How Leadership Development of Individuals Impacts on the Provision of Healthcare - Essay Example

HOW LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT OF INDIVIDUALS IMPACTS ON THE PROVISION OF HEALTHCARE By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date How Leadership Development of Individuals Impacts On the Provision of Healthcare Introduction The main challenge that faces scores of health organisations is developing leaders that can help deliver safe, high-quality and compassionate health care. As mentioned by Miller (2011), leadership is a crucial factor that shapes organisational culture and ensuring the required leadership qualities, strategies and behaviours are developed. In most developed countries, modern-day hospital care faces a number of challenges such as the changing consumer demands and expectations, employee-related problems, financial constraints, the growing demand for healthcare services, the need to improve the patients’ outcomes, and problems related to levels of health care safety and quality (Daly et al., 2014, p.75). Effective governance is important for effective care management in the hospital environment. In the healthcare sector, different roles of leadership are important for management of various healthcare challenges. In healthcare, most leadership roles involve several indirect or direct commonality related to realisation of best health outcomes for patients. Leadership development can result in best practice, particularly at the service level. Developing leadership competencies is crucial for healthcare organisations that seek to create as well as maintain a culture in health services that sustains the important values of best practice and patient safety. The essay seeks to describe how leadership development of individuals impacts on the provision of healthcare Discussion According to Miller (2011), the healthcare organisations must take an approach that is evidence-driven and rigorous to workforce development. Leadership development must integrate three approaches: professional skills progression, competency-based education and adult learning theory. Basically, leadership is a complex construct and the attributes as well as skills needed to successfully lead in a healthcare organisation are complex and varied. Such skills cannot be cultivated successfully in a person within a short period of time. According to Miller (2011), leadership skills cannot improve significantly after one week of leadership development training; therefore, the training design should complement the acquired skills so as to improve learning transfer. Basically, a short course of week is not enough to offer adequate time to learn new skills that can improve the healthcare productivity and patient outcomes. Still, short courses such as error learning and spaced practice training are crucial for the development of cognitive skills like conflict resolution and apperception. According to RCN (2015, p.4), nurse managers should not work in office-bound capacity, but supervisory, except during emergencies. The only way leaders in such setting can understand about the care plans associated with all patients is through leadership development. Leaders must make themselves visible to both staff and patients, and must be accessed to deliberate on concerns with everyone. Strengthening leadership ate every level is priority for nearly all healthcare organisations; for this reason, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) innovative clinical leadership programme (CLP) has been identified in UK as the most effective development programme for leaders, especially the frontline ward managers since it offers them the needed skills and tools to successfully perform their roles (RCN, 2015, p.5). The initiative acknowledged five themes that seemed to result in effective leadership: political awareness, team work, self-awareness, networking as well as patient focus. According to RCN (2015, p.5), the programme was commissioned by the England’s Department of Health with the goal of creating a difference strategy for nursing. A number of countries such as Scotland, Australia and Wales have emulated the CLP example by setting up their own leadership programme. For instance, in 2014 Australian College of Nursing (ACN), introduced a new main strategic direction on how leadership can be advanced by offering nurses learning opportunities and experience to allow and prepare them to bring change as well as contribute to various policy issues. CAN maintains that this can be achieved by introducing new leadership forums at every state, communities of interest, online networks as well as nursing leadership courses. The Garling Report (2008) established that the wider healthcare services as well as acute sector in the New South Wales state were ‘on the edge’, with 22% of nursing profession in the entire state were eligible to retire in 2011. The Garling Report further noted that the public hospitals nurses were mainly junior nurses with no available senior staff for supervising them (Garling, 2008, p.3). According to the report, clinicians’ dedication can be achieved by designing new care models that are actively advocated and supported by clinical leaders. The models should be able to promote best practice that are evidence-based and can be easily monitored so as to establish the level of success. Garling Report recommended that Nurse Unit Manager (NUM) positions should be reviewed and meaningfully redesigned so as to allow the NUM carry out clinical leadership in the patients’ supervision and to make sure that 70 per cent of the NUM’s time is used for clinical-related duties (Garling, 2008, p.19). The report further recommended that, there is need to develop education programs and facilities that will ensure clinicians working in NSW remote and rural areas are offered sufficient training and education. According to West et al. (2015, p.2), Leadership in healthcare organisations must ensure commitment, alignment and direction to the main role of developing cultures that can incessantly deliver compassionate, high-quality and improved patient care. Leadership development is crucial for creating motivating visions and can help leaders identify aligned, clear goals for every team, individual staff and department. Through leadership development, leaders can be able to offer enabling and supportive people management; develop high staff engagement level; support quality improvement, innovation and learning of every staff; as well as promote teamwork. In healthcare setting, leaders should collaborate, span boundaries between