Health Care Leadership in Era of Instability - Coursework Example

Health Care Leadership in an Era of Instability A Discussion Paper Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………… 2 Health care Leadership in an Age of Change………………………………..4 Leadership Support in Health Care………………………………………….. 9 Addressing the Needs of Health Care Leadership.......................................... 11 Conclusions..................................................................................................... 12 Introduction The global challenge to enhance the provision of health care by improving and reforming traditional approaches is ever more dependent on efficient leadership. The argument of this paper is that present-day health care needs strong leadership not only in actual health care organisations but also in academic health care institutions. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to review and analyse new leadership capabilities needed to surmount the present challenges and exploit opportunities of leadership in health care. Or, this paper discusses the significant issues of leadership in health care. Finally, this paper evaluates contemporary idea on leadership abilities and its relevance to health centres. This is argument is also adopted by the Scottish Executive Health Department through the large amounts of resources allocated for leadership training for its nursing, clinical, and academic health practitioners (Swayne, Duncan & Ginter 2007, 47). Within the United Kingdom, large portions of public resources have been spent for leadership growth of people involved in Scotland’s National Health Service (NHS) leadership (Swayne et al. 2007, 47). Scotland’s NHS in 2004 announced the Leadership Development Framework, declaring its dedication to cultivating leadership potential and competence by integrating leadership action as a mutual partner to the more traditionally planned management (Jasper & Jumaa 2005, 81). However, it is interesting that the Leadership Development Framework of NHS claims that “there are certainly too many variables to consider evaluating return on investment, but on the other hand it is important to ensure that resources are being applied with the greatest impact” (Jasper & Jumaa 2005, 81). The planned move toward providing health care within areas where in people live, instead from large hospitals, accepts the requirement for highly developed leadership faculties to allow such remarkable changes. Leadership potential and competence should be viewed as an essential element in order for all professional health practitioners to completely realise their capability in maximising opportunities offered by the improvement of health care provisions (Wolper 2004, 30). A health care leadership transformation is therefore needed as they begin to contribute more abundantly to the operational and strategic components of health care development and service delivery (Wolper 2004, 30). For this to realise its fullest capability, health practitioners should be treated as associates with regard to their medical and administrative superiors instead of working in rigid leader-follower relationships. As a result, developing transformational leaders will promote and empower their subordinates to modify their professional hierarchies and their own working habits (Pelote & Route 2007, 59). This new trend of transformational leadership embodies a way of perceiving leadership that portrays leadership attitudes and behaviours in building affective ties with subordinates and other leaders; hence, enhancing performance and sustaining change within their groups (Sachdeva 1996, 190). It defines a set of conducts that comprises intellectual encouragement, individual concern, vision, inspirational drive, high ethical and moral principles, and charisma (Sachdeva 1996, 190). Any considerable absences of these behaviours within professional health care organisations or medical groups may have extensive repercussions due to their consequent incapability to confidently embrace prospects for development and change in frameworks of service provision, medical practice, and planning for succession because of lower degrees of enthusiasm, confidence, ambition, empowerment, creativity, mentoring, innovation, and peer support (Goodwin 2005, 42). Health Care Leadership in an Age of Change Health care nowadays is trapped between models. This current status poses remarkable challenges on health care leaders. New leadership abilities are required to surmount this challenge (Goodwin 2004, 42). Communicating a vision and motivating followers to persevere toward this objective is the obligation of a successful leader; overcoming difficulties distinct to health care centres needs stakeholder support and tough leadership (Rigolosi 2005, 61). Health care in present-day United Kingdom differs significantly from its framework several years ago. The conventional health care setting gives importance to individual self-sufficiency and recognises individual accomplishment (Jasper & Jumaa 2005, 33). However, the changing mechanism sustains a