Nursing Preceptors

The leadership issue in this setting is that most of the focus is on completing the job. The school nurse is focused on completing tasks that must be addressed as they occur. Every leader has their own style and method to leadership. The style that a leader chooses may be based on their experiences or influences from previous leaders. Regardless of the type of leadership every individual can have the ability to lead. The concern is if the leadership method is effective for that particular setting.

The type of leadership style my preceptor has is task-oriented. Spahr defines task-oriented leadership as, “leadership that focuses on completing a job and concentrates on tasks that have to be done, rather than who is doing them” (Spahr, 2015).

The registered nurse (RN) at the clinical site is responsible for identifying students’ health-related barriers to learning and developing a plan for service to reduce those barriers (BCPS, 2017). There are multiple levels of management above her level in the organization. My preceptor fits into the organizational chart at the lower end of the organizational chart. My RN preceptor has one individual under her scope of authority that she manages once per week. The type of structure BCPS has is formal (Schatz, 2017). A formal structure is focused on the relationship between authority and subordinate (Schatz, 2017). Task oriented leadership can affect my preceptor’s ability to perform job responsibilities because it focuses on an autocratic approach (Spahr, 2015). This is beneficial to the organization because tasks are being completed however, this type of leadership is not evidence based practice in today’s nursing practice (Davidhizar & Robbins,

“School nurses frequently work in isolation and do not have the luxury of consulting a colleague in the hallway, so it is vital that the school health resources are evidence-based and current” (DuChateau, Beversdorf, & Wolff, 2015, p. 175).This could be accomplished by the RN preceptor researching and reading current journal articles. It is very important for practicing RN in any setting to stay abreast of current EBP. “The goals of EBP are to provide better outcomes at lower costs while improving patient (student) experiences and nurses’ experience” (Maughan & Yonkaitis, 2017, p. 288). Secondly, I would recommend that the RN preceptor schedules her day to not only perform tasks as they arrive but, devise a clinical flow plan of what tasks need to be completed first. “School nurses are responsible for providing and supervising school nursing services for children with complex health concerns” (DuChateau, Beversdorf, & Wolff, 2015, p. 173). A clinical flow plan will make the clinical setting positively conducive for students and teachers. This could be accomplished by setting up clinical flow plan that would serve as a routine guide for how care is administered upon arrival of the student to the health suite all the way until the student returns to