Nursing Commons^™

Exploring The Use Of Courageous Followership In Conversations With Nurses And Their Colleagues, Elizabeth L. Paxton

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Health care is fraught with communication issues, many of which can lead to patient safety errors and toxic behaviors. Communication in a hierarchical environment has been historically challenging, especially for nurses. Courageous followership, a style of leadership first introduced in the early 1990s, is a duality of “powerful leaders supporting powerful followers” (Chaleff, 2009, p. 3). The tenets of this leadership style empower both the leader and the follower to have the courage: to assume responsibility, serve, transform, challenge, take moral action, speak up to the hierarchy, and listen to the follower. All of these actions are needed in the …