Can Leadership Styles Influence the Culture - Term Paper Example

Leading Staff through Organisational Change: Can Leadership Styles Influence the Culture? Name: Institution: Course Title: Tutor: Date: Leading Staff through Organisational Change: Can Leadership Styles Influence the Culture? An Outline for the Concept Table of Contents Table of Contents ii 1.0 Introduction 1 2.0 Change and Nursing Profession 1 3.0 Leadership and Nursing Profession 1 3.1 Leadership, Performance Culture and Acceptance of Change 3 4.0 Organisational Culture in Context of Nursing 5 4.1 Nexus between Leadership, Organisational Culture and Change 5 5.0 Conclusion 7 References 8 1.0 Introduction In this world there are two situations. Change with the changing time or be changed by the changing time. This is becomes more critical in health sector where they deal with human life. Nursing plays a critical role in ensuring health delivery. One of the best way to instilling performance culture apart from the technical training is through leadership from the corporate management. Organisational change in Hospital can only be attained through various types of leadership that is able to churn out strategic management plans that will guide the internal operations of the hospital and create a culture of success that is patient centred. The paper will examine the role of leadership in influencing organisational culture so that staff can be led through organisational change in nursing profession. 2.0 Change and Nursing Profession The nursing profession has changed dramatically over time. According to Kamran et al. (2010, p. 110), changes like management of increased complexity in clinical nursing practice has occurred, need to comply as outlined by various regulatory authorities, dynamics in healthcare economics, improvement in technology and structural changes. This implies that nurse manager who is in charge of linking the hospital’s vision and the employee have the huge task of investing in leadership as a critical tool of initiating change so that nurses can equally embrace the new dynamics with less friction. The nurse managers are integral in the change process by taking the lead & being the desired role models and creating the platform of meeting the expectations (Frankel, 2008, p.24). The easiest way to drive organisational change is by earning trust and respect of junior nurses (Frankel, 2008, p.23). The whole of these processes of creating change implies great deal of leadership that build a long term culture as desired by the company. 3.0 Leadership and Nursing Profession Leadership is about creating vision and sense of possibility for employees through approaches like motivation and reward management. Leadership deals with the future, ideas, people and personalities (Gillard, 2009, p.726). Managers and employees now acknowledge the importance of soft skills such as communication, conflict management, leadership, perception and persuasion as integral part for success (Gillard, 2009, p.725). Nursing plays an important role in health service delivery. Senior nurses or nursing managers have the integral function of creating that sense of possibilities and environment that is smooth for junior nurses. This can be achieved through numerous approaches like human resource development and total reward management. The critical pillar here is that employees are the face of an organisation especially in service sector like health care. Thus, their performance is based on how their employers and manages relate with them in a cordial manner so as given them that sense of direction and hope. An improved work environment is one of the recipes of success in nursing profession. Leadership acts as a tenet of improved work environment since it advocates for supervisor support, communication and feedback (Schalk, 2010, p.2). The underlying principle that cuts across all definition is the ability of managers to have a sway on the beliefs, behaviours, attitudes and feelings of the nurse (Spector 2006 cited in Curtis, Vries & Sherein, 2011, p.306). This is only possible if the top level management in the hospital put in place personnel management mechanisms that aid in enhancing productivity. The above aspirations can be achieved by having multi pronged approach like visionary and motivational leadership and recruitment of managers with not only technical skills but also soft skills/peoples skills/interpersonal skills/ emotional intelligence who can understand formal and informal relations between people. Fairholm (2009, p.8 & 9) engages in a discourse so as to understand why some employees or managers are successful yet they have limited managerial education. He draws an observation that emotions and emotional intelligence are important and affects how we interact and perceive things at work place. Those who have higher emotional intelligence which translates to effective social skills are more prosperous and effective. Soft skills are the interpersonal competencies that allow ones to navigate the social world. On the other hand, technical skills comprises of specialized areas of knowledge and expertise and the ability to apply that knowledge. Technical skills are acquired through formal education, through training and job experience. Leadership is about soft skills and doing what you believe in through people so as to attain organizational goals. Leadership is a soft skill or people skill that is derived from interpersonal skills and cognitive power. Leadership deals with the future, ideas, people and personalities (Gillard, 2009, p.726). There are numerous theories that have been developed to support the same. Trait theory is grounded on the premise that leaders are born. On the other hand behavioural theory posits that it is what a leader is that makes him/her different from others based on energy, passion, self confidence and ambition (Avolio, Walumbwa & Weber, 2009, p.424). A nurse manager who is able to build that inspirational culture has higher chances of creating an improved