High-quality healthcare leadership is fundamental in helping to shape organisational culture, with effective leaders emphasising the importance of delivering safe and compassionate care. With nursing in the spotlight in 2020, Catherine Best explores the role servant leadership can play in strengthening the profession As 2020 is the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife, nursing is in the spotlight. Characteristics of servant leaders, argues Fahlberg and Toomey (2016), are witnessed in some of the best nursing leaders who speak up, volunteer, and advocate—all of which bring nurses to a place where we can be of value. Servant Leadership and its Application to Nursing Practice The basis of the “servant leadership” theory is that in order to be a good leader; one must be a servant, first (Hunter, 1998). It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. 2020 is the Year of the Nurse and the Midwife, and this window of opportunity may soon slam shut again (Salvage and Stilwell, 2018). However, that is not all—2020 is also the year in which we applaud the unique contribution that nurses and midwives make to the delivery of safe and effective care; the year in which we draw attention to the often challenging situations in which we work and sometimes live; and the year in which we raise awareness of the considerable investment that still needs to be made to ensure global health for all (WHO, 2020a). Conversely, disengaged leaders, high turnover, poor organisational culture and dysfunctional external relations are just some examples of the characteristics of health care organisations that can affect their capacity to deliver optimum care (Vaughn et al, 2019). He described servant leaders as those who achieve results for their organizations by attending to the needs of those they serve. Now is the moment to shift the paradigm, to be taken seriously, when the old certainties and ways are being shaken by economic crisis, climate change, insecurity, a deep desire for stronger social solidarity, and the rising clamour of women's voices—and of nursing policy leaders (Salvage and White, 2019). Commonly known as workplace bullying, lateral violence is both harmful and unacceptable, and when nurses leave their jobs as a result, it can create gaps in the nursing team, leading to increased workloads and decreased morale (Rainford et al, 2015). She understands that as a manager, she is a critical linchpin in staff recruitment and retention. Regardless, we feel that servant leadership specifically and explicitly fits well with the overall goals of critical care nursing and medicine: never take your eye off the ball; that is, the patient comes first. The risk is that if nurses do not sit firmly at those tables, others will decide what we can do, how we are educated, and undermine our ability to utilise our skills and knowledge to positively influence global health (Scammell, 2018). With a number of major commitments marking efforts to improve health globally, including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Kickbusch, 2020), strengthening the leadership skills of the nursing profession is essential if as nurses we are to help achieve three of the seventeen SDGs—namely promoting health and wellbeing, gender equality and economic growth—as well as having a significant influence on many others, including for example, education and poverty (International Council for Nurses (ICN), 2017). As challenging as this may be, however, perhaps we need to stop condemning the profession so vehemently for this, for as Rainford et al (2015) argue, the significant patient workload could be considered a contributory factor in increasing the risk of lateral violence and as Matheson and Bobay (2007) opine, the behaviours exhibited could simply be an outward projection of the tensions, challenges and role conflicts encountered by nurses who are frustrated by the lack of power, worth and autonomy that exists. A good example of how nurses can be supported to become visionaries is that of the Nightingale Challenge—Nursing Now's global initiative—which encourages healthcare employers around the world to provide learning opportunities that will support the leadership and development of a group of nurses and midwives aged 35 years and under who will add value to their working environments and help raise the status and profile of the professions as a whole (The Burdett Trust, 2019). Get the latest blog posts sent directly to your email. I suggested that she should review the literature on servant leadership. Furthermore, effective leaders ensure the voice of patients are heard, that staff are supported using an empathetic, fair and compassionate approach, and consider the need for continuous professional development essential in order to improve service delivery (West et al, 2015). Nurses are well-placed to help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals which aim to improve health globally. Comparably aligned with authentic leadership, is that of servant leadership, although Liden et al (2014) argue that being authentic is a central tenet of servant leadership, through which the attributes of authentic leadership can be applied. Servant leadership theory stems from the post-modern work of Greenleaf, first published as an essay in 1970 (Greenleaf, 1970), in which he argues: ‘The servant leader is servant first. https://doi.org/10.12968/pnur.2020.31.3.128, International Council for Nurses (ICN), 2017, https://doi.org/10.3928/00220124-20190319-02.2, https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NURSE.0000494644.77680.2a, https://www.greenleaf.org/what-is-servant-leadership/, https://www.icnvoicetolead.