According to Manojlovich (2007), “Powerless nurses are ineffective nurses. Powerless nurses are less satisfied with their jobs and more susceptible to burnout and depersonalization.” That can also lead to poor patient outcomes. Power has many definitions but the view I prefer to take on the definition of power is that power describes, “the ability to get things done, to mobilize resources, to get and use whatever it is that a person needs for the goals he or she is attempting to meet.” (Manojlovich, 2007) A nurse can exercise many types of power in the workplace. The two types of power I will be describing are expert and information power. In the field of nursing, expert power can be defined as “the ability to influence others through the possession of knowledge or skills that are useful to others.” (Manojlovich, 2007) These people are experts in certain subjects and in a lot of cases are not in management roles, but receive the power role due to their expertise. As a student expert power can be gained through clinical experience, additional certifications, advanced education, and work experience. Abood (2007) states that, “Expert power is the basis for collaboration and for advocacy in a variety of settings including the legislative arena and it provides nurses with considerable credibility to speak out on health care issues.” So nurses who have expert power have the ability to share their knowledge with policy decision makers to change problems within the health care system, such as the current nursing shortage. Information power is primarily based on having access to or in possession of information. In the nursing environment information power can be exercised through more experienced nurses sharing their knowledge to new nurses to help them learn and grow. Information power can be obtained by additional education, staying up to date on new evidence-based practice, and mainly through others who distribute the knowledge they have acquired.
