Delegating Authority in a Medical Environment: A Literature Review - Assignment Example

Delegating authority in a medical environment: A literature review. Introduction: The spontaneous will to serve people, who are suffering and social benevolence are two essential virtues that are considered most important for those, who want to develop themselves in the profession of nursing. Historical documents, from the early dawn of human civilization establish truth behind such observation. Social scientists and theorists, working on ethical principles of this profession, after analyzing philosophy behind development of this profession, have reflected that moral good and moral obligations are two integral features that act as core foundation to seek success in this profession. These theorists and social scientists have opined unanimously that nursing is primarily about promoting health care address problem of the sufferers, in the modern context, another dimension has been added to the profession as it has been attempted to ensure that “clients receive quality care in minimal time with maximum efficiency” (Timby, 2008, p. 16). Change in social structure, though has introduced several alternations in the ideological backdrop of this profession but these core principles have remained unchanged. However, changes in socio-cultural and economic structures also introduced several transformations in the life of common people and their perception regarding different aspects of life at the same time. Nursing as a profession, not only remained saturated within the boundaries of ideological reflections only but changed perception of common people regarding professions related to medical field also casted considerable impact over nursing that practitioners of the profession were gradually becoming bound to think beyond realms of limited ideological perceptions. Whereas, on one hand, several modes of practices and training of interested people were introduced so that problem of the patients can be addressed accordingly the issue of leadership and delegation of power also became equally important. The modern organizational structure and theories clearly provide a great deal of importance on leadership and the person, who is considered as a leader, whether leading a production management team or a healthcare unit, is required to analyze needs of his subordinates and motivate them in such a way so that irrespective of various forms of personal as well as professional problems, aspects related to organizational goals, client satisfaction and standard of the quality of services provided are maintained to the best level possible. In this context, in needs mentioning that though a leader is provided with complete power to take decisions and exaggerate his power during any kind of requirement, however, if he holds all power to himself and without delegating those powers, with his complete authority, tries to govern the team members, such activism often leads to the development of an autocratic perception among subordinates. At the same time, holding all powers by oneself often might not lead to proper functioning of all the divisions. Thus, in order to harmonize the entire process of team function it is important that the leader caters some of the power among his subordinates so that a proper balance can be maintained. The team members will also feel that they also have important contributions to make and consequently, will feel motivated to perform their respective jobs accordingly. Leadership: In Business and the connection with Nursing Compared to earlier times, conventional ideas regarding manager and leadership have undergone a great deal of change. Earlier people used to widely consider leadership and managerial both are such qualities that cannot be inculcated; rather a particular section of people inherit those qualities. Aftermath, for a considerable period of time, common people and business world was almost biased about the fact that good leaders and managers cannot be produced. However, during the post globalization period there was a drastic change in such conventional thought patter and the long apprehended conception “managers are born and not made” encountered drastic transformation. Compared to earlier times, random expansion of business environment generated the necessity for increasing number of managers so that both inter and intra organizational affairs can properly be handled. Thus, the organizations provided considerable importance on the fact to inculcate leadership qualities among individuals; rather than waiting for the right kind of person to take the charge. Starting from educational to practical training, considerable importance was provided on developing leadership qualities among aspirants, who wish to advance in the professional field of business and organizational affairs. Leadership, in the modern business world, is considered as one of the most important virtues, which is directly and integrally associated with growth of a company. Business thinkers, economists and business theorists in recent times have provided so much importance to the leadership factor that various theories, definitions and angles of judgment have originated. Leadership is such a virtue that encompasses within its macrocosmic scope different types of human virtues. Analysis of the modern business scenario shows that career interest in the field of business management has increased to a great extent among most of the new generation students across the world. In the United