Obviously, there are many impressive theories to explain or guide leadership of people and organizations, but few have included environment or setting as much more than an artifact or a backdrop, implying that context may not be relevant. But you know, as a healthcare provider, that the context of health care is uniquely challenging and complex.
The innovative leader is able to think in terms of multiprofessional caregivers, patients, community, and context from a systems perspective. He or she understands not only leadership theory but also theories of complexity and complex adaptive systems. The new transformational leader will design new environments and systems for care—some we have not dared to imagine. Perhaps, theories of the past will be revised or proven al- together irrelevant. The world is waiting for your creativity to care for those in need, and to inspire other leaders to come together in new ways of thinking and practice.
Transformational leaders of the future will see the world with a new vision, break old rules, discover or create new rules, and thrive in the paradoxes of complexity.
Porter-O’Grady and Malloch (2007, p. 27) listed a few of the contradictions that inspire innovation: “Chaos and order, creativity and tension, conflict and peace, difference and similarity, complexity and simplicity.” Think about these concepts. What do they mean for innovation? Innovation requires the space for creativity and the courage to be wrong.
Mistakes teach as much as success. The truth is, there is often no right or wrong but change, diversity, and helping people come together to solve problems and help others.
Steven Johnson (2006) told the story of London’s worst epidemic of cholera in the mid- 1850s that persisted in the face of hundreds of years of conventional thinking that smells in the air caused disease. The idea was held by the most distinguished scientists and physicians at the time. Johnson called it the “sociology of error,” when bad ideas stay around too long. What are those errors in our own world? When I was a young graduate nurse, “science” required that we treat stomach ulcers with round-the-clock alternate doses through a nasogastric tube of dairy cream and liquid antacid. We would not have believed that any ulcer might be treated or cured by an antibiotic. What other errors ask for correction by creative thinking and testing? What bad ideas do we practice in leader- ship? What new miracles do we need to invite?
Innovation requires the paradox of your willingness to learn all you can, bring your clinical experience, and then eagerly suspend previous learning and experience to wel- come the new idea, to recognize a different point of view, to embrace chaos to winnow what must remain and what must change, and to set a new course.
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Characteristics of a Transformational Leader
Leadership is an art—a performing art—and the instrument is the self. The mastery of the art of leadership comes from the mastery of the self.
— Jim Kouzes
I
t seems that every book on leadership provides a list of characteristics or traits that “all leaders must have.” As an aspiring or current leader, it can make you crazy. George, Sims, McLean, and Mayer (2007, p. 129) reported that in the past 50 years, over 1,000 studies have attempted to determine the most important characteristics of great leaders, without success. “Thank goodness,” they responded, “If scholars had produced a cookie- cutter leadership style, individuals would be forever trying to imitate it. . . . No one can be authentic by trying to imitate someone else. You can learn from others’ experiences, but there is no way you can be successful when you are trying to be like them.”Nevertheless, for the last 20 years, Kouzes and Posner (2007) have asked people to rate the seven top characteristics of leaders they admire. They consistently report the follow- ing adjectives in rank order: honest, forward looking, competent, inspiring, intelligent, fair minded, broad minded, supportive, straightforward, dependable, cooperative, de- termined, imaginative, ambitious, courageous, caring, mature, loyal, self-controlled, and independent. Academics never get tired of making lists.
Carroll (2005) proposed the following six most important attributes for nursing leaders:
(1) personal integrity (ethical standards, trustworthiness, and credibility), (2) strategic vi- sion and action orientation, (3) team-building and communication skills, (4) management and technical competencies, (5) people skills (empowering others, networking, valuing diversity, and working collaboratively), and (6) personal survival attributes (political sensitivity, self-direction, self-reliance, courage, and candor). Another nurse listed the following:
. . . moral and ethical values, technical competence, knowledge and conceptual skill, a desire to be a leader, personality, and people skills. . . . Leaders must have in-depth knowledge in the field in which they lead, an ability for abstract thinking, a history of achieving results, ability to communicate, motivate, and delegate, an ability to cultivate talent in others, good judgment, and good character. Leaders are able to motivate others, use highly developed knowledge and technical skill, and lead change. Some are inspirational, or charismatic; all