Leadership In Healthcare - Essay Example

Leadership In Healthcare The essay basically aims at examining the critical importance and leading role played by leadership in the field of healthcare especially within critical situations. I strive to reflect my personal leadership skills and attributed as well as weaknesses so that I can identify my past mistakes and can learn the lesson for the future. In the essay, I am going to describe all the major terms related to leadership theories with the support of academic references. The essay is the reflection of my past experience of leadership. The purpose of this reflection is to examine my clinical experience for finding support for my clinical future. Leadership is a dynamic process (Cooper, 2003) and there are great variations in the definition of leadership, however, it is widely agreed that for a leader it is imperative to have a vision through which they can inspire their followers (Donnelly, 2003). The followers must have trust in the vision and mission of the leader and the leader act as the role model for them. Earlier leadership was seen as managerial task, however, now it is recognized currently that leaders can be identified from within their team for particular tasks and cannot essentially have a responsibility of identified official within the organization ‎ (Beech, 2002) ‎. Leadership plays a vital role in the field of healthcare also. The senior nurses have a leadership role within the national health services and the healthcare organizations like NHS would not be able to provide services to the people adequately if they don’t have people working as leaders at different positions like nurses and healthcare administrator etc. ‎ (Fielder, 1967) ‎ I strongly believe that any person could act as the leader if he has the capabilities and skills to lead a group of people. There is no need of having any university degree to become a leader but the skills can help a person to lead a group of followers. My leadership Style There are different styles of leadership that I can refer to illustrate my style of leadership. For instance: Collaboration leadership: In this style, all the involved parties take part in negotiation and discuss the process to achieve their goals (Dawson, 2003). Transactional leadership style: This might have been recognized earlier the ‘top-down approach’ or autocratic ‎leadership (King, 2002).‎ Transformational Leadership: Transformational leadership is combined with democratic styles of leadership. ‎This relates leaders and supporters connected in a general goal. It is a leadership approach based on embracing transformation and supporting development (Dale, and Philogene, 2002).‎ in this style of leadership, the leader provides a visionary explanation for motivating the team so that they could be empowered to achieve their job. Democratic: Democratic leadership has some resemblances to what ‎implemented to be earlier defined a ‘charismatic’ style (Department of Health, 2005). This type ‎of leadership needs the effectual implementation of influence, power, and the capability to ‎system to make sure important decision makers support transformations (Cook, 1999). Examples of My Leadership Style There are different examples from my life through which I can explain my leadership style in connection with the theories explained above. I have practiced the above-mentioned leadership styles in my life from time to time and with the help of my experience, I can say that my leadership style reflects the practice of the above-mentioned leadership theories and styles. Example 1: Last three-four month I spent negotiating with my family members and the doctors. The issue was the treatment of one of my close family member. He is the citizen of Sweden and got healthcare treatment at the St. Thomas Hospital. He trusts on my skills too much and he allowed me to take the role of patient advocate for him. I am the only member of my family who went to the nursing school and hence all of my family members believe that I have the better understanding of healthcare matters as compared with other people in the family. Hence, I was made the patient advocate for him. Advocacy refers to the process in which a person speaks for the rights of the patients and negotiates on the behalf of the patient‎ (Dale, and Philogene, 2002). I accepted the responsibility of acting as the patient advocate. I realized that my family and the patient have many expectations from me and it was the opportunity for me to practice my leadership skills and to satisfy the people who were looking at me for the better management of the treatment process. The main problem faced by the patient was the lack of expert medical facilities at the hospital. The doctors at that hospital were not experienced enough and they were not adequately treating the disease of the patient. They were spending the time to observe more symptoms of the disease to decide its treatment and it was causing the delay in the treatment. I have to keep in view the betterment of my family members and for this, I decided to apply my leadership skills to better communicate with the staff at the hospital. I talk with them about the possibility of referring the patient to another hospital where there were experienced medical staff and better medical facilities available for the treatment of the disease. It was a complicated process because the doctors of the new hospitals must understand the case properly so that they can continue the treatment on immediate basis whereas the doctors of the current hospitals have to explain everything properly to the new hospital doctors while handing over the patient. The communication plays the vital role here. I acted as a communication bridge between the doctors of the two hospitals and eventually all the necessary information about the patient was shared among the doctors. As a result of proper communication, the doctors understood the problem and soon after the transfer of the patient to the other hospital, his treatment was started and now he is feeling much better due to proper medical treatment provided by the expert doctors in the new hospital. My family members and the patient have expressed their satisfaction with my decision and they believe that I have handled the matter in a proficient manner due to which the health condition of our family member is improving significantly. Example 2: Another example of my leadership style could be so taken from the time when I was selected as group leader for the preparation of a presentation for health service management module. We were assigned the task to redesign the hospital setting. We were five group members but I was the most experienced due to which I was appointed as leader. I conduct a deep research on all the areas related to the redesigning of the hospital setting and prepare the background work for the task so that the group will not face any problem during the task. ‎In this situation, I adopted the autocratic leadership style and assigned different tasks to the group members according to their expertise and interests. However, the other group members frequently faced problem is performing their tasks and I have to provide the support in clarifying the issue and eliminating their problems and confusions. When I realized that all the members are not able to perform the assigned tasks proficiently, I changed my leadership style and switched towards democratic style. I asked all the members to do the work that they can do comfortably. This helps them getting confidence at the time of presentation and as a result, all the members became relaxed, confident and high performing. Our presentation went very well and all the members acted very confidently during the presentation. We present the information in front of the class and answered all the questions being asked with great confidence because of the background research conducted. The success of the presentation reflects my leadership style that changes as per the requirement of the situation. I used my leadership attributes and make possible a successful presentation. Summing up, it could be said that I have applied my leadership styles according to the demands of the situation and have successfully met the expectations of the people around me while achieving the goals. I realized that I possess leadership skills and with the help of these skills I can also achieve my future goals by realizing the requirement of the situation. ‎ . References Beech, M. (2002). Leaders or managers: The drive for effective leadership. Nursing Standard 16(30): 35–6 Cook, M. (1999). Improving care requires leadership in nursing. Nurse Education Today 19: 306–12 Cook, M.J. (2001). The renaissance of clinical leadership. International Nursing Review 48(1): 38–46 Cooper, S.J. (2003). An evaluation of the leading an Empowered Organisation Programme. Nursing Standard 17(24): 33–9 Dale, C., Gardner, J., Philogene, S. (2002). Overcoming barriers to change: the case of Ashworth Hospital. Six Steps to Effective Management; Managing and Leading Innovation in Health Care. London: Dawson, P. (2003). Understanding Organisational Change: The Contemporary Experience of People at Work. London: Sage Publications. Department of Health (2005). Supporting People with Long-Term Conditions London: Donnelly, G.F. (2003). Why Leadership is important to nursing. Five Steps to Successful Nursing Management. Springhouse, PA: Lippincott, Williams, and Wilkins. Ewens, A. (2002). The nature and purpose of leadership. Steps to Effective Management: Managing and Leading Innovation in Health Care (Ch. 4). London: Balliere Tindall King, R. (2002). Leadership in the NHS: Leading at all levels. Nursing Management 8(9): 26–27 Read More