Do you have the building blocks for leadership?

If you asked members of the public to list a few characteristics of a nurse then you would probably get words such as 'caring', 'gentle', 'hard working', 'sympathetic' and so on. These attributes are also probably quite dominant in the minds of young people when they are thinking through what direction to take when choosing jobs and careers. Whilst these caring qualities are indeed fundamental to any nurse in any field of practice, they are just one attribute among many others that a nurse requires if they are to develop and expand their practice. Leadership and management are just two examples of other qualities that all nurses need to be able to utilise – no matter what their seniority or position within the health care system. This conflict between the softer caring attributes and what is often viewed as the hasher qualities required of a manager can give a false picture of the holistic qualities required of a nurse. The consequence of this could be that young people with more innate or developed leadership and management skills are not attracted into the nursing professions and that those who do enter nursing do not feel confident in putting themselves forward for the leadership and management positions.