larger community concern. Advances in technology, innovations in delivery system and variations in demographics plus disease conditions themselves have disbanded the traditional rules, confused the boundaries and invalidated the predicted triumph from earlier behaviours. Health care is trapped between models (Jasper & Jumaa 2005, 33). Nonetheless, the general mission of health care centres remains: to boost public health through service, research, and education. The educational feature of training professional health care practitioners for practice stays invariable in a changing environment (Rigolosi 2005, 61). The correlation between the wellbeing of the health care organisation and successful leadership is strong. Hence, it is not astonishing that leaders of health centres should also become accustomed to this persistently changing and usually differing demand (Rigolosi 2005, 62). Such periods need strong leadership with new leadership competences. The interlocked challenges of building an innovative and productive environment with scarce resources in an unpredictable environment are not new (Yedidia 1998, 637). The intellectual triad of service, research, and education and the established hierarchical leadership approach in health centres offer unique opportunities of leadership in bureaucratic agencies (Yedidia 1998, 637). There is a growing insecurity of administrative leadership of medical schools in recent decades. Heads of the medical department also reveal abrupt turnover (Isaacs & Colby 2009, 29). Petersdorf (1997, 954) referred to fiscal problem, idealistically high anticipations, an unmanageable population, underdeveloped intellectual being, irrational boundaries, irreconcilability between hierarchy of authority and task and faculty vulnerable to expectations as causes of major turnover in health care leadership. Yedidia (1998, 633) included unparalleled competition in the medical field as another reason. The strength of academic bodies is defined by its capability of promoting learning, regulating costs, and providing access and fairness. However, current changes most crucial to academic institutions have been outside of it: dwindling resources, increasing demand for other services, development of technology and new dependence on market-resembling processes for public services. These developments put the traditional educational practice at risk (Huber 2005, 65). Leaders in academic bodies are removed from essenntial activities. For instance, little, if any, of the everyday obligations of a dean strongly relate to the school’s educational initiatives (Daugherty 1998, 649). Dean’s use up a considerable amount of their time to five primary concerns: incompetent management, undue traditionalism, segregation and distribution of task within an institution, very scarce resources and very few individuals available with too much to accomplish (Daugherty 1998, 649). The attitude of deans nonetheless has a significant influence on the performance and outcomes of an educational organisation and its programmes. A renewing and involving of the motivation of those strengthening the educational objective needs compassion and persistent cultivating (Petersdorf 1998, 956). On the other hand, leaders who supervise at the stage of activities, addressing problems and visions only, transform the institution into ‘reactivism’ (Petersdorf 1998, 956). This is a temporary solution for direct outcomes with less exercise of important long-term counteractive approaches. Exhaustion, distrust and absence of any control dominate (Petersdorf 1998, 956). Therefore, with the presence of these current challenges to health care leadership, strong leadership is required from within the profession of health care to deal with these different problems. Daugherty (1998, 649) discovered most deans of medical schools were chosen and trained to be self-assured, self-regulating physicians. These features of independence and obedient confidence should translate into the capabilities needed of an effective leader at present: the capability of influencing behaviour, resolving negotiations, facilitating, settling conflicts, constantly improving organisations, and being politically knowledgeable, thinking in terms of master individual discipline and diverse environments and systems (Daugherty 1998, 650). Effective leadership needs a unique, clear vision, diverse interpersonal relationships and efficient communication. In a health care setting, leaders should visualise a niche in a fast evolving market (Goodwin 2005, 26). They should relate to students, faculty, health care professionals and supporting personnel, governmental regulators, patients, alumni, constituents and public service policymakers (Goodwin 2005, 26). Multidisciplinary, serviceable teams from these various domains should be developed to sustain and communicate the purpose, merge extrinsic and intrinsic objectives and keep the mechanism in progress (Pelote & Route 2007, 44). The means to a leader’s success is the capability of building this team. Educational medicine is extraordinary with its