Introduction
Nurses provide health care based on directions from physicians. Indeed, this old-fashioned nursing function has molded the famous public outlook of health officials as caregivers. However, most authorities allow nurses to exercise autonomously in an assortment of locations, based on their learning capacities. They establish a care strategy, team up with general practitioners, psychiatrists, the patients’ relatives, and other group associates. They focus on treating illnesses to improve patients’ quality of life. These diverse roles indicate that nurses are leaders in their specialty. From this perceptive, this paper discusses how to achieve nurses’ leadership roles with a particular focus on the patients’ bedside.
Project Description
Leadership plays the role of aligning followers with a common organizational vision and mission. The mission of every healthcare organization is to intensify care delivery by increasing the capacity of nurses and other practitioners to develop policies that ensure effectiveness in their operations to facilitate a quick recovery. This observation suggests the necessity for nursing leadership to emerge from the bedside where they take care of patients ((Wills & Melanie, 2002). This project objects to discuss how nursing leadership can emerge right from the patient bedside and then grow to ensure the development of appropriate policies that can help to guide healthcare organizations to take collective measures for increasing patients’ recovery rates.
The objective of the project is perhaps important in nursing care research. For instance, upon speaking with multiple nurses at the organization I work for, overall, they said engagement in the organization is important for them. For example, they cited being given the chance to have a voice in the decisions that are made concerning patients’ care, meeting regularly with their nurse leaders, and the trust and confidence that they have the expertise that is needed to be successful. According to them, fulfilling this desire will make them seek nursing leadership positions in the future. Hypothetically, this claim implies that a direct experience with the nature of nursing work from the patients’ perspective is important for the development of leadership among bedside nurses.
The project proposes that the most effective nursing leadership emerges from direct experiences with patients. It asserts that direct contact with patients at their bedside can help to induce better coping skills, which every nursing leader needs to understand, especially while leading recruits. This goal is important, considering that the profession is strenuous based on the way practitioners experience high rates of burnout (Marcella & Honour, 2013). In the nursing setting, effective leadership is important to enhance organizational commitment and work morale for the nurses to ensure that they do not consider leaving healthcare organizations because of work-life imbalances. One of the ways of accomplishing this demand is by transforming work environments to meet the emerging employee needs and/or minimizing the work-related stress that leads to burnout. This strategy suggests the importance of effective transformational leadership in nursing facilities. However, the project claims that realizing this goal is only possible if nursing leaders are aware of the nature of nursing work, which is well developed from their bedside experiences with patients.
Target Audience
The target audience for this project encompasses all nurses and their leaders. However, all nurses are leaders in different capacities. A leader is a person who designs, regulates, directs, and monitors other people towards the attainment of common mutual objectives and goals (Samad, 2009). Leadership has organizational and personal elements. Success with time requires a commitment to these two aspects. Leadership serves to influence the relationship between leaders and employees who act as the tools for change within an organization. Any health facility must reflect a shared purpose of the interaction of both employees and leaders. In the context of the cognition of this leadership definition, this project receives the audience from all people who have the potential for joining the nursing profession. Such people may also aspire to become leaders and policy developers in the nursing care sector in all healthcare organizations.
Nursing leadership is a complex process that is often characterized by influential processes and the interaction of various actors (followers and leaders) with a range of possibly anticipated outcomes. Leaders play a variety of roles, including serving as sources of inspiration, inducing organizational change through corporate leadership, and serving as the main source of organizational power (Samad, 2009). People are more likely to change after being engaged emotionally and psychologically. One of the noble responsibilities of leaders within healthcare organizations entails bringing about change. All nurses are operational change mediators. This claim underlines the significance of declaring all nurses who interact with patients at their bedside an important target audience for this project.
Issues and the Need for the Management Project
In any nursing facility, the leader in the vision carrier. Effective leadership entails the possession of the ability to influence other people to one’s way of thinking. Polychroniou (2009) contends with this assertion by claiming, “Leadership involves influencing people to get things done to a standard and quality above their norm in a willing way” (p.343). From this assertion, the main issue that arises from the project involves how to influence nurses who deal with critically ill patients at their bedside to carry on with their job in a willing manner by seeking leadership skills. The goal of leadership is not to make people execute tasks that are allocated to them through compulsion or control structures. Can nurses who experience burnout and work stress have the synergies that are necessary to develop leadership right from the patient bedside?
The management project is important, considering that in some organizations, leaders grow from the work environment through a process of career progression. In Johnsons’ 1968 theory of nursing, he was concerned about the capacity of patients to proactively adapt to illnesses and how potential or actual stress could build up and influence their capacity to adapt (Wills & Melanie, 2002). In this context, the most crucial goal in nursing care entails reducing stress to ensure that patients advance steadily in the recovery process.
The inception of the healing process requires the willingness of the patient to obey a care plan as indicated by the healthcare personnel and implemented by nurses who interact with patients at their bedside. Therefore, developing future nursing leaders from the patient bedside is critical in guaranteeing the implementation of successful strategies of prescription of care plans in the entire hospital since such leaders will have hands-on experience with patients. The developed policies are more likely to be patient-centered, thus simplifying the work of nurses who attend them (patients). This move can in turn reduce issues such as stress and burnout. The outcome will be high retention rates and the improvement of the quality of service delivery in healthcare facilities.
