Leadership Roles in Nursing - Essay Example

Leadership Theories in Nursing Chad Hauge Presentation College Leadership Roles in Nursing 2/20/14 Leadership Theories: Nursing Leadership integrates different thoughts and reflections in many contexts. Some of which may include followership, innovation and cleverness. By definition, leadership entails influencing other people into working enthusiastically and willingly in achieving joint goals (Roussel 2013). In addition, leadership involves employing interpersonal skills to encourage others to accomplish certain goals. Thus based on these definitions leadership involves affecting other people’ beliefs, feelings and behaviors. Moreover, for better understanding of the same a range of explanations tend to contribute to greater understanding of leadership. In relation to this essay, leadership has great influence in the field of nursing (Malloch 2013). Leadership in nursing remains unquestionable. It involves critical thinking, advocacy, and all that takes place in nursing practice. It plays a central role in lives of nurses affecting the entire health care organizations. Furthermore, nursing leaders expect credibility, courageousness, and inspiration in innovation and increasing nursing practices (Sullivan 2013). Nursing leadership therefore, is about being competent and engage practices of nurses to provide better care around the legal scope and boundaries of their ethics (Malloch 2013). In addition, leadership in nursing entails innovation and visionary administration from junior to senior nurse officials. Thus, these leaders should understand themselves to help nurses offer services safely, timely and easily to patients. From above arguments, leadership has both positive and negative impacts in nursing. Just to mention but a few, some of the positive impacts include provision of healthful work environment for nurses. There is also development of opportunities due to good leadership. Moreover, leadership in nursing tends to promote good practice environment and safe health facilities (Rigolosi 2013). Although nurses may tend to make judgments of their own to deliver patient’s care, they always operate within a given team framework of a hospital. Leadership that is well developed encourages nurses to prove quality care which enhances outcomes for patients Nursing leaders can also guide conversation for best interest in case there is rise in different opinions. Moreover, leadership provides integration opportunities like skills, which ensure that nursing remains responsive to individual’s requirements on daily basis. In spite of many advantages, leadership also has negative impacts in nursing. Some of which include; nurse managers who employ bad leadership skills like autocratic, allows no room for mass decision making thus hindering cooperation. Nevertheless, unsuccessful advocacy may also lead to ethical conflict among nurses. In addition, continuous distress enhances negative effects on nurses and their leaders. This in turn hinders performance of leaders and nurses in health care (Malloch 2013). Sullivan (2013) found that bad nursing leadership tends to deteriorate a nurse’s outcome leading to increased burnout and dissatisfaction of job. Moreover, it may also increase organizational expenses because of increased turnover. In addition, it may lead to rapid reduction in the quality of the patients’ care. Bad leadership may also lead to increase in workload and work speed in heath cares. Finally yet important, it mainly affects psychological, behavioral, and physiological being of nurses. These problems of overloading directly affect a person’s mental health. In relation to above arguments, a leader should try to employ various strategies to minimize conflict within a health care institution. He should be able to establish the speed of work, workload, and the deadlines of those respective works. Similarly, he should not set tight deadlines to ease the flow of work. This helps avoid restraining of other nurses. There exist different leadership styles and theories in nursing. These theories have helped nursing leaders to deal with health care cases and fellow nurses. Some of these styles employed in leadership are associated with patients’ outcomes, the leader, and the colleagues. In addition, the success level of a nurse leader dwells on the ability and skills he applies. Thus a portion these theories include participatory, transactional and transformational theories (Sullivan 2013). Based on the participatory theory decision-making becomes a fundamental issue. In other words, it can be termed as democratic since all nurses in an institution are involved in decision making. Through this theory, there are improved understanding of issues by nurses in a health care. Furthermore, nurses become more interested in various healthcare activities because of the decisions arrived at. In addition, it discourages competition while encouraging collaborations among health workers. On decision making social commitment increases and thus working towards joint goals. This enhances social ties between and among nurses increasing the commitment to the decision made (Rigolosi 2013). Participatory theory tries to explain nursing leadership in different styles. They include laissez-faire and democratic styles. Laissez-faire entails the nursing leader minimizing his contributions in decision-making. This style applies in the case where nurses are able and encouraged in making their own decision. In addition, it is also suitable where there is no need of central coordination. Democratic style on the other hand involves making other nurses contribute in decision making although the leader may have a final say to facilitate the consensus of other nurses. In addition, this style tends to appreciate nurses especially if they have experienced authoritarian decisions before with which they disagreed. In spite of its merits, democratic can pose problems where there are a wide range of ideas and there is no clear way of reaching a consensus. Nursing leaders who bases their leadership style on participatory theory try to build relationship with other health workers. Moreover, these leaders have charisma to pass on information on vision. Moreover, they also have confidence to act which encourages the subordinates. In addition, they also help others do things they were not able to do through encouragements. Thus in this theory workers are given responsibility and feedback in relation to their performance. From this theory when managers ask for opinions and then ignore them later, it can lead to sham on participative leadership. Feelings of betrayal and cynicism may arise following the management (Sullivan 2013). Therefore, a participatory leader seeks to involve other nurses and superiors in decision making rather than being autocratic. Thus, democratic style becomes the perfect participatory theory in nursing leadership. Participatory approach can also be termed as leadership of empowerment and power sharing (Malloch 2013). Transactional leadership theory on the other hand explains that nurses are motivated through awards and punishments. Moreover, interaction among nurses works best in relation to the chain of command. Based on this theory when nurses have a consensus of doing a job, part of agreement here is that all the control is to the leader. In addition, the main agenda of nurses is to do with what their leader tells them to do. Most importantly therefore, in transactional style, nurse leaders create clear structures. These include work and reward structures. Disciple in this situation becomes paramount and punishments are applicable where necessary to any nurses. In addition, nursing