mass of highly trained, educated, independent, and motivated people (Pelote & Route 2007, 44). To build a single division dedicated to customers is an unlikely responsibility in view of academic medicine’s compilation of attributes and professionals competing for control and recognition (Wolper 2004, 52). To bring together these individuals into a unified whole, leaders have to cooperatively oblige them to a shared objective by presenting truthful information, promoting alternative perspectives and supporting discourses to reach an agreement. It is important for a leader to become aware of and clearly express other perspectives (Wolper 2004, 52). At a standstill, a leader should inquire what supplementary information or logic is required to move forward (Swayne et al. 2007, 87). Nonetheless, it is important to remember that leadership approaches differ. A fair leadership approach leads through persuasion rather than force and seems to be the most effective (Huber 2005, 36). Sachdeva (1996, 188) proposes that a domineering leadership approach may be seldom needed for a particular obligation, but argues against a non-oriented, laid-back approach where everybody is performing their own thing. Leadership is all about influence. Leadership persuades people to forget their personal issues for a while and fulfil a shared objective essential to the wellbeing of a group (Sachdeva 1996, 188). Leadership only takes place when others are eager to espouse the objectives of a group, authority or obliging responsibilities due to control is not leadership (Yedidia 1998, 635). The above leadership skills are crucial nowadays because leadership is important to stakeholders and to the organisation as a whole. Nonetheless, leaders usually are selected on technical skill or amiability and viewed capability of working with administration or top management rather than for leadership abilities (Rigolosi 2005, 47). A remarkable person in a field division, such as a highly qualified doctor, may happen to be a leader. Major talents of effective leaders involve behaviours and principles that affect success. Emotional development commonly referred to as emotional intelligence (EQ), boosts the success of an organisation. Leaders with impressive EQ show more civility and sympathy, are better capable of understanding a social condition, hinder fulfilment and understand their own sentiments (Isaacs & Colby 2009, 101). Leadership and Support in Health Care The basic principles of health centres will be distinguished in the form of health care management applied by clinical leadership. Hierarchical leadership depends on senior managers knowing the appropriate things to carry out and followers adhering to these instructions (Pelote & Route 2007, 88). The ordinary faculty of self-regulating professionals should unite into serviceable teams for collaborative management. The fundamental attributes for effectiveness of these groups involve mentoring skills, conflict resolution, and communication (Yedidia 1998, 636). What a leader performs as a person is not almost as significant as what a leader facilitates others to perform. An environment of individual achievement founded on personal entrepreneurism is unfashionable. A leader can abandon the organisation and it will continue; in other words, successful leaders have followers who are self-reliant (Yedidia 1998, 636). The exercise of faculty time, decisively the means to faculty incentives, has become more and more focused on research and publication, usually at the expense of mentoring tasks. The disagreement between the objectives of mentoring, research and service generates tension and pressure that normally go beyond the work life (Isaacs & Colby 2009, 102). This climate of continuous pressure leads to either less successful and disgruntled people or people leaving health centres for other professional vocations. The intellectual energy of each health practitioner determines the value of service delivery at each health care centre (Huber 2005, 69). The mounting pressure in health care hinders individuals from achieving their fullest capability and reduces the whole organisation. Individuals are the most important asset at any health care organisation; incompetent individuals cost the organisation an innumerable amount in wasted prospect (Huber 2005, 69). Capabilities crucial for effective leadership in the 21st century are dedication to quality enhancement, a common vision, a global model, change proficiency, customer relationship management, group learning, community service, and management of diversity. Health care leaders have to adopt these qualities and embed them in their organisations (Wolper 2004, 118). Quality is vital to any organisations nowadays. The move beyond quality is the improvement of a health care institution which is productive and sustains the realisation of individual visions. This form of organisation is a way of attaining better performance with a strengthened, dedicated work force capable of managing change and diversity (Wolper 2004, 118). Furthermore, leaders should exploit the