Leadership in Nursing Healthcare

Subject: Nursing
Pages: 7
Words: 1908
Reading time:
8 min
Study level: College

Introduction

Management practices by the managers are responsible for monitoring the results of any event and thus can make any improvement or modification if there is a need for it. Nursing managers determine how the productivity of the nurses within the organization can be achieved especially by scrutinizing the efficiency of personnel through their actual output for example; each member of staff in the hospital may be required to ensure that there is sanity in where he or he works. It is therefore paramount that any organization employs various strategies and approaches in order to have things done the way they should be done. Leadership and control roles are enhanced by comparing the actual results with the expected/likely outcome e.g. nurses who may not be able to handle emergency cases within the hospital effectively are taught how to embrace the issue of cooperation and life-saving practices

Nursing as a profession is a very complicated undertaking that requires sound leadership and management principles and more especially if it is within a hospital environment. Leadership and management in a health care organization entail the interaction, understanding, and acceptance that we get sick and there should be some form of care. The practices within this organization are that there is a sense of restraint, logical approach, and creativity based on interactions with communities, families, and personalities (Kleinpell, and McLaughlin, 2007).

Nursing leadership

For any organization to succeed and more specifically in the area of health care provision, nurses and other human resource personnel become the most important asset in an organization, and the purpose of managing these employees is usually geared towards the enhancement of the speed and efficiency of the employee’s responses to particular circumstances e.g. handling of emergency actions within the organization, for example, nursing managers should respond to grievances from patients in order to be able to ensure that things run smoothly within the organization. The absence of good administrative skills may cause problems like uncertainty about the level of influence, affairs relating to the compensation structures, issues of work specifications, and other subjects of concern within the organization that need to be addressed (Murray, and DiCroce, 2003).

In this case of leadership, we find the leadership style which is defined as an approach for providing direction. It includes motivation. There are various leadership styles that exist in management. They include authoritarian or autocratic, participative or democratic, delegative or free reign leadership. Each leadership style has advantages and disadvantages. This means that all leadership styles can have negative and positive impacts in a hospital setup.

In the authoritarian type of leadership, the leader simply tells employees how he or she wants the work done and what he wants employees to do without getting their views. This type of leadership is effective when the leader has all the information that is important or necessary to solve the problem.

Participative leadership involves other people in the decision-making process. The leader in this case can include one of the employees when making decisions for the organization. This involves making decisions concerning what should be done and how the tasks should be done in the organization. This does not mean that the employees make the final decision. It means that the leader considers the contributions of the employees but comes up with a final decision. This is also another leadership style that is always used by managers and leaders in organizations. This involves allowing employees to make the decisions at the workplace. Decisions that are normally made are usually very diverse. They could include arrival time at the workplace etc. This method is highly used when employees are in a position to analyze the situation at hand.

Nursing care delivery systems and leadership

Management and leadership functions are employed by managers in order to enhance the effectiveness of any department rationale within a health organization which includes policy-making line principles among others. When managers are equipped with good managerial skills they will be able to coordinate the activities of the health care organization without contradicting job descriptions thus employees become motivated to work (Kleinpell, and McLaughlin, 2007).

Leaders and managers are responsible for coming up with a suitable plan of action which if implemented will result in the attainment of the set goals. For example, allocating resources to the various departments e.g. home care service, maternity, etc to meet the target of the organization’s production. Another example is designing the organization’s mission statement and how it can be achieved together by both junior employees, senior employees, and the management (Haynes, Boese, and Butcher, 2004).

Leaders in the health organization provide the direction but are faced with the tasks of demonstrating to employees how to do various activities and also involve the employment of charismatic leaders in form of competent managers who can influence the nurses towards the positive attitude of performing their work and also capture the attention of the top executives. A manager should lead by example by arriving at the place of work on time so that his/her juniors will be motivated and also directing the workers to do specific jobs within specified times in order to meet organizational goals. Leadership in every organization is crucial for maintaining a healthy organizational culture within it. It involves how people are directed to perform specific tasks within the organization and this can be done if the following aspects of the individuals are influenced; individual dynamics, motivation, discipline, and teamwork. Good leaders are hence good learners within the organization

Roles of managers and leaders within a nursing health organization

A leader in today’s healthcare system faces very many challenges. One of them includes the challenge of motivating employees. This is because hospitals like other institutions employ people with diverse personalities. One thing that may motivate one employee is not what motivates the other. Another aspect or challenge that a leader in the healthcare system faces is to motivate workers without money. This is because sometimes hospitals just treat patients on a human basis and some of them are not in a position to pay. The workers can feel that they are not being paid what they deserve yet this profession calls for much sacrifice.

