Huston_Leadership Roles and Management Functions in Nursing,

Chapter 16 Educating and Socializing Staff in a Learning Organization

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Key Concepts

■ The philosophy of LOs is the concept that collective learning goes beyond the bound aries of individual learning and releases gains for both the individual and the orga nization. ■ The leader is a role model of the lifelong learner and seeks to encourage lifelong learning in others. ■ Training, education, and onboarding are important parts of staff development and should be evaluated for purpose, quality control, and fiscal accountability. ■ The promotion and use of evidence-based nursing practice is an organization-wide responsibility. ■ Managers and education department staff have a shared responsibility for the education, training, and onboarding of staff. The roles that each play must be clearly delineated and communicated for staff development activities to be successful. ■ Theories of learning and principles of teach ing must be considered if staff development activities are to be successful.

■ Social learning theory suggests that people learn most behavior by direct experience and observation. ■ The socialization of people into roles occurs with all professions and is a normal sociologic process. ■ Socialization and resocialization are often neglected areas of the onboarding process. ■ New graduates, international nurses, new managers, and experienced nurses in new roles have unique socialization needs. ■ Difficulties with resocialization usually center on unclear role expectations (role ambiguity), an inability to meet job demands, or defi ciencies in motivation. Role strain and role overload contribute to the problem. ■ The terms role model , preceptor , mentor, and coach are not synonymous, and all play an important role in assisting with the socialization of employees. ■ Successful mentoring relationships can result in increased productivity, career advancement, and career satisfaction. ■ People from different cultures and age groups may have different socialization and learning needs.

Additional Learning Exercises and Applications

LEARNING EXERCISE 16.7

Accepting Additional Responsibility Y ou are an experienced staff nurse on an inpatient specialty unit. Today, a local nursing school instructor approaches you and asks if you would be willing to become a preceptor for a nursing student as part of his 10-week leadership–management clinical rotation. The instructor relays that there will be no instructor on site and that the student has had only minimal exposure to acute care clinical skills. The student will have to work very closely with you on a one-to-one basis. The school of nursing can offer no pay for this role, but the instructor states that she would be happy to write a thank you letter for your personnel file and that she would be available at any time to address questions that might arise. The unit does not reduce workload for preceptors, although credit for service is given on the annual performance review. The unit supervisor states that the choice is yours but warns that you may also be called on to assist with the orientation of a nurse who will transfer to the unit in 6 weeks’ time. You have mixed feelings about whether to accept this role. Although you enjoy having students on the unit and being in the teaching role, you are unsure if you can do both your normal, heavy workload and give this student and the new (continues on page 418)