NHS FPX 5004 Assessment 1 Leadership and Group Collaboration

NHS FPX 5004 Assessment 1 Leadership and Group Collaboration

From childhood to date, I’ve always desired to be effective in all endeavors. Foremost to me is clearly defining goals and objectives while establishing a clear direction and subsequent means by which goals and objectives will be realized. This approach has served me well throughout my youth, periods of educational pursuit as well as during my entire professional career. 

During my time in undergraduate school, I recall studying Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Specifically, it’s been noted that “when a deficit need has been ‘more or less’ satisfied it will go away, and our activities become habitually directed towards meeting the next set of needs that we have yet to satisfy. These then become our salient needs. However, growth needs continue to be felt and may even become stronger once they have been engaged” (McLeod , 2007, p. 2). Applying this concept to business, I believe that continued growth, observation, collaboration and assessment is necessary. Furthermore, successful managers align their vision with that of the larger organization of which they are a part (Davis, Hellervik, Sheard, Skube, Gebelein, 1996,     p. 300).

In today’s workplace, project leadership is critical to success. All of mankind’s greatest accomplishments—from building the great pyramids to discovering a cure for polio to putting a man on the moon—began as a project (Larson, Erik W., Gray, Clifford F., 2018, p.3). While often thought of as a private sector tool used to ensure efficient productivity, project management is very useful (and often critical) to achieving desired societal outcomes. The successful project leader is someone who can achieve desired results by effectively using all available resources (including people).

For our purposes and discussion, the ideal project leader will be someone who values diversity. As an African-American female, I readily relate to the historical and ongoing challenges realized within “communities of color” as well as historically marginalized groups such as women. Someone who clearly reflected a true sense of purpose as it relates to diversity was Martin Luther King Jr (MLK). While I’m certainly not comparing myself (nor anyone else) to MLK, his overall methodology during the Civil Rights Movement reflects those of an outstanding project leader. 

NHS FPX 5004 Assessment 1 Leadership and Group Collaboration

As a leader, I possess a number of professional and personal qualities to successfully lead the needed project team. Not unlike MLK, I possess a great deal of love and compassion for the well-being of others. Whether in my professional and personal life, I’m pained by inequity derived from a fundamental disregard or marginalization of others. In respect to the task at hand, the Haitian community is one of diversity within itself as well as in comparison to the larger diaspora found in the United States. The historical significance of the founding of Haiti, international relationships, resource allocation, governance and immigration policy has immensely impacted the typical experience of our Haitian residents. We must first and foremost engage ourselves in both learning this history and aligning ourselves with those capable and desiring to understand. 

Another critical requirement of a successful project leader will be to identify someone who can successfully build collaborations. As history teaches, MLK was able to build very powerful collaborations even among groups diametrically opposed politically, socially, religiously, demographically, financially and historically. In my professional capacity as a healthcare leader, I too effectively utilize collaboration to ensure successful healthcare outcomes. To do so, there are matters of personnel, insurance, diagnosis, emotional and legal considerations which must all be managed and appropriately adjudicated.

I’ve found that establishing and maintaining effective collaboration is critical to project leadership. Whether identifying project stakeholders, balancing technical and sociocultural needs, appropriately identifying routine operations from those which should be used within a project plan, or successfully identifying and leading throughout all project stages, the importance of effective leadership can’t be underestimated.

The composition of the interdisciplinary group of professionals will be one of the first focuses of my leadership of this project. My understanding is that the projected number of team members will be 4-6 persons. After assuring that we are utilizing an effective means of identifying and ultimately selecting these persons, I would commence with initial communications to those selected so as to schedule our first meeting.

Once the team i