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/ICN_AVoiceToLead_guidancePack-9.pdf, https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/workforce/exclusive-global-nursing-leader-questions-recruitment-ethics-06-12-2018/, https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/advancing-global-health-agenda, https://doi.org/10.1097/NNA.0000000000000198, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2834.2012.01375.x, https://www.england.nhs.uk/year-of-the-nurse-and-midwife-2020/, https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201401/what-is-authentic-leadership-do-you-have-it, https://doi.org/10.12968/bjon.2018.27.1.34, https://www.emergingrnleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/The-Best-of-Emerging-RN-Leader-2011-2013.pdf, https://www.btfn.org.uk/nursing-nows-nightingale-challenge/, https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2017-007573, https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/leadership-and-leadership-development-health-care, https://www.who.int/campaigns/year-of-the-nurse-and-the-midwife-2020, https://www.who.int/news-room/campaigns/year-of-the-nurse-and-the-midwife-2020. Embraced by many nurse leaders, servant leadership helps to build trust; followers believe that the leader authentically considers the importance of their welfare, which in turn leads to increased levels of engagement, creating healthy working environments, which are ultimately attractive to nursing staff (Sherman, 2012). Nurses are in a strong position to learn from, and teach others about, global health needs, Fundamental in helping to shape organisational culture, is the importance of high-quality healthcare leadership, Characteristics of servant leaders are witnessed in some of the best nursing leaders who speak up, volunteer, and advocate, Despite nursing being such a large professional group, its representation at the global top decision-making tables is considered weak, and therefore, correspondingly, so is the voice of nursing. Nurses and global health: ‘at the table’ or ‘on the menu’? Enter your email address below and we will send you your username, If the address matches an existing account you will receive an email with instructions to retrieve your username, Honorary Visiting Lecturer in Nursing, Faculty of Health Studies, School of Nursing and Healthcare Leadership, University of Bradford, With nursing in the spotlight in 2020, Catherine Best explores the role servant leadership can play in strengthening the profession. A young nurse leader recently asked me which leadership framework I would recommend to guide her practice. One way in which we can do this is by nursing leaders adopting a servant leadership approach. Fundamental in helping to shape organisational culture, is the importance of high-quality healthcare leadership, with effective leaders emphasising the importance of delivering safe and compassionate care (West et al, 2015). This momentous decision by the World Health Organization (WHO) is a sign of the significant change ahead and the increasing recognition of the value of nurses, affirming that: ‘the world needs us’ (Stilwell, 2019). Within the frame-work of servant leadership, attainment of organisational if nurses from all nations were to come together and speak with one voice then the profession would hold considerable power and could establish both political and social change, ISSN (print): 0964-9271ISSN (online): 2052-2940, Celebrate World Health Day: Nursing and Global Health, Servant leadership A model for emerging nurse leaders, Politics, power, and predictability of nursing care, Nurses' role in achieving the sustainable development goals, Healing a Broken Spirit: Role of Servant Leadership, Exclusive: Global nursing leader questions recruitment ethics, Linking nurses' perceptions of patient care quality to job satisfaction: the role of authentic leadership and empowering professional practice environments, Authentic leadership, empowerment and burnout: a comparison in new graduates and experienced nurses, Servant leadership and serving culture: Influence on individual and unit performance, Validation of oppressed group behaviors in nursing, NHS England International Year of the Nurse and Midwife 2020, Rainford WC, Wood S, McMullen PC, Philipsen ND, The case for a paradigm shift: from global to planetary nursing, Nursing leadership and health policy: everybody's business, Breaking the silence: a new story of nursing, Servant leadership: the primacy of service. 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