| Course | NU 726 Professionalism and Leadership for Advanced Practice |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 8 |
| Paper type | Leadership philosophy reflection |
| Length | About 1,000 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Herzing University |
| Program | MSN |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NU 726 Unit 8
Leadership Is Making It Safe for Others to Tell You You Are Wrong: A Personal Philosophy Tested in Practice
Student Name
Department of Nursing, Herzing University
NU 726: Professionalism and Leadership for Advanced Practice
Instructor Name
April 16, 2026
Leadership Is Making It Safe for Others to Tell You You Are Wrong: A Personal Philosophy Tested in Practice
The Philosophy
My philosophy is that the first job of a leader in clinical care is to make it safe for others to tell her she is wrong. I do not mean kindness or approachability in general. I mean that the quality of a team's decisions depends on whether the least senior person in the room will speak up when she sees a problem, and that this depends more on how the leader has responded to the last person who did than on any policy. A leader who is right most of the time but whom people are afraid to contradict will eventually be wrong without anyone telling her.
Two bodies of work sit behind this. Greenleaf (1977) described the servant leader as one who begins by wanting to serve and measures success by whether those served grow, become healthier, and become more capable themselves. Edmondson (1999) showed that teams with higher psychological safety, a shared belief that it is safe to take interpersonal risks, engaged in more learning behavior, such as asking for help and admitting errors, and performed better. My philosophy is a narrower version of both: I care most about the specific risk of disagreeing with the leader.
Evidence From My Practice: When It Worked
During my years in charge of shifts on a telemetry step-down floor, I made a habit of ending every shift huddle with the same question: "What did I get wrong today, or what would you have done differently?" For the first few weeks, no one answered. The first person who did, a new graduate, said I had assigned her two patients on heparin drips when she had never titrated one alone. I thanked her in front of the group and changed the assignment the next day. After that, answers came more often, and one of them, from a nursing assistant, caught a pattern of missed early morning vital signs on one hallway that I had not noticed. The question worked only because the first answer was welcomed, not argued with. Had I defended the assignment that first evening, I believe the question would have become a ritual that everyone answered with silence.
During my nurse practitioner clinical rotation, a medical assistant told me, quietly, that a patient had given a different medication list to her than to me. I had been confident in my reconciliation. I went back and found she was right: the patient was taking an over-the-counter sleep aid that interacted with a medication I was about to start. I told the medical assistant what she had caught and why it mattered, and I noticed that she brought me two more concerns that week. One of them was minor; the other was a missed allergy entry that mattered. Both arrived because the first had been received well.
Evidence From My Practice: When It Cost Me Something
The philosophy has costs, and I have paid them. When I was running shifts, inviting disagreement slowed decisions, and speed is often the thing a charge nurse is judged on. On one busy evening, a senior nurse challenged my plan for bed assignments in front of the team, and in the time it took to discuss it we lost a bed to another unit. Some colleagues read my openness as indecision. My manager told me in my annual review that I needed to "project more certainty."
It also cost me when I was wrong to listen. A colleague once objected to my decision to call a rapid response for a patient whose blood pressure had dropped, arguing that it was a positional artifact. I hesitated, rechecked, and called ten minutes later than I would have; the patient was fine, but the delay was a real risk created by my own principle. I have learned that inviting disagreement does not mean every disagreement changes the decision, and that some decisions need to be made first and discussed afterward.
Where the Philosophy Is Limited
A systematic review of servant leadership research found that it is associated with positive follower outcomes but noted problems in how it has been defined and measured, and cautioned against treating it as a complete account of leadership (Eva et al., 2019). My experience agrees. The philosophy says little about urgency, about decisions that must be made alone, or about situations where authority, not psychological safety, is the missing ingredient. In an emergency, a team needs a clear direction more than it needs an invitation to disagree. I hold the philosophy most firmly for decisions with time to consider them, and more loosely during resuscitation or rapid deterioration.
How the Course Changed It
When I began this course, my philosophy was simply "be approachable." The leadership analysis of the catheter protocol showed me that approachability without structure changes little; what moved practice was a question built into the huddle. The conflict case showed me my own tendency to accommodate, which is the other side of wanting others to feel safe: I can make it safe for others to challenge me while failing to challenge others myself. The revised philosophy now includes an obligation I had left out: the leader who invites others to say she is wrong must also be willing to tell others, including those above her, when she believes they are wrong.
What I Will Do
In my first nurse practitioner role, I will end each clinic day with the medical assistants and nurses by asking what I missed. I will thank the first person who answers, specifically. I will set aside time for disagreement in planned decisions, and I will say clearly, in urgent ones, that I am deciding now and we will discuss it afterward. And when I believe a colleague's decision puts a patient at risk, I will say so, even when it is uncomfortable, because that is the same safety I ask others to extend to me.