Project Objectives
Clinical nursing practitioners have functioned for a long time as facilitators in health care delivery. Wilson et al. (2013) assert that facilitation and integration of care have now become invaluable. However, leadership support is now proving critical in maintaining the integrity of the nursing profession and the commitment of clinical nurses to their work (Wilson et al., 2013). Consistent with these claims, the objective of the project involves investigating how future nursing leaders can develop from patient bedside to become major drivers of success in healthcare facilities through the development of effective policy frameworks that warrant quality care at low costs. This objective is incredibly important, considering that patients in the US demand better quality care at low costs (World Health Organization, 2011).
Management Strategies and Implementation of the Project
The project calls for the implementation of a plan to foster the development of leadership among clinical nurses at the patient bedside. Considering that the role of nursing leaders constitutes an emerging body of literature, with many models of facilitating nursing leadership still not adequately tested to provide evidence-based approaches, developing future nursing leaders from the patient bedside implies the redesigning of the healthcare systems (Cadmus, 2011). Therefore, the implementation of the project requires the integration of a collection of nursing evidence-based management strategies and approaches.
Healthcare redesigning and remodeling requires the commitment of money and time resources. Evidence-based methodology for implementing the new models is also important. The methodology demands an envisioned future that is void of impediments that may hinder the success of the developed creative solutions. To this extent, management strategies become appropriate. They may include the incorporation of governance approaches, thinking strategically, continuous and consistent assessment of the capabilities of healthcare organizations’ workforce, performance improvement, and the integration of safety and quality care delivery (Marcella & Honour, 2013). There is also a need for involving various healthcare stakeholders together with leveraging technology to support rapid knowledge sharing, especially on the best and evidence-based approaches to inducing leadership development.
The development of future nurses from patient bedside comprises an organizational change. Opposed to the approaches to selection and promotion of top-ranking healthcare staff members to take up leadership roles, this approach may attract conflicts of interest. This situation underlines the necessity for effective communication in health care facilities, especially on changes that can alter the status quo during the project implementation process. In such a situation, the management strategy of assessing situations in nursing institutions to facilitate the formulation of strategies for increasing growth and overcoming operational challenges is important (Sakiru & D’silva, 2013). The strategy also enables leaders to ensure adequate and effective communication of success strategies and vision to all nurses. Communication is critical in building good relationships within nursing organizations. Indeed, resolving operational challenges during the project implementation requires good vertical and horizontal communication.
The nursing profession must produce leaders across the continuum. This claim means that leaders should emerge from not only boardrooms but also the bedside. Leadership training programs should also incorporate bedside nursing staff officials. To this extent, the implementation of the projects requires the involvement of patient bedside nurses in training programs, their involvement in top decision-making processes, nursing innovation, policy development, and the evaluation and assessment of the performance of healthcare systems to provide a learning opportunity for all people.
The material in the Management Activity
A plethora of nursing research produces the evidence-based need for the engagement of nurses in leadership in a formal context. For example, Sherman and Pross (2010) confirm that the participation of nurses in leadership at every level of an organization promotes a healthy work environment, which is critical for increasing patient recovery rates. The need for the involvement of nurses in leadership is also supported by my preliminary research in this project in the organizations where I work.
The nurses that I talked to claim that issues such as the recognition of their expertise and their involvement in decision-making processes are vital components for determining their intentions to seek leadership positions in the future. This claim suggests the necessity for incorporating them into top decision-making processes. However, in the case of bedside nurses, Marcella and Honour (2013) reckon that it is only in the recent past that the necessity for promoting and acknowledging nurses’ critical leadership roles has been embraced. The arising interrogative is, ‘how can my organization engage bedside nurses to become leaders?’
Developing leadership entails a management activity that requires the commitment of various organizational materials and resources, including mentorship, education, expansion of the roles of bedside nurses, and strategic planning. Depending on the size, the number of bedside nurses, and the required skills and educational training, the materials that are required for the management activity vary. However, for my organization, the necessary plans include training personnel and the provision of training equipment. The accomplishment of this plan requires time and monetary resources.
It is important to note that leadership development is a continuous process (Sherman & Pross, 2010). Therefore, time boundaries cannot be stated. Individual commitment and the motivation to acquire certain leadership skills are the primary factors that determine the necessary time to develop certain leadership skills. However, the facility should set about 200,000 US dollars annually for this course. Some of these funds will be used in the mitigation of risks that arise from sub-optimal decisions that are made by bedside nurses, akin to their incompetence in terms of decision-making. Although this deliverable may be problematic for the organization in the short term, as the bedside nurses learn from experience and practice, the benefits of their leadership will soon surpass the risks in the long term.
Conclusion
Evaluation Methods and Outcomes of the Project
Conclusively, projects aim at achieving specific measurable deliverables. The evaluation process involves comparing the expected outcomes with the actual results (Stanley, Gannon & Gabuat, 2008). The predictable results of this project require more participation of bedside nurses in the quests for top and functional leadership within my organization. Upon the implementation of the said activities, more bedside nurses should participate in nursing innovation and the generation of ideas that can help to improve the facilities within their work environment and beyond. It is expected that they will participate in the reorganization of wards and facilities within their reach and elsewhere.
Apart from participating in the reorganization of the organizational facilities, the evaluation of the project will also be based on the capacity of the bedside nurses to engage their work team members. The project is effective where the bedside nurses begin taking responsibilities and monitoring their work team members’ outputs and/or guiding them to improve in areas of their weaknesses. These outcomes can be measured to determine service quality by the patients and their families together with their satisfaction levels. Upon the implementation of the project, patients and their families report the highest satisfaction levels in some wards. This feedback follows the improvement in service delivery through the bedside nurses. Such a positive outcome forms the benchmark for other wards.
Reference List
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