performance. Leadership enables the management to create a culture that supports elements that make the hospital great in areas like innovation, patient centred health service, holistic information flow and teamwork. In a nutshell, leadership is a whole mix of numerous ingredient related to interpersonal skills and technical skills. The underlying premise here is to shape the thinking of an individual and reduce perception biases associated with those thinking by influencing, creating a new positive attitude, empowering and team building among others. A nurse who experiences such examples in her work place is likely to have that urge and ambition to perform and be attached to the organisation since their hands on contribution are acknowledged and seen as part and parcel of the organisation and not those who are there to serve their interest of earning salary only. A the corporate leadership of an hospital and nurse manager who are able to instil the same and make the juniors know that there is a call to serve humanity in addition to other benefits is likely to spur the organisation to greater heights. 3.1 Leadership, Performance Culture and Acceptance of Change Every hospital needs to thrive and grow in its operations by offering unrivalled treatment services that creates value to patients and prospective ones. This is realized through its ability to meet the demands and expectations of the customers. Here, it means that an organisation has to do things better than its rivals. One of the avenues of attaining this is through performance management. Theory X and Y theory advances concept that there are two classes of manager. The X managers view employees as skivers and those in need of close supervision, while Y managers who are optimistic view employees as those in need of motivation so as to achieve desired goals (Andreas 2010, p.220). The essence here is for hospital managers to empower employees and drive the sense of hands on contribution (Curtis, Vries & Sherein, 2011, p.308). Human resource forms one of the critical components of any organisation. The success of any organisation is tied on how well the management relate with its employee. This is pegged on the kind of competitive strategy and personnel management that a firm adopts. Employees are the epicentre of idea creation and implementation of strategic management plan of an organisation so as to achieve strategic positioning and market leadership. Moreover, system approach to management and theory of constraint notes that an organisation is strong as the weakest link and thus, human resource management is as critical as other functional departments.With the emergence of strategic human resource management, it has been realized that it is important to integrate human resource management with the overall strategic management plan of an organisation. To understand how culture can be used to drive change is best exemplified through human resource development process. The basis here is to empower and shape an employee to behave the way the company wants it by aligning them to the company’s mission, vision and strategic plan. The same is applicable to nursing profession where the principles can be applied to drive the nurses’ performance culture and acceptance of change. One approach to managing people and increasing performance has been management by objective. This approach in a participatory manner sets out what is to be achieved by employees or departments over time (Koontz and Weihrich, 2008, p.92).This objectives cannot be achieved if the performances of employees are not well managed. One way to improve performance of an individual or a department is through performance management. Performance management is the creation of collaborative effort between the supervisors and employees by aligning them with the firm’s strategic management plan. This is done by explaining shared expectations and reducing barriers to poor performance. According to Edwin Locke (1968), one of the earlier proponents of goal-setting, posits that goals formulated by individuals themselves contributes a huge portion towards motivating that person for unrivalled performance. The basis for this argument is that the employee will try to attain goals set out and even if they are not met, the employee shall have made a tremendous effort in achieving them and thus, contributing to improved performance. Precisely, this is what performance management aims at. One way of guaranteeing performance is through visionary leadership. Moreover, Brim (2012, p.3) notes that human beings performs well when they have goals and objectives set out for them. On the other hand, expectation theory looks at performance in relation to anticipated satisfaction of valued goals set by them. According to Victor Vroom (1964), people adapt their behaviour in certain way so as to attain desired goals. The eventuality tied to employees in this case nurse adapting their behaviour according to desired behaviour as a result of the goal set by their leader who motivates, directs and empower them, an organisational; culture will be created and thus, change. 4.0 Organisational Culture in Context of Nursing Each and every company has its own culture. Sammer & James (2011, p. 56) sees organisational culture as “the shared beliefs, principles, values, and assumptions that shape behaviour by building commitment, providing direction, establishing a collective identity, and creating a community”. Thus, culture manifests itself in the overall behaviour of the company in order for the organisation to adapt to the environment it operates. Essentially, the culture holds the company strategy together. However, culture is only effective if the management is able to align it with values, resources, goals and the organisation’s environment. Culture is used to orient employees towards the vision and mission of the company. This implies that the organisational behaviour as a whole and that of individuals within that health care facility is largely predetermined by the leadership that is in place from the all levels of management. As such, one can postulate that leadership is about shaping organisation behaviour towards a desired direction and with the lack of the same the performance is hindered. Lack of or inadequate culture of patient centred service in health care facilities in Australia can be a fatal outcome for a country in general. Nurses are called to serve humanity. A case example is the occurrence on 25 September, 2009 in New South Wales where Jana Horska died waiting for treatment (Garling, 2008, p. 5). Had the management of the hospital inculcated the culture of care, urgency and coordination those outcomes would have not been experienced. 