Leadership skills are associated with clinical performance and career success, whether one becomes a supervisor, manager or director, or chooses to remain a model staff nurse. Leadership in nursing is no different than leadership in general. A leader should not be confused with a manager. When a manager is not an effective leader, the subordinates are usually well aware of that person's shortcomings and faults. It is not mandatory for a leader to be a manager, but good leaders do make more valuable managers.
Leadership is choice.
You are who you are today as a result of many choices and decisions you have made throughout your life. Successful leaders visualize where they want to go. They set clear and defined goals that must be maintained in order to be reached and they work hard to achieve these goals. Leaders face adversity just as everyone else does. A leader is not a 'raft' that drifts aimlessly on the sea of life, allowing the waves of discouragement and mediocrity to change the course of direction.