and within organisations, prioritise the patient care instead of the achievement of specific components, and must develop an integrative and accommodating leadership culture. As mentioned by West et al. (2015, p.4), development of collective leadership for a healthcare organisation relies mainly on local milieus and is more effective when performed ‘in-house’ with the assistance of the expert so as to integrate both leadership development and organisational development. Moreover, leadership experience is a crucial factor in facilitating leaders to advance their skills, particularly when there is suitable support and guidance. Learning from experience should be emphasised and evidence-based approaches for developing leadership in health care are essential for ensuring success. Pope Francis since his election has exhibited diverse leadership qualities, which can be emulated by health care leaders seeking to build high levels of trust. Pope Francis has exhibited that accessibility builds loyalty and trust among customers and colleagues, and this makes other transformations probable. Pope Francis has continuously exhibited transformational style of leadership. Pope Francis through his actions has signalled a new direction for his followers, especially the Catholic Church as a whole by leading through actions (Ryan, 2013). For leaders seeking to be successful in healthcare sector, they must learn from Pope Francis leadership style, which focuses more on rebuilding trust, showing humility and being accessible. Pope Francis has rejected the hierarchical power commonly related to the pontiff position, but instead, he has made himself accessible to everyone. Pope Francis has exhibited high humility levels especially when he decided to wash the prisoners’ feet and to live in the guest house, instead of the official residence. In order to successfully lead an organisation, the leader must have clear vision of where what he wants to achieve. The leader must express his mission in a manner that triggers a profound desire for people to work towards realising the set goals. Normally, leaders presume that every person comprehends their mission, but normally most employee misinterprets their leaders leading to decline in and performance. As evidenced by Pope Francis, leaders should take every opportunity to reenergise as well as refocus their organisation towards the organisation’s core vision. Pope Francis has continually exhibited the trustworthy trait, which is an important trait for leaders seeking to rebuild trust. Together with accessibility and humility Pope Francis has shown great respect for earlier leaders such as Pope Benedict and Pope John Paul 11. This proves that leaders should not disregard the earlier leaders they should always contact them when need be. Leaders should understand that accessibility is related to vulnerability. Hitherto, Pope Francis has shown a leadership style that is friendly as well as open to vulnerability. The Pope does not care about his safety instead he makes sure that he interacts with well-wishers, kiss the children and shake people hands. For health care organisations to continue demonstrating effectiveness, efficiency and economic success, they must develop leaders with required competencies. As mentioned by Milton‑Wildey and O’Brien (2010, p.14), the organisations effectiveness is associated with effective leadership; therefore, stressing more on the fiscal accountability is crucial for organisational effectiveness. Still, nurse leaders have to make sure that organisational effectiveness measures acknowledge outcomes that are in line with the population of the patient being served. Clinical leadership training is crucial because it help reduce adverse complications and outcomes that may negatively affect the health care cost. Imperatively, clinical nurse leaders have to link their understanding of patients’ needs, which includes nursing care and the influence of nursing care on organisational efficiencies and patient outcomes. Besides that, the leaders have to maximise the utilisation of professional judgement and critical thinking in their workforce in the patients care, and particularly in caring from weak older patients. Basically, leadership development main objective in healthcare sector is to improve leaders’ ability to lead staff; therefore, it is imperative to create a collaboration-based organizational culture. In healthcare organizations, Kouzes and Posner (2012) posit that leaders must develop a management style that is more participative, enhance their ability to lead teams as well as build relationships, and learn means of managing employee’s problems more effectively. Besides that, healthcare organizations should develop strategies that will offer the future and current leaders wide-ranging, cross-organisational learning and experiences. Imperatively, skills of healthcare leaders have a number of gaps that can be solved through learning and development; still, every health organisation experiences a number of challenges such as self-awareness, functional orientation as well as career management. These challenges can be addressed through leadership development, individual feedback, and succession planning as well as coaching. Leaders should be able to make their employees work efficiently across boundaries as well as effectively communicate amongst themselves. Lee et al. (2010, p.1027) opine that management of burnout in leadership positions is crucial for organisations seeking to maintain strong leadership with the goal of delivering high-quality care. Lee et al. (2010, p.1028) further argue that strengthening systems of social support can help reduce job stress as well as improve retention of managers in the healthcare sector. Basically, opportunities for learning together with structured initiatives for leadership development offer opportunities for developing new skills as well as peer networks for social support. In their study, Lee et al. (2010) examined the Leadership Development Initiative (LDI) impact on the well-being (burnout) as well as emotional health of managers in the healthcare sector. They established that LDI results in a stronger social support networks amongst the leaders cohorts. However in bigger healthcare organisations, managers are mostly isolated and do not have support to reduce burnout as well as manage stress. According to Lee et al. (2010, p.1037), developing robust support systems in the leaders’ cohorts facilitates the sharing of ideas as well as generates learning settings that reduce isolation feelings. Therefore, support and mentorship can