Kingdom, among students at the undergraduate level, the tendency of studying MBA has enhanced to such extent that, while in the earlier half of 1970s most of the UK college and universities were offering only four types of courses, the number has today reached to more than seventy types, “Official figures for the UK showed that in the late 2003 18 percent of all men and 10 percent of all women were managers, senior officials, professionals, or associated professionals or technical stuffs” (Delbridge, Gratton and Johnson, 2006, p. 5). Not only in UK, but among most of the economically matured nations, as well as nations that are showing the power to emerge as economic power in future, the same tendency has become explicit. At the same time, it is also widely considered that managerial positions are actually the most fitting roles, where an individual can express his complete capacity of leadership. Young aspirants for managerial roles are keen to be selected either as project manager or executive manager in a business firm as they will have the scope and proper opportunity to exercise their leadership qualities, explore their talents and lead the firm to prosperity. Definition of leadership is not an easy subject. There are many things that have to be taken into consideration if someone tries to comprehend the actual structure of leadership. The pattern of leadership varies from person to person and, moreover, this pattern becomes clear when a leader passes through problematic situations. It is his/her moves, which define the pattern of leadership. The pattern also decides the direction in which the organization will be moving. And, obviously, the matter of success is entirely based on it (Northouse, 2006). Leadership is a topic, which may be found discussed in books, journals and other places where the critics talk about it but, actually, it is a matter of practical experience. Popularity of leadership as a topic has mainly been caused by the development of some major companies in the world under some valuable leadership. Literature is a field where leadership has always been praised. It is considered as a great human activity in this field. In this article my point is to judge leadership in a business oriented field. Management is quite clearly related to leadership from this point of view. But there are some differences between these two and sometimes there is also a conflict between them. Many of us have a wrong conception of what leadership is. That is why making big assertions about it goes completely in the wrong direction when a person is even not aware of what his topic is. Executive manager is a position of any company, which is wrongly taken to be the post of a leader of the organization. Leadership never means any designation. Hierarchy in designation is just a way to exercise the leadership authority. It can be seen in anyone starting from a manager to a labor. Vision is the main thing, which establishes a leader, and with this ability he/she can guide the others in the organization (MacNamara, 2008). Very simply a leader can be defined as a person, who can influence the others, present in an organization. Everyone has his/her own opinions but the leader is the person who decides the final step. This privilege is given to him/her as the person has proved the success earlier. A leader, not only, would focus over his personal progress but also he will be equally careful about progress of other people in the organization. Empowered with his farsightedness and visionary capacity, he would take certain steps that will lead each people, associated with an organization, towards prosperity. If a leader is only creating pressure over employees for achieving the organizational goal of the organization, without understanding their problems then such approach generates a distance between the leader and employees. Under such circumstances it becomes even more challenging for the leader to motivate the employees. An individual in a business organization is considered to be a leader only when he empathizes with the employees and at the same time, through such approaches, successfully churns out the best results out of the employees and substantially add to the overall development of the company. Gerhard Zapke-Schauer says in his book The Art of Leadership that any person should ever respect errors. It is the error from where we are able to learn. An organization, which avoids its errors, can never reach the exact state of perfection. With every innovative idea comes the risk factor and chance of committing error. Now, the leader is the person for any organization to take the decision whether to go into further risks or not. Wisdom and foresight of the leader are therefore two main features without which a company’s growth stagnates. It is also the responsibility of the leader to look that no one has to suffer for his/her own mistakes. Mistakes are something from which the leader can judge whether to trade the same path again in future or not (Zapke-Schauer, 2005). One has to remember that corporate culture itself is very demanding and all kinds of innovations are in fact encouraged there a lot. Ambition is the main part of the corporate life. This is why a leader, be him/her in any designation of the company, has to take risks for the innovations. The leader should calculate risks. He/she should look after that the innovative decision does not call the end for the company. As far as management of a business firm is concerned, supervising and organizing are the