motivated with their individual responsibilities.

Qualities of a Servant Leader

The first quality of a servant leader is self-awareness where one can understand their strengths and weaknesses. In nursing, interprofessional collaboration among nurses, physicians and other health care teams requires self-awareness from the leaders (Eva et al., 2019). This will help in terms of effective communication from the leadership to the employees having understood oneself. Self-awareness contributes to patient care in that nurse and physicians are able to perform their roles effectively to the patients because of the team’s collaboration and proper communication.

With good leadership, health workers are able to embrace their roles, work cooperatively and make decisions to carry out patient care. The second quality is empathy where the servant leaders understand their employees and do not disregard their point of views (Aij & Rapsaniotis, 2017). When health workers recognize that their leaders care about them and understands them, then trust is built among the team. A result of this is that health workers are motivated to perform their tasks more effectively.

References

Aij, K. H., & Rapsaniotis, S. (2017). Leadership requirements for Lean versus servant leadership in health care: a systematic review of the literature. Journal of Healthcare Leadership, 9, 1. DOI: 10.2147/JHL.S120166

Eva, N., Robin, M., Sendjaya, S., van Dierendonck, D., & Liden, R. C. (2019). Servant leadership: A systematic review and call for future research. The leadership quarterly, 30(1), 111-132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2018.07.004

Gunnarsdóttir, S., Edwards, K., & Dellve, L. (2018). Improving health care organizations through servant leadership. In Practicing Servant Leadership (pp. 249-273). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75644-8_14