Effective Leadership and Management in Nursing - Essay Example

"Effective Leadership and Management in Nursing" is a worthy example of a paper on care.
Personally speaking, leadership is a process of helping others to develop their own unique talents and skills while also modeling behaviors that make others want to adopt these same values and principles. Leadership is about maintaining an ethical posture and then using psychological motivational tools to help others achieve a sense of self-confidence and affiliation so as to become the best they can be in professional, personal and social life. It is about getting others to follow direction not because of command and control tactics, but rather due to excellence in morals, principles, and positive energy.

Leadership differs from management in several distinct ways. Managers control others and ensure they are performing their job functions effectively as based on performance guidelines. It involves scheduling activities related to the job and then developing controls as a means to ensure the accomplishment of the objectives that have been identified by the manager. It is usually transactional in nature, meaning that it is contingent on performance where rewards or punishments are established for non-compliance. It is often “the degree to which a manager takes corrective action on the basis of results” (Judge & Piccolo, 2004, p.756).

Leaders, on the other hand, are more human relations-focused and deal with people development and support. It is usually transformational in the philosophy that focuses on bringing out the best qualities in others on the foundation of good works, team methodology, harmony, and charity (Bass & Steidlmeier, 1999). Leaders tend to develop goals and then attempt to gain shared values and undertakings in order to meet goals related to performance or job role. Leaders useless control tactics found in common management roles and instead ignite purpose, vision, help others to gain decision-making power and also motivate others to the best of their ability (Adams & Adams, 2009). A leader sees to it that it becomes their personal responsibility to align an organization to embrace change when it is necessary and serve as champions of change processes. Leaders convey growth in others by appealing to their emotional responses and encourage others to constantly improve their capabilities and sometimes even their own leadership capacity.

Because nursing requires a frontline representative of the health care organization that deals directly with patients, leadership takes on a different role as counselor and sometimes tutor related to the exchange of patient information. When a patient is experiencing a difficult illness, a leader is required to guide the patient toward healing through emotional intelligence and as an adviser to lessen the psychological impact of illness. A physician in the role of a manager who oversees the organization would not serve this capacity well as they would be considerate of schedules, meeting performance targets, and ensuring profitability through financial analysis.

Leadership and management clearly differ in style and focus and it should be said that a leader is more effective, long-term, in inspiring others to model important behaviors of unity and dedication to meeting organizational goals. Where leadership deals with people and their sentiment about life and the job role, a manager organizes and delegates using their jurisdiction authority to monitor and audit job role performance.