main characteristics of the leadership in an ideal manager. He/she should also motivate others for the development of group performance. In the modern context, both in the field of business development and healthcare, two forms of leadership are receiving highest importance, namely shared team leadership and flexible leadership. Scholars like Conger and Pearce are of opinion that shared team leadership is “dynamic, interactive influence process among individuals in work groups in which the objective is to lead one another to achievement of group goals” (Klein et. at., 2006, p. 7). In case of flexible leadership, a leader needs to be “flexible, responsive and adaptive” and in this context social intelligence of leaders is of great help (Klein et. at., 2006, p. 8). In case of catering the benefits of such leadership while working in the medicine and healthcare sector, task of a leader becomes really challenging as on one hand he needs to take care of the entire system of operation and on the other hand the problems of subordinates also need to be addressed equally so that proper functioning the entire system is maintained. Thus, the importance of training the healthcare employees as well as their managers becomes an issue of great importance. A recent survey over knowledge and skills of healthcare employees has clearly pointed out that in UK, 35% of the total number of healthcare workers are incapable of performing the required functions properly. At the same time, it also has identified that managers also have failed to find solutions to problems associated with leadership and delegation of their powers (Moseley, Davies and Evans, 2007). Keeping results of such findings in mind, it is important that need for proper training both for healthcare managers and employees is executed to establish the future of nursing on a stronger foundation. Nursing: The Future Prospects The aspect of social constructionism and power politics plays an important part in the context of understanding sociology from the perspective of health and medicine. Such relevance has become more conspicuous during the 1980s and even in the early dawn of the 21sty century, it has remained quite an important source for realizing different layers of power politics in the postmodern social context. The conventional approach regarding knowledge asserts that knowledge is basically universal in nature and an independent reality, which remains unaffected due to the changes at apparent levels of society. Introduction of postmodernist and post stucturalist observation has questioned the very nature of knowledge and projected it as an important element that constructs reality and nature of such reality varies from different persons as perception and analysis of knowledge varies from person to person. Now, if an attempt is made to judge the entire scenario from the perspective of a physician or a professional, associated with nursing, we see that responsibility of a doctor ends with prescribing medicines to the sick and providing him with proper diagnostic approaches so that the person is cured from sickness. On the other hand, an individual in the field of nursing is responsible for monitoring the condition of the patient, his moral requirements from the service and catering him with that kind of facilities so that those lead him to his cure in terms of both physical and psychological condition of being sick. Thus, it understanding the form of communication or apprehending the language of the organs becomes essentially important for a nurse. At the same time it also becomes evident that having mere knowledge of nursing or empathy for condition of the patient is not sufficient to attain this objective. These aspects must also receive an adequate support from the professional’s overall understanding about society and radically changing scenario regarding existence in the contemporary world. Attaining this level of understanding is not possible unless a nursing professional receives proper support from educational background. In this context relevance of an all graduate profession becomes important, as the candidate from this background would not only have a considerable understanding about changing realties in the modern world but the flexibility to adopt with changing nature of existence accompanied by her empathy for the patient would churn out the best method of treatment. Such innovative method of treatment, quite contrary to stereotypical method would finally result in empowerment of professionals, associated with nursing. The feminist perspective of modern healthcare system points out mainly at two limitations, first, the medical profession is male dominated and second, prevailing patriarchal observation does not properly address problem of women patients and in case the female patients are in need of special care, they often are treated same as that of their male counterparts. The traditional social structure provided sufficient scope for women to establish themselves in the “role of healer” but with gradual development, such process of taking care of patients took a professional turn and male counterparts received an upper hand over women in controlling their actions in this field. Despite efforts of legendary figures like Florence Nightingale, the aspect of male authority in the arena of health care services cannot be denied. The Midwives Act, 1902 is a bright example in this context. This Act was implemented in order to control the continuous battle between midwives and male doctors regarding