leaders here often apply management by exception. This means there is no attention needed on something operating as expected. Thus if nurses operate as expected, they do not need supervision. Thus, transactional leadership concentrates on management as the product of scale (Roussel 2013). Based on this theory, leadership depends on rewards and punishments based on are the principle of rational thinking. On allocation of job to a nurse in relation to this theory, they are to carry them out as required due to the clarity of various existing structures. Thus, nursing leaders involve other nurses in reciprocal activity of changing thing. In other words, this theory closely relates to participatory theory since it is also dynamic (Sullivan 2013). Lastly, on leadership theories and styles is the transformational leadership. Although it is almost similar to participatory theory, it also has its distinctive characteristics. The base of this theory is building relationship while encouraging fellow nurses via shared missions and visions. The leaders using transformational theory have charisma to pass on information on vision and the way to inspire other nurses. They inform others of their importance and even help them do thing they were not sure they could do. In addition, the way of doing things is by putting enthusiasm and human strength. Transformational theory through development of a vision helps a nurse leader to enhance trust and cooperation between and among his fellow nurses. Thus, this vision should focus on personal integrity as this also promotes competence and trust among members. Based on this theory, nursing leaders guide other along the course of duties. This may be through exploring the path together and following it among others. In relation to transformational theory, nursing leaders are always visible. Their actions and attitudes define their behaviors. Moreover they motivate and make efforts to rally their fellow nurses through constant energizing, listening to others. Transformational leaders tend to keep the working continuous through their unswerving commitment. In addition, they balance their attention between what creates forward movement and mental state of other nurses. These leaders never hide behind the troops but rather stand up for counting. A nursing leader with both passion and vision can become very successful based on assumptions of (Sullivan 2013). From above theories, participatory theory becomes more suitable since it makes health workers feel their presence in the progress of an organization. They feel heard and their views considered as well. This enhances cooperation between and among health worker in achieving a joint goal. A nurse leader is an example to others and therefore he can influence others positively or negatively. In addition, to achieve high quality professional practice and help nurses feel safe, subordinates should be valued and respected. It helps them have the sense of caring among other health ethics to patients. In relation to this, nurses are also able to collaborate with others to minimize harm and communicate the dangers to their leaders freely. Moreover, success also comes about through combined effort between a person and his teammates (Roussel 2013). Leadership exists as a continuum that continues to evolve in the field of nursing. Therefore, leaders using participatory style are able to understand the needs of generation of nurses as they venture into this field. Nursing leaders should also try to create and maintain every kind of practice for the benefit of other receiving the health services. Every nurse leader should try to achieve succession planning. In spite of all these nursing leaders must try to attract new ideas and new energies into their leadership fields. This increases their experiences in relation to leadership thus giving them a strong base in the field of nursing (Rigolosi 2013). Most importantly nursing staff achieve maximum output when they operate as a team. In addition, nursing leaders who fail to attain the concept of teamwork result from ego and temperament. This relates to autocratic leaders who may often try to perform all tasks, yet not doing them as expected. These leaders may then withdraw from teamwork. Therefore as a team, every person has a role to play in the health care. In participatory theory, a nurse leader helps others grasp the overview of expectations by continually guiding the team on the way forward (Malloch 2013). Leaders are always the gatekeepers of an organization. They earn respect and trust from their fellow nurses through interactional justice. Similarly, this results to high quality relationships between the leaders and other nurses. This in turn enhances performance of a given health care. In addition, job control is very important as it promotes the well-being of a person. Thus, the current shortage internationally has enhanced research that have raised clarion in search of nursing leadership in health care places (Sullivan 2013).Nursing leadership tends to experience many challenges in the present days. Some of the challenges include financial problems, cultural diversity, and the changing technology. Based on these, leadership should not be seen as functional role for nurses. In addition, leadership must exist in every health facility for easy operation and direction of members. Furthermore, nurses acquire less education in relation to nursing leadership during their classes. The gap between demand for healthcare setting and proper education can lead to poor leadership in nursing (Roussel 2013). Nurses must try to appreciate their role to the public as this helps them influence, guide, and lead patients on their roles to the society. In addition, they should try to reach out to various questions posted by patients. Similarly, the interconnection among nurse leadership and the public becomes clear due to clear and defined roles. Therefore stressing on relationship skills as the most important leadership skill implies that development of leadership should include this element. Thus in order to develop effective and strong departments in nursing leadership, one must appreciate the importance of each member of staff. Due to the looming shortage of leaders in nursing, all healthcare professionals should employ strategies in order to maintain effective leadership. Providing of quality healthcare to patients result from through promoting and developing appropriate leadership for the future (Malloch 2013). In conclusion, effective leadership in nursing remains unquestionable. Leadership is not only an element of management but also in health care practices. Similarly, achievement of good nursing leadership should start at elementary stages of learning. In addition, the role of nurse education and training enhances leadership in nursing. Furthermore, a nurse leader should have vision and attitude to help create team players. Through vision, they should work together in achieving a goal. This makes sure of choosing right nurses, their roles, and the expected behaviors. In addition, through attitude, one is able to determine the kind of attitude members have in relation to the big picture. References Sullivan E. J. (2013).Effective Leadership and Management in Nursing. Pearson publishing Porter-OGrady, T., &Malloch, K. (2013).Leadership in nursing practice: Changing the landscape of healthcare. Burlington, Mass: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Rigolosi, E. L. M. (2013). Management and leadership in nursing and health care: An experiential approach. New York: Springer. Roussel, L. (2013). Management and leadership for nurse administrators. 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