Leadership
What you must know
Separate management (day-to-day coordination, efficiency, control) from leadership (vision, influence, change) - items often hinge on that distinction. Transformational leadership rests on four pillars: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration. Transactional leadership uses contingent reward and management by exception - legitimate for compliance and routine reliability, not for culture change. Also recognize servant, situational, and complexity-science perspectives, and shared governance as structural empowerment.
Change and accountability
Know Lewin (unfreeze–change–refreeze) and Kotter's eight steps (urgency, coalition, vision, communication, removing barriers, short-term wins, consolidating, anchoring). Just culture (Reason) distinguishes human error (console), at-risk behavior (coach and remove incentives), and reckless behavior (sanction). Just culture does not mean accountability-free.
Delegation follows the five rights: right task, right circumstance, right person, right direction/communication, right supervision/evaluation. RNs may not delegate assessment, initial teaching, evaluation, or triage to assistive personnel.
Traps
Assuming transactional leadership is "bad"; confusing delegation with dumping tasks; picking Kotter when the item asks for a three-step model; treating leadership as a personality trait rather than learned behavior.
Worked example / rule of thumb
For a fall-prevention initiative that keeps stalling, use transformational tactics: build urgency with unit data (inspirational motivation), engage bedside staff in designing the workflow (intellectual stimulation), and tailor coaching to each nurse's concerns (individualized consideration). Rule of thumb: transformational for engagement and change; transactional for consistency and compliance.