Organizational Cultural Assessment: Ray Hospital - Essay Example

Organizational Cultural Assessment Inserts His/Her Inserts Grade Inserts (03, April, Introduction Organizational culture is defined as “A pattern of shared values, norms and practices that help distinguish one organization from another”(Higgins et. al., 2006). Conversely, leadership involves influencing others to accomplish the company mission. It often entails three key components that include: establishing a vision or understanding the vision in an organization, possessing and influencing others, and causing subordinates to realize the vision by working towards it. The organization under consideration was a mid-level hospital. In order to protect its identity, the pseudonym Ray Hospital will be used. Leadership Leadership in nursing may be envisaged in terms of the characteristics that define it. Two extremes can arise: consideration of relationships among workers and their supervisors or initiation of structure. Leaders with a preference for structure are likely to adopt transactional leadership styles. They are more concerned with production and delivery of targets. However, this may sometimes alienate workers, cause burnout and lead to high attrition. Conversely, a leader may be relationship-oriented, and this could cause them to build trust among followers. Such individuals tend to employ the transformational style. Here, they will inspire people to cause change through their strong vision. However, sometimes neither of these approaches may be appropriate for a particular scenario. Too much relationship focus could undermine one’s ability to meet their goals. On the other hand, constantly, criticizing, punishing and manipulating interests may distance workers. Sometimes aspects of both orientations may be needed in order to get things done. Impact that personal and organizational values have on leadership effectiveness in a hospital Denison (2005) identified certain traits that help to delineate organizational culture. These are consistency, involvement, mission and adaptability. Adaptability refers to a company’s ability to translate external and internal demands on it into change. For this to happen, the organization culture must be customer-centric and committed to change. Learning needs to be a priority. If an organization’s norms do not support this translation process, then adaptability is unlikely to be realized. Leadership is affected by this trait when members of the institution do not share commitment to change. Leaders will be unable to inspire others to change if they are not adaptable to begin with. “Mission” entails having a long term sense of what direction the organization will follow. This acts as a guide towards realizing the goals of the company. Leadership highly depends on mission as a component of culture because leaders require a vision that they must steer towards. If the rest of the company appears not to know what this is or are not committed to it, then it will be quite challenging to influence individuals to achieve organizational goals. Consistency in the Denison model relates to values that make up a strong culture while involvement is the extent of ownership of the system. Highly involved cultures allow employees to use voluntary and informal methods to get work done. These employees are highly autonomous and take responsibility for what they do. On the other hand, a culture that is consistent often has people who rely on their core values in order to govern themselves (Van den Steen, 2010). Therefore, involvement and consistency affect leadership by determining the extent to which leaders can empower followers. If the above characteristics are present, leaders may have a sense of identity to use in order influence others. The predominant leadership style in the hospital Ray Hospital had a transactional leadership style. Leaders in the organization were not concerned about the nurse’s emotional needs. They largely focused on the use of rewards or benefits in order to achieve their objective. These rewards were not individualized to workers’ needs. What mattered most to the leaders of the organization was that work got done. Furthermore, most senior managers were rarely proactive in dealing with challenges within the institution. They often appeared when problems arose or during a crisis. It was rare for them to solicit ideas from subordinates or follow-through on normal progress. The above characteristics could have emanated from the organizational culture in the company. Structures were deeply engrained, but nurses did not have social systems to refer to during work. They lacked an identity as members of the organization. Most of them felt like cogs in a machine as their importance was reduced to how well they managed their shifts. As a result, these individuals did not have a highly involved or consistent culture. Nurses lacked norms which they could use in order to make sense of their behavior. This inability to commit to something bigger than them affected their leaders. In absence of social systems, most senior leaders relied on structure as their source of stability. They were highly influenced by the organizational culture, which was production-centered. Quality and Safety Quality and safety are key priorities in a hospital environment. A healthcare professional has an ethical imperative not to harm their patients. Prevention of infections places a direct benefit on patient’s healthcare as well as nurses’ well being. It is for this reason that the use of protective equipment is adhered to. Healthcare professionals ought to maintain proper hygiene, protect patients and themselves against injuries or injection and also have systems for reporting, mitigating and reporting these risks (Stone et. al., 2009). Describe how this organization is responding the Quality and Patient Safety Movement Ray Hospital appears to be aware of these responsibilities. Most nurses already have training on aspects of quality. Additionally, a number of them seem to implement these protocols at work. A quality management system exists, and members of the team often carry out random quality checks within the institution. The safety culture is still affected by organizational culture since more emphasis is given to structural issues rather than human ones. Also, some departments seem to be more committed to patient safety than others. In the Intensive Care Unit as well as the surgical unit, a lot of concern is given to safety matters. However, this is not true for other departments that do not handle high-stake cases. For instance, in the radiography section, most of the equipments were not sterilized prior to use on other patients. Fatigue among nurses may also be taking a toll on the safety systems. Describe how Quality and Patient Safety initiatives have influenced or changed the organizational culture Proper quality and safety initiatives require an institution to focus on identification, prevention and the redesign of the system in order to avoid that failure again (Singer et. al., 2009). This implies that leaders must place reliability at the top of the list. The culture within the institution should also foster reliability. Since quality systems are already in place, leaders in the high-stakes departments have had to rethink their attitudes towards reliability. This has also affected employees who see the need for a holistic approach. However, such sentiments are yet to spread throughout the whole organization. Safety initiatives require several units to work together in meeting similar objectives. The structured, transactional nature of organizational culture has had to be neutralized in order to meet these goals. It is likely that if other departments adopt a similar stance, then the hospital will have a stronger group culture. References Denison, D. (2005). The Denison organizational culture model. Organizational Dynamics, 33(1), 98-109. Higgins, J., Mcallaster, . and Gilbert, J. (2006). Using cultural artifacts to change and perpetuate strategy. Journal of Change Management, 6(4), 397-415. Singer, S., Falwell, A., Gaba, D. Meterko, M., Rosen, A., Hartmann, C. and Barker, L. (2009). Identifying organizational cultures that promote safety. Healthcare Management Review, 34(4), 300-311. Stone, P., Hughes, R. and Dailey, M. (2009). Patient safety and quality: An evidence based handbook for nurses. Washington DC: National Academy Press. Van den Steen, E. (2010). On the origin of shared beliefs and corporate culture. Journal of Economics, 41(4), 617-648. Read More