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effective follower not only will make you a more valuable employee but will also increase the meaning and satisfaction that you get from your work. Managing Up Most team leaders and nurse managers respond positively to having staff who are good followers. Occasionally, you will encounter a poor leader or manager who can confuse, frustrate, and even distress you. Here are a few suggestions for handling this: ■ Avoid adopting the ineffective behaviors of this individual. ■ Continue to do your best work and to contribute leadership to the group. ■ If the situation worsens, enlist the support of others on your team to seek a remedy; do not try to do this alone as a new graduate. ■ If the situation becomes intolerable, consider the option of transferring to another unit or seeking another position (Deutschman, 2005; Korn, 2004). There is still more a good follower can do. This is called managing up. Managing up is defined as “the process of consciously working with your boss to obtain the best possible results for you, your boss, and your organization” (Zuber & James quoted by Turk, 2007, p. 21). This is not a scheme to manipulate your manager or to get more rewards than you have earned. Instead, it is a guide for better understanding your manager, what he or she expects of you, and what your manager’s own needs might be. Every manager has areas of strength and weakness. A good follower recognizes these and helps the manager capitalize on areas of strength and compensate for areas of weakness. For example, if your nurse manager is slow completing quality improvement reports, you can offer to help get them done. On the other hand, if your nurse manager seems to be especially skilled in defusing conflicts between attending physicians and nursing staff, you can observe how he handles these situations and ask him how he does it. Remember that your manager is human, a person with as many needs, concerns, distractions, and ambitions as anyone else. This will help you keep your expectations of your manager realistic and reduce the distance between you and your manager. There are several other ways in which to manage up. U.S. Army General and former Secretary of State Colin Powell said, “You can’t make good decisions unless you have good information” (Powell, 2012, p. 42). Keep your manager informed. No one likes to be surprised, least of all a manager who finds that you have known about a problem (a nursing assistant who is spending too much time in the staff lounge, for example) and not brought it to her attention until it became critical. When you do bring a problem to your manager’s attention, try to have a solution to offer. This is not always possible, but when it is, it will be very much appreciated. Finally, show your appreciation whenever possible (Bing, 2010). Show respect for your manager’s authority and appreciation for what your manager does for the staff of your unit. Let others know of your appreciation, particularly those to whom your manager must answer. Conclusion To be an effective nurse, you need to be an effective leader. Your patients, peers, and employer are depending on you to lead. Successful leaders never stop learning and growing. John Maxwell (1998), an expert on leadership, wrote, “Who we are is who we attract” (p. xi). To attract leaders, people need to start leading and never stop learning to lead. The key elements of leadership and followership have been discussed in this chapter. Many of the leadership and followership qualities and behaviors mentioned here are discussed in more detail in later chapters. 3663_Chapter 1_0003-0016.indd 12 663_Chapter 1_0003-0016.indd 12 9/15/2014 4:36:37 PM /15/2014 4:36:37 PM Process Cyan rocess CyanProcess Magenta rocess MagentaProcess Yellow rocess YellowProcess Black rocess Black chapter 1 ■ Leadership and Followership 13 Study Questions 1. Why is it important for nurses to be good leaders? What qualities have you observed from nurses that exemplify effective leadership in action? How do you think these behaviors might have improved the outcomes of their patients? 2. Why are effective followers as important as effective leaders? 3. Review the various leadership theories
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