References
Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350-383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999
Eva, N., Robin, M., Sendjaya, S., van Dierendonck, D., & Liden, R. C. (2019). Servant leadership: A systematic review and call for future research. The Leadership Quarterly, 30(1), 111-132. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2018.07.004
Greenleaf, R. K. (1977). Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness. Paulist Press.
NU 726 Unit 8 instructions, in plain terms
The Unit 8 assignment asks you to articulate your personal philosophy of leadership as an advanced practice nurse and reflect on how the course shaped it. Expect to state the philosophy clearly, connect it to leadership theory or research, support it with examples from your practice, and describe how you will apply it in your new role. Many versions ask you to acknowledge limits or areas for growth. First person is expected. Check whether your section asks you to reference earlier assignments; many do, as a way of showing growth. Pick a philosophy narrow enough to test with evidence. A statement like I lead with compassion is hard to examine, while a specific claim about how teams make better decisions can be supported and challenged.
Inside the NU 726 Unit 8 example
The paper opens with the philosophy in one sentence and then clarifies what it does not mean, which keeps it from sounding like general kindness. Two evidence sections follow, one where the philosophy worked and one where it cost something, which is a stronger structure than examples of success alone. The research section connects the claim to Edmondson's work on team learning and then tests it against the servant leadership review, which finds definitional problems in a related idea. The growth section points to specific earlier assignments and says what each one changed. The final section lists commitments small enough to observe, such as asking what was missed at the end of each clinic day and thanking the first person who answers.
NU 726 Unit 8 rubric: what full points look like
Herzing rubrics for a leadership philosophy usually give points for the clarity of the philosophy, theoretical support, application to practice, reflection on growth, future application, and writing. Clarity points reward a specific, defensible statement. Theoretical support earns full credit when the philosophy is linked to named research or theory with citations, not general leadership advice. Application points go to concrete examples from the student's experience, ideally including a challenge. Reflection criteria look for change over the course, supported by references to earlier work. Future application is scored on specific behaviors in the new role. Writing points cover organization, appropriate use of first person and APA 7, including Greenleaf's original servant leadership work where it is discussed.
Common NU 726 Unit 8 mistakes, and how to avoid them
The usual point loss on a Unit 8 reflection is a philosophy too vague to support or challenge. Another is listing leadership styles the student likes without choosing one claim to defend. Students often give only flattering examples, which reads as less reflective than an honest account of a cost or failure. Theory is sometimes named without a citation or used inaccurately. The growth section often summarizes course topics rather than showing what changed in the student's thinking. Future commitments such as be a good leader cannot be observed; describe an action. Finally, keep the paper within length by limiting examples to two or three, since graders value depth on a few incidents over a long list of experiences that are each mentioned once.
Get a NU 726 Unit 8 example written to your instructions
Send the Unit 8 instructions and the rubric from your NU 726 classroom, along with two or three moments from your own practice you want the philosophy tested against. We write a custom example that states a position, grounds it in cited theory and reads those moments honestly, returned in 24 to 48 hours. The first custom sample is free.
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NU 726 Unit 8 questions, answered
How personal should the closing reflection be?
Personal in evidence, disciplined in form. The moments should be yours and described in enough detail to be real, while the analysis stays in the register of graduate work with citation attached. What usually goes wrong is not too much feeling but too little specificity, since general warmth about nursing gives a grader nothing to evaluate.
Can I reuse the leadership theory I used earlier in the course?
Yes, and continuity usually strengthens the piece, because the philosophy has a documented path behind it. Rewrite rather than paste, since the earlier work applied the theory to a situation and this one uses it to ground a belief. Cite the same sources again in full; a reference list does not carry over between submissions.
Is first person allowed in graduate nursing writing?
In a reflective piece it is normally expected, and the rubric will usually say so. First person does not lower the standard: claims still need support, APA form still holds and the writing stays formal. What changes is the subject, since the paper is about the writer's practice and hedged third-person constructions make that awkward to read.
Where can I find a free NU 726 Unit 8 sample paper?
This page carries the complete NU 726 Unit 8 leadership philosophy free, including the examples where it worked, what it cost, and the limits. If you hold a different philosophy, a custom reflection can be written around it and your own experience.
What is psychological safety in nursing leadership?
Psychological safety is a shared belief that team members can speak up, ask questions or admit mistakes without being punished. Edmondson's research linked it to team learning, and this sample builds a leadership philosophy around creating it on clinical teams.