Effective Approaches in Leadership and Management Essay

Effective leadership and management skills are important for the nursing profession because they enable proper coordination of nursing services. Although both nurse leaders and managers ensure that any healthcare organization is running smoothly, they have different roles in real practice. The chosen problem is the nurse staffing ratio. A reduced nurse-patient ratio is imperative in the healthcare settings because it not only guarantees job satisfaction for nurses but also improves the health outcomes and safety of patients. Therefore, an explanation of nurse staffing ratio and a comparison of the way leaders and managers would approach the issue with a focus on human resource management, time, and financial management can help in explaining

There are many challenges facing today’s nursing leaders and managers. From staffing and scheduling, to budget cuts and reduced reimbursements, today’s nursing leaders must evolve to meet the ever changing health care environment. Constance Schmidt, Chief Nursing Officer at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center (CRMC), identified retaining experienced registered nurses (RN) as one of the biggest problems she faces as a nursing leader. She went on to state “Nationally, most hospitals have more than 60% of their nurses with at least 5 years of experience. At CRMC, it’s the reverse. We have more than 60% of our nurses with less than 5 years of experience” (personal communication, March 28, 2014). The two largest factors affecting those numbers are the nursing shortage and nursing retention. The first, the nursing shortage, was identified years ago and has been researched countless times. Some projections indicate the number representing the gap between available registered nurses, and the positions needing to be filled, could be over a million before the end of the current decade. The latter, retention of nurses, is a problem in every health care facility in the nation. Nursing turnover results in both a significant financial cost to hospitals, and a significant impact on the community through its effects on patient outcome.

Leadership at times can be a complex topic to delve into and may appear to be a simple and graspable concept for a certain few. Leadership skills are not simply acquired through position, seniority, pay scale, or the amount of titles an individual holds but is a characteristic acquired or is an innate trait for the fortunate few who possess it. Leadership can be misconstrued with management; a manager “manages” the daily operations of a company’s work while a leader envisions, influences, and empowers the individuals around them.

Nursing shortage refers as a difference between supply and demand of registered nurses (RN) and turnover refers to the loss of an employee due to transfer, termination, or resignation (Huber, 2014). Worldwide, Hospitals are experiencing nursing shortage despite of intervention and innovation attempt. Nursing shortages can lead to longer working hours under stressful situation that can result in fatigue, burnout, medical errors, mistake, and job dissatisfaction which can endanger patients’ safety and quality of care (American Nurses Association, 2015). Hospital leaning toward the profit making is also adding up nursing dissatisfaction. Therefore, visionary leader and manager can help to resolve these issues and promote the friendly working environment to reduce the nursing shortage, turnover, dissatisfaction and safety issues. In this paper, the writer explains the necessary steps that manager and leaders need to take to minimize the nursing shortage based on philosophy of nursing, organizational structure along with the writer’s personal approach finding the solution of the problem.

Many healthcare organizations worldwide are striving to achieve magnet designation. Having the magnet title is essential because it recognizes healthcare organizations that act as a “magnet” for excellence by establishing a work environment that identifies, rewards, and promotes professional nursing (ANCC Magnet Designation, 2012). A magnet hospital is considered to be one where nursing provides excellent patient care, where nurses have a high level of job satisfaction, and where there is a low staff

Shirey (2006) estimates that in 2020, 67,200 nurse manager vacancies will exist across the United States. The NCHL predicts a decrease in leadership talent over the next few years. Compounding the leadership crisis is a lack of interest from novice nurses in nursing management, as well as evidence that senior nurse officers report difficulty recruiting and filling nurse manager positions (American Organization of Nurse Executives [AONE], 2003). Also, the current average age of nursing leaders in the United States is 50 years old. The anticipated retirement of these individuals will further reduce nurse manager levels, emphasizing the need for nurse manager succession planning (Thompson, 2008).

With the ongoing changes in the healthcare field, nursing workforce retention presents itself as one of the greatest challenges facing healthcare systems today. According to the American Nursing Association, nursing turnover is a multi-faceted issue which impacts the financial stability of the facility, the quality of patient care and has a direct affect on the other members of the nursing staff (ANA, 2014). The cost to replace a nurse in a healthcare facility ranges between $62,100 to $67,100 (ANA, 2014). The rising problem with nursing retention will intensify the nursing shortage, which has been projected to affect the entire nation, not just isolated areas of the country, gradually increasing in its scope from 2009 to 2030 (Rosseter,

Current nursing in a state of constant change and nurses burnout rates reaching crisis levels, organizations need responsive and skilled leaders at the helm.The only way to navigate through these difficult times is with excellent leadership at all levels of each organization.