Managers and leaders within any health organization are the main movers that the organization depends on in order to create and maintain a healthy organizational culture within the company. These roles cut across the board to include all the sectors in the company.

1. Set goals and objectives for a health organization

This is the core role of both leaders and managers in any health organization. The objectives and the goals of the company should provide and insight into what the company is up to. Within the health organization, in this case, the main objective is to become a leading healthcare service provider and to maintain this standard in the future. It is the leaders and managers that ensure that a nursing health organization aims towards this objective.

2. Monitor the company’s progress

This includes its performance in the market in terms of current rating compared to other corporations. Where there is any negative progress, they provide guidance and direction and if there is an improvement it passes the information to the other employees and congratulates them for a job well done.

3. Making investments

They are responsible for making investments for the A nursing health organization by globalizing the services of the company. Such investments include training of the personnel on production procedures and reporting the progress of the organization to all the stakeholders of the company.

4. Communicate issues

Leaders and managers communicate what they consider important to all the other employees within the A nursing health organization. Communication is the ideal tool for making sure that the company creates and maintains a healthy organizational culture within it. Communication can be in the form of giving instructions on how work shall be done within the company or reading out the financial progress of the company over a certain period of time.

5. Provide new ideas

With stiff competition from other health care organizations, a nursing health organization is under pressure to come up with more improved products. The managers and leaders are expected to work in collaboration with the designers in a nursing health organization to come up with competitive services such as maternity services, counseling among other services. Provision of new ideas is, therefore, the responsibility of those in authority in the company and diverge this information to other employees.

6. Formulation of policies

Policies are the main movers of a company in terms of the strategic tackling of important issues. Policies range from legal restrictions, trade tariffs, industry standards, competitors’ advantages, and company regulations.

7. Accountability and discipline

Every member of a nursing health organization is accountable for the actions they do that affect the organization. The management and leadership of any health organization are therefore responsible for disciplining errant members of the community who go against the wishes of the company.

8. Others

Other roles for leaders and managers that are needed in creating and maintaining a healthy organizational culture within a nursing health organization are;

  • Deployment of staff at various levels
  • Negotiate to price for the company’s products and seek for favorable market elsewhere
  • Ensure that human rights, work ethics, and safety measures are upheld within the company so that there is a better environment for working is created. Incidences such as workplace harassment are dealt with according to the company’s regulations and laws.

Communication channels

Organizational culture and climate both describe how the health organization can directly benefit from the organization’s developmental management approach in which the organization is able to ensure that there is a smooth communication channel. If there is some form of misunderstanding and poor interrelations within the organization, it will be difficult to convey information smoothly in this organization. Whenever the communication channel is distorted for some reason, its consequences are usually harsh and deadly for the offering of service within the organization. Communication, therefore, link very well organizational climate and its culture not only for this organization but also for other organizations (Burrell, and Morgan, 1979).

Conclusion

Leaders are the most important and powerful resources in this organization and they are useful for influencing the culture and climate of an organization and are responsible for creating a good working environment in the organization. Previous research has indicated that employees contribute more when they are working for something they believe in and especially if the leaders within the organization cherish them up. Although various theories and practices have been developed in order to guide organizations such as this one to meet their goals and objective, there has been limited improvement in this area majorly due to diversity and selfishness in leadership. In the recent past also, there has been poor training for leaders who are really charismatic to offer better services in the field of health care provision. In the health care provider sector, for example, most nurses have not been trained further on managerial duties in addition to their medical profession training.

There are three types of leadership; that is autocratic, participative, or democratic. All these have their positive and negative impacts on the employees. Leader in the healthcare system has the challenge of motivating employees without cash as an incentive because not all patients are always in a position to pay much Healthcare institutions are normally compelled to give services for free on a human basis.

References

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