How to write an essay on leadership in Nursing and Healthcare

How to write an essay on leadership in Nursing and Healthcare

Effective leadership is one of the most important requirements to drive changes at all levels in today’s increasingly complex healthcare system. Health leadership is centered on the ability to identify priorities, provide direction, and solve key challenges using appropriate skills (Boamah et al., 2018). Leadership style is a highly discussed topic that involves the utilization of the most appropriate techniques to guide employees towards achieving set goals. Situational leadership is a style observed to encourage leaders to take stock of their employees, weigh variables in the work environment, and choose leadership styles that best suit their goals (Gokenbach & Thomas, 2020). This approach is observed to improve outcomes through addressing common healthcare problems like employee motivation, incivility, and workplace relationship issues.

The article selected for this discussion talks about situational leadership and its effectiveness in rising employee productivity. Employee productivity is a factor that is dependent on many aspects like financial rewards, employee recognition, and education (Ghazzawi et al., 2017). However, most leaders fail to recognize that the leadership style used can affect how employees perform, especially how they are motivated to work. Situational leadership is an approach that is observed to suit organizations that want to develop work groups and use a common leadership style t bring out the best in their employees (Ghazzawi et al., 2017). According to this research, for situational leaders to be successful, they must be task and relationship-oriented.

To cover the gap in today’s competitive healthcare environment, nurse leaders must pay attention to the importance of situational leadership style. In this research, it was hypothesized that situational leadership influences productivity. The leaders should be able to handle situations based on the need created. To effectively lead employees, the leaders ought to behave according to situations, quickly respond to situations, and use innovative ideas to handle healthcare problems (Ghazzawi et al., 2017). During the research, it was observed that situational leaders provide instructions, reduce supervision overtime, communicate effectively, and talk optimistically about the future. Apart from these behaviors, situational leadership is an important style in addressing issues affecting employees like incivility and lack of motivation. Overall, the researchers observed that the behaviors of leaders directly influence employee productivity (Ghazzawi et al., 2017). Leadership style can be an important motivator for employees and it can help address the unique needs of every employee in healthcare organizations.

Incivility and disruptive behavior in healthcare can significantly affect the ability of employees to perform their duties and decrease productivity (Fischer, 2016). Angie is a young nurse employed two years ago having obtained her master’s degree at the age of 27 years. When she joined the organization, she worked closely with Mary in the pediatric ward. Initially, Mary was welcoming and even became her mentor showing Angie ways to deal with key challenges in the department. Mary has been on the pediatric unit for 17 years and has a son the same age as Angie. A year ago, Angie was promoted to be the charge nurse of the pediatric unit due to her qualifications and hard work. Angie began to notice a change in the way Mary treated her in subsequent months. She felt that Mary was not forthcoming with information that was vital and gave excuses when Angie needed her help. On more than one occasion, Mary has made changes to her duties without consultation. Angie feels undermined in front of other nurses and during meetings, Mary exerts the underlying power that she has because of her length of stay in the department.

Situational leadership can be used to address the issue of incivility in healthcare. In the above case, I will advise Angie to schedule a meeting with Mary to discuss her issues and how she would like to be handled. Using a transformational approach, Angie should understand that strong leadership skills at all levels are required to shape the conduct of employees regardless of their status. Bravely naming behavior and confronting it consistently with a process for individual accountability works to decrease incivility (Fischer, 2016). Confrontation of the identified problem can help Angie understand the concerns of Mary and create alternative solutions to address their differences. Using a transformational approach, Angie can open dialogue and seek collaboration to identify new ways of working with senior employees (Boamah et al., 2018). Situational leaders must be able to adapt and move from one leadership style to another to meet the changing needs of employees.

References

Boamah, S. A., Spence Laschinger, H. K., Wong, C., & Clarke, S. (2018). Effect of transformational leadership on job satisfaction and patient safety outcomes. Nursing Outlook66(2), 180–189. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2017.10.004

Fischer, S. A. (2016). Transformational leadership in nursing: A concept analysis. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 72(11), 2644–2653. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0894318417693309

Ghazzawi, K., Shoughari, R. E., & Osta, B. E. (2017). Situational leadership and its effectiveness in rising employee productivity: A study on north Lebanon organization. Human Resource Management Research7(3), 102-110. http://dx.doi.org/10.5923/j.hrmr.20170703.02

Gokenbach, V., & Thomas, P. L. (2020). Maximizing human capital. In L. Roussel, P. L. Thomas, & J. L. Harris (Eds.), Management and leadership for nurse administrators (8th ed., 189–226). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

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