Leadership Style Because of Evolving Leadership Role - Essay Example

? Nurse Leader Interview Describing Leadership Style A true leader is one who values the contribution of every member of their team to various aspects of the organization irrespective of his or her academic achievement and work experience. The leader understands that an organization cannot operate in isolation as it requires everyone’s participation. The leader ensures that everyone expresses his/her ideas, thoughts, suggestions and opinions about the current state of affairs and the way activities should take place in the future. Being honest and fair to everyone, besides sharing information with everyone and operating an open door policy, should dominate the character traits of an effective leader. The leader should go deep to ensure that they have personal contact with their employees through either face-to-face meetings or phone calls to clarify issues or seek for suggestions. In case of a problem, the leader encourages everyone to listen and learn from one another in order to build cohesion and interactivity at the workplace. A good leader does not perceive one’s position as a status but, instead, a responsibility; the leader also understands that assigned authority means that the buck stops with them. For this reason, they bear the ultimate responsibility of making the final decision. Changes in Leadership Style Because of Evolving Leadership Role From my understanding, leadership is dynamic and nursing leaders find themselves adopting new leadership styles depending on situations. Long-term experience in leadership and circumstances opens nurse leaders to new leadership roles that make them adopt new styles of leadership. For instance, I have made tremendous changes in my leadership style over the recent years with a notable change being adoption of facilitative and transformational leadership traits. This change has been propagated by the new demands of the medical system, which requires nurse leaders to participate in strategic decision-making and facilitate growth and development in healthcare provision. There is no doubt that our healthcare system has been facing several challenges over a long period. However, there is a sigh of relief, as the system seems to be undoing a transformation process considering the newly enacted laws in the recent past that seek to fill in the existing gaps in the system. The Congress has been steadfast to address key concerns about the ever-escalating costs and variable quality that have dogged our system for a considerably long time. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is one of such incredible roles played by the Congress to address major healthcare system challenges of the 21st century (Nordal, 2011). This law in real sense cannot just be seen as a big thing in the healthcare industry – it must be valued for being transformative. This law, among other things happening in the healthcare industry, both good and bad ones, is a clear manifestation that leadership in healthcare is not just about performing a job, but all about bringing difference. This means that nurse leadership will be about not only motivating, guiding and directing teams but also facilitating change and progress. The evolving role of healthcare leaders demands that they become part of the solution to the diverse challenges the healthcare system is facing nationally and at a professional level (Nordal, 2011). In other words, leaders should be adopting facilitative and transformational leadership traits as the healthcare industry is undergoing a transformation process characterized by standardized quality and increased access for all citizens. New recruits need to be integrated into the strategic objectives of the organization to ensure that they share the same vision with the existing veterans who already understand the facility’s strategic direction. Because I understood my new roles of leading my team into the vision of the medical system, I had to start by thinking about improvements and development as it is a great requirement for a transactional leader. I had to start by inspiring people towards the healthcare industry shared vision of the future by setting clear goals and ensuring that all the followers were motivated enough to meet these set objectives. I understood the need for constant communication with the team members to ensure that they are up-to-date with the organization progress besides ensuring facilitating effective delivery of routine task. It is unfortunate that facilitative leadership is not widely practiced in the healthcare industry currently, but it will become more prevalent in the future as team members will require closer support (Landry, 2010). My roles as a facilitator include but are not limited to ensuring understanding of goals, coaching, providing resources, encouraging, teaching, measuring as well as issuing objective feedback. It is plausible that our healthcare system is transcending beyond the paper based system to an automated one whereby the entire operations of medical facilities are being integrated on an electronic platform (Nordal, 2011). This translates to new leadership roles, especially those of encouraging acceptance of change from the paper based system to an automated one. Leaders must be resolute in assisting workers in adapt to using new IT technologies to discharge their tasks and improve productivity. Challenges Faced by a Leader in Today’s Health Care Systems There is no doubt that nurse leaders are under intense pressure more than before to arrest the recurring challenges that come with the dynamic and constantly changing healthcare environment. The healthcare industry is becoming complex from time to time owing