encourage leaders to achieve. Additionally, the notion that the health organisations are investing in their staff by means of development programmes can assist to diminish pessimism as employees normally think that organisation development programmes are there to improve their ability to delivering high-quality care. National healthcare policies have increased the emphasis on leadership role in achieving substantial and sustainable change; thus, leadership development has become a crucial issue in all healthcare organisations. Leadership development is associated with activities that are utilised to improve organisation productivity and patients outcomes. McDonald (2014, p.227) asserts that the distributed leadership concept integrates collaboration, collectiveness and inclusivity, and as a consequence, employees are seen as leaders. Therefore, programmes for leadership development are designed to prepare individuals in enhancing leadership skills. In order to generate a leadership development program that actually encourages transformational change, the organisation must capitalise on the traditional leadership development an ensure the programme is created with an organisational development mind-set that considers team, individual as well as system level learning, which is completely aligned with the organisation’s strategic direction. The goal of developing leaders according to McAlearney (2008, p.323) includes improving the quality and calibre of the staff: It is imperative to improve the workforce overall leadership so as to increase capabilities as well as competencies of staffs and the related clinicians. Besides that, leadership development enables the organisation to focus training on certain areas associated with care quality and cost reduction. Moreover, leadership development generates opportunities for applying new skills, which includes preparing for structured follow-up following the developmental programs. Programmes of leadership development improve organizational development and education efficiency; therefore, health organisations should focus their development agenda on reducing duplication as well as allowing cross-communication concerning employee training and education activities. According to McAlearney (2008, p.324), organisations should capitalise on opportunities so as to offer in-house development education and training in order to reduce unnecessary expenses and make programs accessible. In order to reduce expenses such as high employee turnover, the organisations should ensure that the leadership development activities are tied to employee satisfaction reviews in order to underline the significance of employee satisfaction and retention. Clinically trained individuals should be enrolled to leadership development programs so as to learn leadership skills that can help reduce frustration normally experienced by employees in healthcare setting and improve success likelihood of clinical employees in promoting patients outcomes. Conclusion In conclusion, the essay has described how leadership development of individuals impacts on the provision of healthcare. The presented literature has pointed out that leadership development programs must be structured in a manner that will allow trainees to learn from different array of skills as well as be able to use these skills. Programs for leadership development as mentioned in the essay must incorporate different approaches such as reflection and error learning, provide spaced training, offer continuous support in form of coaching and mentoring, and allow the trainees to monitor their progress with regard to the set training plan. Basically, leadership development programs offer a number of opportunities in improving efficiency and quality in healthcare: leadership development improves the quality of the employees, and improves effectiveness of the organization's development and education activities. Besides that, leadership development helps reduce expenses and turnover, and enable the healthcare organisation to focus on particular strategic priorities. To sum up, the essay has argued that leadership development programs offer crucial opportunities to the healthcare organisation such as improving efficiency and quality of healthcare services. Improving the quality and capabilities of the healthcare leaders as well as workforce can result in improved patients outcomes and efficiency. As emphasised in the essay, policymakers and organizations dedicated to improve the efficiency and quality in healthcare must ensure that they do not overlook opportunities brought about by leadership development programs, which can be utilised to achieve the set goals. References Daly, J. et al., 2014. The importance of clinical leadership in the hospital setting. Journal of Healthcare Leadership, vol. 6, p.75—83. Garling, P., 2008. Acute care services in NSW public hospitals. Final report of the Special Commission of Inquiry. Canberra: ACT. Kouzes, J.M. & Posner, B.Z., 2012. The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Lee, H. et al., 2010. Impact of leadership development on emotional health in healthcare managers. Journal of Nursing Management, vol. 18, pp.1027-1039. McAlearney, A.S., 2008. Using leadership development programs to improve quality and efficiency in healthcare. Journal of Healthcare Management, vol. 53, no. 5, pp.319-31. McDonald, R., 2014. Leadership and leadership development in healthcare settings – a simplistic solution to complex problems? International Journal of Health Policy and Management, vol. 3, no. 5, pp.227–29. Miller, S., 2011. Feasibility study: development and delivery of a clinical leadership program. [Online] Available at: http://www.racma.edu.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=356&Itemid=65 [Accessed 10 April 2016]. Milton‑Wildey, K. & O’Brien, L., 2010. Nursing care of older patients in hospital: implications for clinical leadership. Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing, vol, 28, no. 2, pp.6-16. RCN, 2015. Frontline nurse leadership: an international perspective. Policy briefing. London: Royal College of Nursing RCN Policy and International Department. Ryan, J., 2013. Pope Francis demonstrates new leadership qualities aimed at rebuilding trust. [Online] Available at: http://www.greatplacetowork.ie/publications-and-events/blogs-and-news/776-pope-francis-demonstrates-new-leadership-qualities-aimed-at-rebuilding-trust [Accessed 10 April 2016]. West, M. et al., 2015. Leadership and Leadership Development in Health Care: The Evidence Base. Reserach paper. London: The King’s Fund. Read More