Leadership and Management in Healthcare - Research Paper Example

?Running Head: Leadership and management in healthcare Leadership and management in healthcare: A Research Paper goes here Professional Specialization Name of your professor Date Introduction Leadership and management are two keystones characteristics for any organizational setup and healthcare organizations being humane in nature must employ these skills with extra bit of care, passion and intelligence. Leadership and management go hand in hand to run successful healthcare organizations, especially those operating in the multidiscipline and multicultural environments need to adapt these traits to suit the diversity of the challenges at hand. The cultural diversity in countries and states where immigrants are in excess like Australia, America, Canada and Europe has posed serious challenges in terms of managing crucial healthcare services that can suit the ethno-cultural diversities of these societies. A leading health care setup in these areas requires excellence in leadership and management skills. MacGabhann (2009) has pointed out this fact, “The health sector by its very nature of providing essential health care services to populations is in the front-line of rising to the challenge of adequately managing ethno-cultural diversity and ensuring efficient and effective management of its hospitals and services.” In addition to the ethno-cultural diversity the assortment and depth of services in a healthcare organization delimits the challenges faced by leadership and management. The wider services platforms require a higher level of commitment to fulfill the demands of the copious challenges simultaneously. In a multidiscipline health care organization there are professionals from various medical domains and discipline, these professionals work together in team to deliver a better and comprehensive care to patients. Higgs (2008) asserts the idea, “An established team of experienced health professionals, with a clear understanding of disciplinary roles, responsibilities and communication styles can plan and coordinate clinical management.” This mix of professionals to deliver quality health services requires leaders to display enhanced skills in team management because collaboration in a team is the primary responsibility of a team lead. Multidisciplinary approach is certainly beneficial but it is relatively complex and poses advance level challenges to leadership and management in delivering the goods for which it is formulated. Thereby, managing a healthcare organization in a multidiscipline and multicultural environment would demand a superior level of leadership and management characteristics that can meet the expectations of an increasingly aware society. Thesis This research paper will investigate various traits and characteristics that are considered indispensible to achieve organizational effectiveness and efficiency in a multidiscipline and multicultural healthcare organization. The paper will discuss leadership and management issues, approaches, traits and solutions from the perspective of a healthcare administrator to manage health and human services. The research will initially present some leadership and management issues that a healthcare administration may face. The paper will also discuss different approaches to settle these issues in healthcare management and personal traits in terms of leadership and management to analyze various approaches for respective pros and cons. The paper will then draw conclusions that can be useful for leadership and management of a multicultural and multidiscipline healthcare organization. Literature Review Demographic changes are a known phenomenon and diversity stems from it. The healthcare administrators have to be vigilant on ever increasing number of non-native healthcare professionals in their organizations because if diversity is a necessity the maintenance of healthcare tradition and enhancing the facility is an ultimate objective for healthcare administrators. Baxter (2000, p. 9) states this fact as, “The primary selling point of the effective management of diversity is its potential to help an organization achieve its business objectives.” The diversity of healthcare force is almost inevitable and administrators are required to manage these professional with assorted background knowledge and understanding of the local requirements and standards in healthcare organizations. Areas of concern for administrators in a multicultural environment range from social approaches to financial concerns of this diversified workforce. This increases the burden of management and administrators have to be more accommodating and compassionate because a satisfied workforce is the primary requirement for an efficient and effective healthcare organization. Burke & Leonard (2011, p. 130) have identified these challenges, “Most of the workplace diversity challenges that effective public health manager’s face stem from cultural, social and financial considerations related to both care of individual patient and broader community benefit.” The administrator has to keep in mind the workforce concerns and demands while ensuring the ultimate organizational objectives of effectiveness and efficiency. Administrator in a multicultural health organization provides essential interfacing between the healthcare professionals and the community. The issues that stems from the interaction of culturally diverse workforce and communities constitute a major area where the role of leadership and management can make a difference in the delivery of healthcare services. Multidiscipline healthcare organizations are becoming more popular because they offer better learning environment to professionals and better services to the patients under one roof. “Multidisciplinary teams have the greatest potential in a clinical setting. The core process for most patients regularly draws upon capabilities from across a wide spectrum of departments: nursing, diagnostic, and therapeutic services, as well as support and administrative.” (Manion, William & William, 1996, p.159). However, achieving these benefits of multidiscipline healthcare phenomenon the leadership and management have to display a more accommodating and caring attitude towards its team and have implement impartial and unbiased assessment of the staff and physicians. The management will have to lead from the front while following the discipline and code of conduct for the organization. Above all, the management is required to create an environment where team members feel free to communicate and discuss various aspects of professional interest. The professionals can share experiences and thoughts which can enhance the overall knowledge and imparts confidence to professionals. The ability of a multidiscipline healthcare organization to enrich the professional capability is an accepted phenomenon. “They have an ability to learn and adapt from numerous interactions that are occurring simultaneously. This is quite common in healthcare industry, especially during the course of delivering care in a multidisciplinary healthcare team approach.” (Wolf, Heather & Mark, 2011, p. 91). There are several issues attached to a multidiscipline healthcare organizational working environment that can prove a real test of leadership and management for healthcare administrators. The first and foremost issue for a leader is to ensure communication among the professionals arriving into a team unit with varying personal experiences and expertise. The communication that is original, imparting and positive involves knowledge of group dynamics. The leader should have the ability to integrate himself with his