Nurse turnover is defined as “the number of nurses changing jobs within an organization or leaving an organization within a given year” (Baumann 2010). Retaining nurses is one of the most important issues in health care as its effects range from challenges in human resource planning, to high costs in financial and organizational productivity (Beecroft et al, 2008), to workgroup processes and morale, to patient safety and quality of care (i.e. patient satisfaction, length of patient stay, patient falls, and medication errors) (Bae et al, 2010). Nursing Solutions Inc (NSI) reported the national average turnover rate for hospitals increased from 13.5% in 2012 to 14.7% last year. Nurses working in Med/Surg had more turnover

When analyzing the nurse manager’s style of leadership, in the current hiring process, it leads to reasons why the hiring process needs to change. Nurse turnover, like this current issue, is a global concern that can have a significant impact on the unit’s budget (Li & Jones, 2013). The national turnover rate is as high as 28% for RNs in their first year of employment (Li & Jones, 2013). This is an issue that needs address with many optimal interventions. Starting with screening candidates correctly, ensuring that our nurse preceptors, then charge nurses, and nurse managers are trained in a transformational type of way, then realizing what we can do to hire and retain better nurses. If the goal of every institution is positive patient satisfaction with optimal care, starting with the hiring process to bring in those who will achieve that goal is the first step.

Nurses demonstrate the core values of professionally caring for others in two different prospects. Huber (2014), notes that “nurses have two basic roles: care providers and care coordinators” (p. 3). Most significantly nurses are valued in the setting of patient care, while the coordinator role revolves around management and organizing care, using thinking skills to coordinate complex activities. Nursing is multifaceted, although direct quality patient care is of significance, a positive leader or manager is also essential to support the recent changes to healthcare requirements. Having the right blend of qualities is vital to becoming a

The issue of nursing shortage and nurse turnover is an all too familiar challenge hospital administrators, directors and managers deal with on an everyday basis. The number of nurses enrolled in nursing programs can’t keep up with the demand and the need of health care organizations for highly trained and competent professional nurses (Purnell, Horner, Gonzalez, & Westman, 2001). Insufficient staffing leads to distressed and overworked nurses, impacting their job satisfaction. Consequently, despondent nurses are leaving the profession altogether once they become disengaged and frustrated. Managers and leaders need to be innovative and adaptive in employing leadership skills to address this

Transformational leadership theory is intended to create positive change in the followers whereby they take care of each other's interests and act in the interests of the group as a whole. Essentially the leader's task is consciousness-raising on a wide plane. The leader's fundamental act is to induce people to be aware or conscious of what they feel and to feel their true needs so strongly, to define their values so meaningfully, that they can be moved to purposeful action.

According to McCleskey (2014), transformational leadership theory is the most studied leadership theory. This theory is based on Maslow’s Law of Needs (McCleskey, 2014). The four factors of transformation leadership include idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration (McCleskey, 2014). According to McCleskey (2014), “Transformational leaders share a vision, inspire subordinates, mentor, coach, respect individuals, foster creativity, and act with integrity” (p. 124). These are similar to the four styles in situational leadership. For example, persuading and idealized influence are essentially the same. The words are synonyms with the same condensed definition (“influence,” 2013, “persuading,” 2013). According to McCleskey (2014), individualized consideration involves coaching and mentoring. This also applies to persuading or coaching. Furthermore, situational leadership is about applying the appropriate behaviors in the situation based on

Turnover in nursing healthcare is a major issue impacting the performance and profitability of healthcare organizations. These organizations require a stable highly trained and fully engaged nursing staff to provide effective levels of patient care. The above mentioned topic is meaningful in any leadership/management organization because of the financial cost of losing a single nurse which has been calculated to equal about twice the nurse’s annual salary .Losing these critical employees, negatively impacts healthcare organizations in a variety of ways including decreased quality of patient care, increased contingent staff costs, loss of patients and increased nurse and medical staff turnover.