Leadership in Nursing - Essay Example

Running Header: Leadership in Nursing Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Name & Code: Date of Submission: Leadership is a crucial part of the functions of nurse manager. Leadership is the ability to influence workers in groups or individually towards the achievement of organizational goals. Leadership in nursing is the ability of a nurse manager to achieve the goals of organization such as the provision of suitable nursing care through motivation of nursing personnel. Leadership is thus the act of motivating staff towards the achievement of mutual goals. However, Leadership is not a function of management. Managers make an organization efficient while leaders assist towards providing required service or product. A leader creates vision and strategies helping others grow while sharing values and strategies. He inspires and motivates his followers while acting as a servant or facilitator. Various leadership theories are used in trying to analyze various types of leadership. Such theories include contingency and contemporary leadership theories. Contemporary theories include transformational and charisma leadership while contingency theories explores between follower, situation, and leader and seeing them as interconnected. Leadership in nursing aims at developing nurses’ skills and other related health professionals. Other types of theories include “Great Man” theory, trait theory, situational theory, participative theory, management theory, and relationship theory (Adair, 2002; Allan, 2008). At Riyadh Military Hospital (RMH), Director of Nursing (DON) is the leader who will be analyzed in this essay. Director of Nursing at Riyadh Military Hospital is under Program Director (PD) who is the overall head of the hospital. According to the organizational structure of the hospital, Director of Nursing leads a group that consists of Assistant Director of Nursing (ADON), Head Nurse (HN), Carge Nurse (CN), Staff Nurse 1 (SN1), Staff Nurse 2 (SN2), and Patient Care Assistance. The Director of Nursing has a democratic style of leadership. He focuses on human relations as well as building an effective work group. Director of Nursing understands clearly the importance of sense of self-worth for their staff. He shares duties with other staff members as well as encouraging them towards decision-making participation. This has enabled staff members have a better feeling of job contentment. Director of Nursing treats all members equally with all due respect, they deserve. This has made members to respond favorably to this approach. There is need for teamwork in any nursing area or place of work. The Director of Nursing at Riyadh Military Hospital (RMH) has emphasized this greatly. According to nursing research that has been carried out recently, there is need for teamwork in order to improve nursing care (Arab Urban Development Institute 2003). The democratic leadership style by Director of Nursing is crucial in a nursing organization care. This is mainly because it involves nurse responsibility for patient working with other nurses as well as nurse manager when organizing specific nursing care. The Director of Nursing has encouraged his followers or staff towards the need of collaboration in ensuring the intended purpose of giving required service to the patients is achieved efficiently. The Director of Nursing at Riyadh Military Hospital (RMH) understands and manages his staff well in ensuring that things are done effectively. He is capable of expanding his personal and followers’ interest and goals as well as observing the staff closely in case of any problem. He is aware of the political context as well as being flexible and open to alternative perspectives. He solves his problems appropriately due to his excellent problem solving skills (Antrobus & Kitson, 2009). Contingency theory of leadership is one of the theories that are most influential. An effective leadership allows for predictions especially with contingency theory. It is always relevant for practical oriented disciplines like nursing and specifically nursing administration. Contingency theory ensures that the leader adopts and takes action according to the situation and other surrounding variables. Nursing leadership like in the case of Director of Nursing provides an opportunity of solving several problems in the health care setting. Director of Nursing as a leader has provided leadership that is more of practical approach rather than theoretical approach. Director of Nursing considers the factors that are present while trying to isolate the key factors that must be considered. According to the contingency theory, the choice by Director of Nursing depends on three main factors that include forces in the manager, forces in the situation, and forces in the subordinate. The value system of a manager, subordinates confidence, feeling of security in some situation is some of the forces in Director of Nursing. Some of the forces in the subordinate that Director of Nursing encounter include need for independence, interest in the problem, tolerance of ambiguity in the definition of task, expectations, capability of identifying and understanding the goals of the organization or the hospital. Forces in the situation that Director of Nursing faces include the type of organization, group effectiveness, and time pressure and the problem. According to contingency theory, success depends on various factors such as qualities of followers, situation aspects, and the leadership style (Kerfoot, 2001; Laurent, 2000). According to Fielder’s contingency model, leadership is effective when the style of leadership is suitable for the situation. They are three main principal factors that determine the utilization of the model. It includes leader-member relations. This includes the nature of interpersonal relationship between the follower and the leader. The personality of the leader and subordinates determines greatly the leader-member relations. The DON has extremely good relationship with his followers. This is mainly due to his democratic type of leadership he posses. His personality has played a great role towards ensuring only the best is delivered. His position as a Director of Nursing also enables him to influence or get the