control of childbirth. Implementation of the Act clearly provided further rights to male doctors for controlling childbirth, while role of midwives were restricted. In the same manner, in latter half of the 19th century, despite nurses received a great deal of professional recognition, compared to the earlier times, but execution of their role in the professional field remained in the hands of doctors. Several scholars in the field of medical profession have expressed their concern regarding the fact that such undisputed male supremacy in the field of catering medical care can put the aspect of health care for women at risk. Numerous such evidences can be witnessed since the Victorian era as on several occasions care to health problems of women have been provided by male doctors in the form of amputation of women’s sexual or reproductive parts. The main reason behind happening of such unfortunate incidents is that conventional outlook of the male dominated society towards their female counterparts. The traits of such discrimination are equally conspicuous in case of leading the nursing employees. Besides the problem of communication, gender differences, and lack of efficiency a nurse as a leader also faces the problem of being ignored deliberately. Under such circumstances, it is required that the leader demands support from his subordinates with exemplary tasks and showing his supremacy in fulfilling the assignments that have been prescribed to him or by showing promptness of mind so solve issues that appear to be quite complicated. In case of male leaders of nursing main issues of problem generally do not extend to any further. However, if a female nurse is provided with the role of a leader, problems for her become even more complicated. Apart from encountering the same problems that a male nurse leader would have encountered, she also faces issues related to gender discrimination and male supremacy in the profession. There are ample such evidences that males working under a female nurse often have refused to follow her directions or deliberately create obstacles so that fulfillment of the assigned tasks is prevented. While modern healthcare service, as it has been mentioned in the introductory part of the paper that, requires satisfactory level of service to patients within a limited scope of time, and most of the healthcare employees are incapable to cater such with range of service, evident from the research findings, challenge for a female nurse leader to manage her task becomes highly complicated due to fusion of all these aspects. In order to solve up the problems, a nurse leader can take help of the administration to compel her subordinates under her authority but most of the time such approach does not prove to be effective as hostility of fellow workers increases against that individual. Thus, to develop a cordial and friendly relationship with subordinates is an effective way for the leader. Application of social intelligence, interpersonal behavior and benevolent approach to sort out problems of subordinates and helping them to find job satisfaction are important ways by which a female nurse leader can decrease the rate of recurrence of such problems to a considerable extent. Conclusion: Despite the fact that nursing and healthcare sector is one of the most promising business providing domains in the modern social standards, however, unless a proper planning can be implemented to solve the issues regarding training the nurses and the issues of proper leadership associated with proper functioning of the entire division, it will not claim adequate trust or dependence from patients. Having only the will the serve the suffering does not solve the entire problem or cannot provide the patients will adequate expert level of services. In order to ensure such goals, on one hand, it is needed that he employees are ready to perform their duties properly and there should not be any kind of hesitation or inefficiency or negligence. On the other, the leaders of managers should also be efficient enough so that they can immediately identify and understand the issues of dispute, address those with both from professional, interpersonal or social intelligence perspective. By asserting a greater hold over the power that has been provided to them or by delegating their power among fellow workers or by interacting with them personally, by making an attempt to realize and motivate people they can solve up the issues that are preventing an healthcare organization to address its respective goal. ` References ..Johnson, G., Gratton, L. and Delbridge, R. (2006). The Exceptional Manager: Making the Difference. Oxford: Oxford University Press Klein, et. at. (2006). Dynamic Delegation: Shared, Hierarchical, and Deinvidualized Leadership in Extreme Action Teams.” Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania. 1-50. McNamara, P. and D. Trumbull. 2008. An Evolutionary Psychology of Leader-Follower Relations. New York: Nova Publishers. Moseley LG, Davies M, Evans LE. (2007). “The training needs of health care support workers: results of a study of workers and their managers.” Pontypridd: University of Glamorgan. 16(12):2280-6. Northouse, P.G. (2006), Leadership: Theory and Practice. London: Sage. Timby, B.K. 2008. Fundamental Nursing Skills and Concepts. (9th Ed.). Pennsylvania: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Zapke-Schauer, G. 2005. The Art of Leadership: Ideas and Inspiration for Effective Leadership. Wiesbaden: Gabler Verlag. Read More