collective brilliance of individuals in the organisation. However, leaders usually have no genuine understanding of the form of dedication it needs to develop a learning organisation (Huber 2005, 71). Developing the culture of an organisation and moulding its transformation is the distinct and crucial role of leadership. Create the vision, objective, and core principles of a health care organisation affect creations of learning. Policy has to orient decisions and has to be independent from decision-making (Goodwin 2005, 107). To sum it up, leaders are organisation’s guardians and should deal with the larger objective or obligation that brings about the endeavour. Leaders direct everybody in the organisation toward a more discerning perspective of present reality. Addressing the Needs of Health Care Leadership Health care organisations have to proactively deal with numerous dilemmas. At present, no health care centre is invulnerable to monetary problem. In the public, health care sector, there is a great reliance on voter and legislative advocacy (Swayne et al. 2007, 92). As programmes restricting government subsidy threaten medicine and health care, leaders have to be assertive and clear in relation to the objective of their health care organisations both currently and in the future. The general public should become aware that the incomparable benefits and prospects granted by health care organisations accompany great costs and intrinsic limitations (Swayne et al. 2007, 92). Similarly, health care organisations are responsible to a broad array of stakeholders. Practical expectations have to be developed and the leadership accountable for addressing agreed upon norms (Rigolosi 2005, 76). Clinical practice is experiencing a major transformation. The contribution of the educational institution in this rising model should be distinct. Health care professionals should have high levels of professionalism, integrity, sincerity, sympathy, altruism and more or the very survival of clinical practice is endangered (Rigolosi 2005, 76). People in health care rife with stress and doubt develop long-lasting essential principles in conflict with the role of health care providers (Jasper & Jumaa 2005, 22). Toward negotiating this conflict, organisational capability and leadership may be coached through secluded personnel development trainings and organisational reform efforts. Health care organisations are built on traditional groundwork and strongly-held values (Jasper & Jumaa 2005, 25). Reinforced walls embody not just the relevance of the institution but centuries of philosophy and deep-seated culture. Conclusions Choosing to become a leader is the decisive feature of successful leadership. A leader should stimulate commitment and enthusiasm in followers and is important to developing learning skill. Leaders should give considerable interest to learning, invest time learning themselves, and motivate their followers to learn if they are to embed a dedication to building a general organisational learning capacity. Leadership implies initiating change. Organisational culture commonly reveals the character of its leaders. Health care organisations have to endorse a leader, who displays the values needed of a health care practitioner, the support of followers and the goal for the future. People in health care should set a plan for action because they are the power house of the health care institution. They should choose leadership that manifests the principles of the daily core activities of an organisation and perceives a goal for an unpredictable future. References Daugherty, RM. "Leading among leaders: the dean in today's medical school." Acad Med, 1998: 649-53. Goodwin, Neil. Leadership in Health Care: A European Perspective. New York: Routledge, 2005. Huber, Diane. Leadership and Nursing Care Management. US: Saunders, 2005. Isaacs, S.L. & D.C. Colby, (eds). To Improve Health and Health Care. Princeton, New Jersey: Jossey-Bass, 2009. Jasper, M. & M. Jumaa . Effective Healthcare Leadership. UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005. Pelote, V. & L. Route. Masterpieces in Health Care Leadership: Cases and Analysis for Best Practices. UK: Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2007. Petersdorf, RG. "Deans and deaning in a changing world." Acad Med, 1998: 953-8. Rigolosi, Elaine, ed. Management and Leadership in Nursing and Health Care: An Experiential Approach. New York: Springer, 2005. Sachdeva, AK. "A beleaguered profession yearning for Lincolns: the need for visionary leadership in the health care profession." J. Cancer Educ, 1996: 187-191. Swayne, L.E., W.J. Duncan & P.M. Ginter. Strategic Management of Health Care Organisations. UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007. Wolper, Lawrence. Health Care Administration, Fourth Edition: Planning, Implementing, and Managing Organised Delivery Systems. UK: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2004. Yedidia, MJ. "Challenges to effective medial school leadership: perspective of 22 current and former deans." Acad Med, 1998: 631-9. Read More