team mates while give them a confidence to share freely in the team. There are barriers both psychological and discriminative which needs to be removed by the leader. Good communication can bring teammates closer and have the ability to resolve personal and professional issues which ultimately contribute in the building a healthier environment and increases the organizational effectiveness and efficiency. The role of administrator is pivotal in achieving team coordination and collaboration objectives and heavily depends on the communication skill of the administrator and leader himself. However, the essence of multidiscipline culture in organizations demands a distributive leadership which does not resides a single personality rather in evolves from interaction of highly professional teammates working in a team. The concept is relatively newer and Wolf, Heather & Mark (2011) have discussed it, “Instead of leadership residing in a person as trait or behavior, leadership is view as a process of influence that occurs in the interaction of team members working together. It can be embedded in an individual through their pattern of interaction.” This can be viewed as an important improvisation of leadership devised for multicultural, multidiscipline healthcare organizations. Leadership is a complex art and it is seldom traced in a single personality with all its worth and beauty. Multidiscipline organizational structures can reap the fruit of leadership in a better way if the leadership is evolved as a process of interaction, collaboration and coordination between diversified teammates. Management in a multidiscipline healthcare organization is perhaps the most important and complex objective. The management in multidiscipline environment is difficult because the administrator is required to meet the expectations of physicians and other paramedical staff while ensuring the highest possible satisfaction of patients which is the core objective for any healthcare organization. The role of management in these areas shapes the face of organization in the eyes of its workforce and patients. However, beside these two internal managerial tasks the administration and leadership has to cater for external evaluation of the organization as an integral part of the community in which it operates as well as national and global levels. The multifaceted nature of management in these healthcare organizations makes it a real challenge for a manager. Meeting the challenges which shape a broader face of the organization nationally and internationally is not an easy task as there are many factors, forces and compulsions that can play havoc with these objectives of management. The multicultural and multidiscipline organizations are usually large scale organization and they need leadership and management well aware of contemporary technologies. In this connection the administrators have to have adequate knowledge of national and international trends and necessities, technological advancements in the healthcare domain and supporting technologies like IT that can make a difference in the operations and management of healthcare setups. Technologies are not only useful for maintaining a higher level patient care but these technologies can be vitally important for managing human and other organizational resources. Achieving these objectives through simple awareness and implementation may fell short of the expectations, if leadership and management do not have adequate knowledge for analyzing results and measuring effectiveness and efficiency of these technologies. In this age of information and technological advancements it has become significantly important for leadership to keep itself updated on all contemporary technologies, without regard to its adoption or otherwise by the organization. Conclusion Leadership is not a stagnant concept rather it evolves and builds in every age on the basis of certain well known traits with a mix of certain contemporary ideas. Traditionally, leadership is a concept which is most commonly explained and elaborated in terms of a personality with certain traits like, bravery, composure, firmness, reliability, discipline, faith and passion, determinism and many other traits that contribute in the success of an organization or group in a way or other. Healthcare leadership is not an exception, leadership and management is usually weighed in terms of certain objectives which it successfully achieves or fails to achieve. Depending on the results the quality and strength of a leadership and management is calculated. While it is true that certain personality trait are common in successful leaders but yet the approach to trace these traits in order to gauge leadership is flawed in many ways. Meindl and Ehrlich while supporting this argument states, “The disadvantage of such approaches is that they can idealize particular individuals and assume that they have pre-eminent capacity and power, which ignores ‘followers’ and organizational and community constraints. This has been called the romance of leadership.” (as cited in Benington & Jean, 2010, p. 17). While leaders are human beings and certainly have some specific trait we can still argue that these traits can be aggregated in a leadership that can be personified but it evolves from an organizational process where decisions are made on merit in a collective and collaborative manner. The concept of leadership can assume more definite and concrete shapes if it is not a simple mix of certain trait in an individual but organizations give birth to leadership through certain well thought out processes, utilizing a collective wisdom, valor, commitment, determinism, knowledge and courage. In multicultural and multidiscipline healthcare organization the leadership and management has to be a team show. Managing such a gigantic organizational setup demands a collaborative effort to materialize the objectives and aspirations felt and realized collectively by the teammates. This is not a tough ask as compared to a leadership search that exists in books and can be described in traits but that is hard to find and realize. Knowledge expansion in contemporary era has pose new challenges to leadership and management concepts and successful organizations have responded to these challenges utilizing the collective wisdom, knowledge and efforts. Leadership pyramid is constructed bit by bit as the organization progresses in pursuit of its objectives, leadership is never awaited it is always there to take charge and continue the voyage of success. References Baxter, Carol. (2001). Managing diversity and inequality in health care. China: Harcourt Publishers Limited. Benington, John., Jean, Hartley. (2010). Leadership for Healthcare. UK: The Policy Press. Burke,  Robert. E., Leonard, & H. Friedman. (2011). Essentials of management and leadership in public health. USA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Higgs, Joy. (2008). Clinical reasoning in the health professions (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Elsevier Publishers. MacGabhann, Cavin. (2009). Managing Ethno-cultural Diversity in Health Care ServiceDelivery: The Irish Experience, Retrieved from http://www.strategie-aims.com/events/conferences/2-xixeme-conference-de-l-aims/communications/138-managing-ethno-cultural-diversity-in-health-care-service-delivery-the-irish-experience/download Manion, Jo., William, Lorimer., & William, J. Leander. (1996). Team-based health care organizations: blueprint for success. USA: Aspen Publications. Wolf, Jason. A., Heather, Hanson., & Mark, J. Moir. (2011). Organization Development in Health Care: A Guide for Leaders. USA: Information Age Publishing Inc. Read More