group members to comply with or even accept the intended direction (Perra, 2000; Sullivan & Decker, 2001). In everyday life of Director of Nursing, he plays various roles including organizing the night/day shifts and the nurses teams and support staffs on duty under the direction of that nurse. The effective leadership skills of Director of Nursing has led to successful shift operation, staff morale, and managing situations that are most challenging. Director of Nursing applies problem-solving processes, maintains group effectiveness as well as developing group identification. This is towards seeking to inspire and motivating others. Director of Nursing has the role of applying passionate and dynamic in order to win the respect and trust of the team members. This will lead to development of good clinical practice. A good demonstration of an effective leadership will influence the successful development of other subordinate staff. Director of Nursing play a role of driving force, they are role models who require to be admired by other young upcoming nurses. He has a role of inspiring other young nurses towards becoming effective trusted leaders (Ann, 2004). Director of Nursing has a role of making decisions, delegating appropriate duties to the right people, resolving conflict, as well as acting with integrity in his work. He also nurtures others as well as supervising and assessing staff in the practice setting. Director of Nursing at Riyadh Military Hospital (RMH) also has a role to develop policies, plan departmental business, corporate governance, and policy development towards making an impact on the clinical care setting. According to contingency theory, Director of Nursing should act according to situations hence he can develop policies and plan some departmental business when it is necessary or appropriate. Fielder’s contingency model emphasizes on the need of a good interpersonal relationship, this is through Director of Nursing encouraging staff, and his juniors to apply theory to practice as well as encouraging them test new skills in a way that is safe and supportive. High levels of support from Director of Nursing reduce emotional exhaustion and buffering negatives effects among the nurses in their job environment. Director of Nursing at Riyadh Military Hospital applies leadership skills in encouraging staff to utilize critical reflection towards facilitating new understanding. Director of Nursing should also ensure that there are no tensions between professional disciplines. He should resolve them through building an effective relationship among various groups. He should also facilitate organization staff support as well as developing programs. According to contingency theory, Director of Nursing has a role of ensuring he knows the needs of every person and that the performances vary from one person to another. Director of Nursing should come up with various ways of encouraging their staff. He should also use motivational strategies that are suitable to every person or team (Horton-Deutsch & Mohr, 2001). Director of Nursing in Farley Hospital plays a great role of ensuring that he develops a mastery of new skills in new nurses. He should be involved in some mentoring activity that requires to be recorded in the learning log of staff members. Learning logs should be used as a mentorship tool. Director of Nursing in Farley Hospital ensures that the junior staffs have freedom to seek information through the exchange of ideas and opinions. Director of nursing also gives a chance to staff to show initiative as a way of promoting confidence in their decision making while underpinning competence and knowledge in their own skills. This has created a supportive and stable environment that is encouraging professional growth through effective modeling. Director of Nursing solves any disputes that may arise among his juniors (Maddalena, 2007). Director of Nursing at Riyadh Military Hospital has achieved greatly. This includes assisting and encouraging his junior staffs to work as a team in ensuring they achieve effective services required. Director of Nursing has made Riyadh Military Hospital to be a leading hospital in providing excellent values of healthcare services to the patients. Director of Nursing at Riyadh Military Hospital has led it to higher heights making it excel in the field of providing nursing in the Middle East. Director of Nursing in Riyadh Military Hospital is a good illustration of leader in nursing who has led towards the success of his organization. His leadership theory can well be illustrated with contingency theory. This is due to the encouragement of teamwork as well as encouragement of innovation and decision-making. Director of Nursing in Riyadh Military Hospital can be illustrated to be one of the effective leaders in nursing field who has led towards the prosperity of Riyadh Hospital in Middle East (Diane, 2006). Leadership plays a crucial part in the management of any nursing field. This is due to high levels of commitment and teamwork that are demanded by the services provided. A democratic leader is the suitable kind of leader who is required in any nursing sector. The type of leadership theory required is contingency theory. A leader in any nursing sector with those types of combination ensures that the organization succeeds to higher heights with excellent performance and delivery of services. This can be well illustrated by Director of Nursing at Riyadh Military Hospital. References Adair, J. (2002) Effective Strategic Leadership. London: Macmillan. Allan, H. et al (2008) Leadership for learning: a literature study of leadership for learning in clinical practice. Journal of Nursing Management; 16: 545-555. Ann, M.T. (2004). Guide to nursing management and leadership. Sydney: Elsevier Health Sciences. Antrobus, S. & Kitson, A., (2009). Nursing Leadership: Influencing and shaping health policy and nursing practice. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 29 (4), 746-753. Arab Urban Development Institute. (2003). Riyadh, the city of the future. Riyadh: al-Maʻhad al- ʻArabī li-Inmāʾ al-Mudun. Diane, H. (2006). Leadership and nursing care management. Sydney: Elsevier Health Sciences. Horton-Deutsch, S.L., & Mohr, W.K. 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