4.1 Nexus between Leadership, Organisational Culture and Change An overview of leader culture and change is best seen in the context that the role of leaders is to create an inspiring culture that embraces prosperity and that it is the onus of the inspired leadership to create inspired culture. These include the culture of care, urgency and coordination. For any hospital to succeed in the ever changing medical environment, it needs to have the right strategy in place. This implies that a hospital has to review internal operations, immediate industrial environment where competitors operate and the macro-environment so as to change according to market demands. Apart from medical technologies invested in, it is the staffs that interact with patients (Sammer & James 2011, p. 57). This is tied to the belief that it is not the strongest of the organisations that survive, but those who can adapt to change. Nurse Manager has a critical role of creating that sense of direction among nurses so that they can share in the same vision (Nuttawuth & Anona 2007, p. 283). It is these characters and belief that crates a mental culture which will drive change in an organisation. The significance of leadership in influencing employees and managers so that their synergies can be galvanised towards a common goal has been proven to be critical process. Frankel (2008, p.24) stresses the need for senior nurses to embrace characteristics of an effective leader. The essence is to create an aura of possibilities among employees. When managers and employers give employees that opportunity to innovate and engage in their profession the best way they can by looking at the value one brings in rather than the experience employees are likely to have that synergy and team work (Cummings, 2010, p.363). The point to be abstracted from this argument is that leaders do not create change, but they rely on the employees to change the culture through day to day behaviours by creating that enabling environment for nurses. Moreover, for long term success and revitalisation, quick fix and purge are not the healthy way to go (Tichy and Ulrich, 2008, p.2). Initiating a change is not an easy process, certain health care facilities wait until certain internal or external dynamics push them to change. These may include probability of insolvency, increased competition & avoidance of the facility by prospective clients and mass emigration of employees. To underscore the important link and dynamics between leadership cultures and change Tichy and Ulrich (2008) offers an insightful discourse on the same. Tichy and Ulrich (2008, p.3) notes that resistance to change can be analysed from three paradigms. The paradigms they talk about are resistance as a result to technical systems like task based habits, fear for change due to unknown future and loss of sunk cost. The second is political system resistance as a result of internal groupings opposed to change, narrow thinking based on the perception that the imminent change is a direct challenge to the past administration & their failures and resource limitation. The last is the cultural system resistance based on the notion that the past is known, mastered and holds security and thus no one would wish to move out of his/her comfort zone thus, inhibiting change process. It is in the above context that different types of leadership skills like motivational, transformational and consultative leadership comes into place based on the fact that the success of any organisation is tied on how well the management relate with its employee. Employees are the epicentre of idea creation and implementation of strategic management plan of an organisation so as to achieve strategic positioning and market leadership. The essence of leadership is based on participatory approach to formulation of the desired objectives by having attainable, specific and measurable objectives. This would make the employees part and parcel of the procedure. This collaborative approach can only be realized with a properly formulated organization structure that has leadership which motivates, sets out vision and creates the need for its people. Goal-setting theory in the organisation is reliant on how the management treats objective setting process in the organisation. Setting objectives is a sub step in planning (Koontz and Weihrich, 2008, p.82). This should be done with short and long term focus in mind. 5.0 Conclusion The aim of the paper was to examine the role of leadership in influencing organisational culture so that staff can be led through organisational change in nursing profession. The emerging finding is that leadership is critical in creating organisational culture that can lead staffs through organisational change. In the discourse, it was realised that to initiate a long lasting change in a health organisation there is need to create a culture that aligns that hospital of health care facility with their vision and market dynamics. This means that leadership has a crucial position of influencing nurses who a critical to the process of health delivery by changing their attitude, reducing biases that distort thinking, rewarding the performing ones, reducing barriers to performance, giving them hope and sense of direction. 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