Servant Leadership, Emotional Intelligence: Essential for Baccalaureate Nursing Students

Abstract

Baker University Bachelor of Science in Nursing students study servant leadership and emotional intelligence in a Leadership and Management in Professional Nursing course. The acquisition of these skills increases collaboration with clients and colleagues. Servant leadership improves care through encouragement and facilitation rather than power (Waterman, 2011). Emotional intelligence allows individuals to deal effectively with emotions and is associated with better health (Por, Barriball, Fitzpatrick, & Roberts, 2011). Knowledge of servant leadership, combined with emotional intelligence, creates a relationship with self; encourages relationships with others, clients, and providers; allows teamwork participation; and impacts the entire community.The very first element for having control over others, is, of course, to have control over oneself. If I cannot take charge of myself, I cannot take charge of others. The next, perhaps, is—not to try to ‘seem’ anything, but to be what we would seem. A person in charge must be felt more than she is heard—not heard more than she is felt. She must fulfill her charge without noisy disputes, by the silent power of a consistent life, in which there is no seeming, and no hiding, but plenty of discretion. She must exercise authority without appearing to exercise it. A person . . . in charge must have a quieter and more impartial mind than those under her, in order to influence them by the best part of them and not by the worst.—Nightingale, F., First Formal Letter to the Nurses, 1872(Attewell, 2012)