Leadership Styles In Professional Nursing - Research Paper Example

?Leadership Styles in Professional Nursing Introduction The nursing profession is one of the most sensitive professions and industries the world over. The nursing profession is described as sensitive because is concerns the lives of the citizenry. Though almost every profession can root its importance to the lives of humanity, nursing is actually about saving lives by promoting healthy living. It is for this reason that it is important that all factors need to be put in place to ensure professional practices and principles in the industry are upheld. One of the most important principles and practices that need not to be tampered with in the nursing profession happens to be leadership. Ward (2011) argues that “a simple definition of leadership is that leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal.” From this definition, we immediately see how important leadership is to any professional setup, including the nursing profession. This point is built around the fact that leadership as a principle and practice helps in the realization of the goals and ambitions of any professional setup. This means that with a very good leadership in place in the nursing profession, the all important goal of saving lives by promoting healthy living will be achieved. To achieve good leadership however, a lot more depends on the kind of leadership style that is in use as leadership is conducted in many different styles. Review of Professional Nursing Literature This component of the essay seeks to achieve two major aims. Firstly, it is to describe two different leadership styles in the nursing profession and also discuss how these two nursing leadership styles can be implemented in a professional nursing practice. In the first place, Rampur (2011) identifies two major leadership styles in the nursing profession. According to him, these leadership styles are democratic and autocratic leadership styles. Earlier in his submission, Rampur (2011) elucidates that leaders in the nursing profession are mostly seen to be either nurse managers who are “assigned the obligation of handling one unit” or nurse executives who are “responsible for the operations of all in-patient nursing units.” Under whatever portfolio a nurse might be in a leadership position, the leadership styles mentioned earlier happen to reign at one point in time or the other. On the whole, the type of leadership style that implemented should depend on a specific situation rather than adopting one of the two as a routine leadership style (Cummings, 2010). With the democratic leadership style, the nurse leader “engages his nurses in decision-making and let them carry out their work in an independent manner (Rampur, 2011).” In the autocratic nursing leadership however, the nurse leader “would provide instructions without looking for inputs and superintend his nurses in a close manner (Rampur, 2011).” Simply put, democratic leadership allows for group participation, discussion and contribution as far as decision making is concerned but with autocratic leadership style, subordinates always have to take instructions from the leaders. Without passing outright judgment on the either types of nursing leadership styles as to which is right and which is wrong, it is worth noting that there are different ways and at different points in time that the various leadership styles are brought to work. As a matter of fact, the issue of whether a particular leadership style is right or wrong would come in if the right leadership style is implemented at the wrong time and vice versa. In implementing any of the leadership styles, it is important that leaders put into consideration the “health authority structures, inter-professional teamwork and conflict, the actions and decisions of senior administrators and government officials, changing public demographics and consumer expectations of the healthcare system, and the implementation of new knowledge, evidence and innovation” (Cummings, 2010) that are being sought to the achieved. Most commonly democratic leadership style is implemented by assigning roles to subordinates and allowing subordinates to bring on board their own ideas, views and decision on issues that concern the day-to-day running of the nursing setup. Under democratic leadership, subordinates are actually seen as partners in leadership and decision making rather than juniors who take ready-made instructions. In the implementation of democratic leadership however, it is important that leaders become confident of the level of trust they can build in their subordinates. This is because if decision making roles are assigned to subordinates who cannot be trusted on their competence, it is likely that they will fail their leaders. Concerning autocratic leadership, this kind of leadership style is implemented by presenting to subordinates ready-made decisions and instructions. Under this circumstance, subordinates are not seen as partners in leadership but as juniors who would only implement instructions. Autocratic leadership is best practiced in instances of high level decision making and when dealing new nurses, whose professional competence cannot be trusted. Application of Clinical Example This part of the essay presents the writer with the opportunity to bring up practical applications of the clinical examples involving the leadership styles discussed. It would also bring to light how the leadership styles could be made to enhance or diminish professional nursing practice. With democratic leadership style, a very simple and practical example can be set in the assignment of roles in at the health facility and in the preparation of duty roasters. Clearly, these two tasks and decision making processes are ‘light-weight’ and can be trusted on nurses who are lower in rank instead of being left in the exclusive hands of the senior executive or manager. In the assignment of daily roles at the health facility, the senior nursing officer can assemble all junior nurses and solicit their views on who would best fit for which duties at the health facility. This way, sub-leaders can be created among the junior nurses depending on experience, competence and commitment. In the assignment of such sub-leadership roles, Valentine (2007) observes that attention needs to be given to new nurses. This because according to her, by entrusting roles and decision making in the hands of new nurses, we are invariably teaching and training them to be good leaders in the future. Indeed, by so doing, the senior nurse is actually playing another role of the leader that has to do with training subordinates to be good nurses and leaders in the profession. Because autocratic leadership style has been said to involve higher level decisions, in a typical nursing facility, decision on recruitment and replacement would best be handled through the autocratic leadership style. This way, the top managers and executives decide on the kind of applicants they want and the qualities and requirements they require from them. Leaders are also required to decide on the financing and conduct of the recruitment process. All that subordinates do in this context would be to take instructions from leaders on what exactly the leaders want them to do to help realize the aim of recruitment and replacement. Generally, democratic leadership can enhance professional nursing practice by promoting ‘all-hands-on-deck’ participation attitude among junior nurses. It however diminishes the total competence of the ultimate leader in some sense as it is possible that good performers among subordinates who are assigned roles can overshadow the competence of the senior leader. With regards to the autocratic leadership style, it enhances the establishment of authority at the nursing facility since it presents the leader as superior entity among the junior staff. It however diminishes training of junior nursing officers and secedes their potential from their practice. Conclusion To conclude, it is worth mentioning that leadership styles may vary but it is important that leaders become mindful of which leadership style they bring to bare at what time. Leaders who want to be stacked to only one leadership style will be promoting the disadvantages of that particular leadership style most of the time. If there is diversity however, it is possible to lead only on the advantages of the two nursing leadership styles because there will be constant swapping of the leadership styles and the best leadership style would be used only as and when it is seen as the most appropriate for the occasion. . REFERENCE LIST Azaare J. and Gross J, The Nature of Leadership style in professional Nursing Management. British Journal of Nursing July 14, 2011 Cummings G. (2010). New Knowledge and Evidence for Better Leadership. Nursing Leadership, 23(3) 2010: 18-20. Available on http://www.longwoods.com/content/21938 Rampur S. (2011). Leadership Styles in Nursing. Retrieved on July 30, 2011 from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/leadership-styles-in-nursing.html Valentine S. O (2007). Nursing Leadership and the New Nurse. Retrieved July 31, 2011 from http://juns.nursing.arizona.edu/articles/Fall%202002/Valentine.htm Ward S. (2011). Leadership Definition. Retrieved on July 31, 2011 from http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/leadership/g/leadership.htm Read More