Acquire Leadership Skills Research Articles

Assisting Critical Care Nurses in Acquiring Leadership Skills

Critical care nurses need to be more effective leaders and managers in healthcare. Delivering quality and cost-effective patient outcomes have become goals of all nurses. To achieve these goals, nurses must practice and attain leadership ability. This article describes a program to help nurses gain quality leadership skills.

Political and Bureaucratic Power in Australian Government: A Weberian Approach

In one of his three theories of bureaucracy, Weber argued that the extent to which bureaucrats play an independent policy role depends on whether politicians exercise political leadership. This paper shows that the history of Australian government vindicates Weber's theory. Senior officials have played an independent role in the absence of political leadership. Notwithstanding this, they have exhibited the leadership limitations that Weber ascribed to bureaucrats. Contrary to Weber's belief though, such limitations are not insurmountable, since the work of bureaucrats enables them to acquire leadership skills. Greater political leadership since the 1980s has curtailed the independence of bureaucrats. This may be attributed in Weberian terms to the emergence of politicians who possess political conviction and administrative competence. One result has been the hybridisation of political and bureaucratic roles. The paper concludes that Weber's theory incorporates the best features of bureaucratic politics and institutionalist theory but not their limitations.

The Community Development Institute

The “Community Development Institute” was a method used to teach rural community leaders practical application of Community Development theory. The Planning Committee, composed of community leaders and local Extension staff members, set specific objectives and goals of the “institute”: (1) participants acquire leadership skills that would be helpful in working with their respective organizations; (2) participants learn how to become a part of action programs aimed at solving identified community and county problems; and, (3) participants select a county problem and proceed as a group in applying what was learned at the “institute” to solve the problem. At the final session of the “institute”, the participants organized a citizen’s association for the purpose of unifying their efforts toward providing solutions to community problems they identified. Through their actions, they proved that the objectives and goals of the “institute” were sound ones.