to numerous challenges it is facing, which range from technological advancements and new standards of care, growing population and changing demographics, dealing with reimbursement issues and new payment models, economic struggles and government regulations, to improving patient safety. These challenges are creating pressure on nurse leaders in various facilities considering that they are expected to be part of the solution to these challenges, some of which are not enshrined in their training programs. This is a new era for leadership not only to the emerging but also to the existing nurse leaders across the country as their influence in the entire organization is becoming much recognized and pertinent. Key among the challenges faced by the nurse leaders in today’s healthcare system are shifting roles, development of new systems of care, patient flow and waiting times, and transition into practice for new-to-practice nurses. The first major challenge that I have faced as a nurse leader in today’s healthcare system is the shifting roles. The intense pressure on healthcare providers to reduce operating cost while at the same time increasing margins is creating new roles for nurse leaders. According to Douglas (2013), the current system has forced nurse leaders to prioritize more than ever before the need to understand and respond to the business issues relating to the medical facility. This is a major challenge considering the fact that nurses do not have specialized training on business concerns of medical facilities. As a nurse leader, I have an integral role to play in addressing the diverse healthcare challenges considering that it is no longer the role of managers to address business concern of the medical facility in isolation as it was in the past. The changing roles expect that nurse leaders should strive to ensure that medical facilities achieve quality and safe patient outcomes at reasonable cost. This is because most financial technocrats do not seem to get a glimpse of the most appropriate formula for financial survival in this turbulent healthcare environment. Another major challenge faced by nurse leaders today involves rapid development of new systems of care. Nordal (2011) asserts that a patient-centered medical home and integrated service delivery are some of the changes in the delivery system. The rate at which new healthcare delivery systems are being proposed and developed is alarming. This is a major challenge because nurse leaders must ensure that they acquire the right skills and knowledge at the pace with which the stakeholders introduce new systems owing to the ever-changing healthcare environment (Douglas, 2013). The constant healthcare reforms through proposed legislation is putting a lot of pressure on nurse leaders to adopt different behaviors from time to time in order to ensure that they achieve not only personal but also organizational future success. Nurse leaders are facing a tough task of successful transition into practice for new-to-practice nurses in this volatile healthcare environment. The present-day healthcare landscape is an unstable and tough terrain because it keeps on presenting new challenges and opportunities to the nurses. It does not give adequate time to prepare effective structures that would facilitate successful transition into practice for new-to-practice nurses, thus posing a big challenge to the nurse leader as we are solely charged with the responsibility of cultivating staff nurse development and retention. The Effect of Formal and Informal Power in Organization Whenever people start talking about power and authority in the healthcare industry, the fate of nurses often emerges with respect to nursing and execution of various nursing functions. For a number of years the physicians as well as other professionals with high organizational control have failed to understand the professional place of nurse regarding advocacy of patient care (Paynton, 2008). For instance, physicians have always had a feeling of exerting authority over healthcare providers, especially nurses. This is not the case in my organization as there is intense advocacy of greater collaboration among healthcare professionals with the sole objective of improving patient care. Nurses, just like other healthcare professionals, have been recognized and their powers to influence patient care validated despite the numerous hierarchical constraints placed by positions. This is a clear indication that formal and informal powers in my organization have been significantly utilized for implementation of effective patient care. The impact of formal and informal power is tremendous in my organization, as both have been used effectively in achieving critical organizational objectives. The organization recognizes significant influence of skilled and experienced nurse leaders on their subjects and overall patient’s care and for this reason they occasionally make significant decisions even without direct authority from physicians regarding patient care. References Douglas, C. (2013). Talent management, the next frontier: Retaining, nurturing, and growing our workforce. Nurse Leaders, 11(2), 23-25. Landry, C. (2010). Clinical nurse leadership and performance improvement on surgical unit. Journal of Nursing. Retrieved April 15, 2013 from http://rnjournal.com/journal-of-nursing/clinical-nurse-leadership-and-performance-improvement-on-surgical-unit. Nordal, K. (2011). Leadership in an evolving health care system. Retrieved April 15, 2013 from: http://www.apapracticecentral.org/update/2011/03-31/evolving-health.aspx. Paynton, T. (2008). The Informal Power of Nurses for Promoting Patient Care. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 14 (1). Read More