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LEADING FROM THE MARGIN: NURSES POWER AND INFLUENCE
The institute of Medicine (IOM) has called on nursing to lead health care transformation. Achieving this goal requires a systemic change in thinking, a focus on getting things done despite the obstacles that might stand in the way. The concepts of power and influence have ignited lively interest, debate and occasional skepticism, misperception and envy for decades. In nursing in particular, there has long been discussion on the ideas of nurses’ power (personal power) and position power (professional power).
Since the initial IOM’s commission, different scholars have variously emphasized the role of nurses’ status, education, power, and influence. Some claims that nurses are oppressed, marginalized and lack the power and influence to realize such a tall order.
Power is a matter of authority and control; it can be employed either consciously or unconsciously, and it can either be overt or covert. Nurses exemplified power in many ways from the front line and as nurse leaders through the use of self to improve patient care. Some nurses are aware of their power and use it. Others appear unaware of their power although the fact is that nurses exercise their power constantly and are influencing patient care and changing lives. Nurses are influential and this influence is ignited within their stories. This presentation intends to extract nurses’ implicit philosophies and beliefs about power and influence, challenge how problems and opportunities are perceived, and subsequently, help nurses develop a realistic point of view.
Through the presenter’s narratives of lived experiences of innovations, disasters and triumphs, nurses are helped to understand that their use of power even through silence and inaction has it influences. However the smallest of deeds may have tremendous impacts. The choice to break the silence, to act or to maintain the status quo is theirs always.