Effective leadership roles are crucial to an organization in meeting their mission and goals. Leaders have the ability to direct and guide staff and have visions to inspire others to reach their specific goals by improving quality care for patients. This paper will discuss an interview with a Nurse Manager at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) in Lexington, Kentucky on how her decisions impact the organization, colleagues, and the work environment. Identify the Person Interviewed Stacy R. is the Nurse Manager of the Morehead Community-Based Outpatient Clinic (CBOC) for the VAMC. She obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in nursing twenty years ago working in public health, outpatient surgery, …show more content…
S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2015). Stacy R. is the daughter of a Vietnam Veteran and the granddaughter of a World War II Veteran, and the VAMC mission statement gives her an entirely different perspective on how to care for the unique population we serve. As the Nurse Manager of the CBOC, all patient care decisions, organizational decisions, and the key drivers are based on the mission, vision, and values set forth by the organization. She uses the organization’s values for Veterans and her staff by practicing with integrity, compassion, advocacy, respect, and excellence (ICARE). All employees hired by the VAMC take an oath of the organization’s ICARE values. Patient care services practice by following the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics for Nurses. Stacy R. feels all employees work towards the mission’s values in caring for Veterans whether we are working in nursing or collaborating with a multidisciplinary team involving all services in the facility from housekeeping, central sterile, operating room, acute and outpatient …show more content…
Stacy R. feels decisions that affect colleagues and the workplace should include all stakeholders such as front-line staff, middle management, directors, and administrators. She has found when all stakeholders are involved in decision-making, individuals are more likely to buy in and feel a sense of empowerment resulting in a favorable outcome for the patients, peers, work environment, and the organization as a whole. In her career, she has witness decisions made without all stakeholders and the work environment is negatively affected resulting in low staff morale which has an adverse impact on overall patient care. An outpatient Veterans Affairs Mental Health Clinic has demonstrated increase care collaboration and improved patient care when there is open communication, support of staff, and shared decision-making among the organization (Barry, Abraham, Weaver, & Bowersox, 2016). As the Nurse Manager of her unit, she is responsible for ensuring staff is competent to do their jobs, coach and mentor, have crucial conversations, and hold staff accountable. She listens to staff, helps them problem solve, and helps staff to develop their personal performance goals. Her decisions as a leader affect the staff that reports to her, the unit, the service line, and facility. It is always important to mindful of our mission, vision, and our ICARE
The most common styles she employs are democratic leadership, laissez-faire leadership, and shared leadership. Her position as a liaison between upper management and the nurse leads contributes to her need to regularly switch from a position of leader to follower and back again, keeping her not only extremely busy, but out of the office for most of the day. To lead her team, she must change tactics all day long, from one task to another. The leadership styles democratic leadership, laissez-faire leadership, and shared leadership all have one thing in common, these styles allow for the nurse manager to permit her team of nurse leads, the power to lead themselves. The nurse manager is capable of putting large amounts of responsibility in their subordinate’s hands, knowing that they are skilled and qualified to make decisions without interference (Giddens, J., 2013, p.376). These styles tend to work effectively for the Surgical Services Nurse Manager because her team of nurse leads are experienced and capable of performing their jobs with little to no feedback. While each of these three leadership styles: democratic leadership, laissez-faire leadership, and shared leadership, share some similarities, they are all slightly different, with some being more effective than others. Of the leadership styles she engages in, her use of shared leadership is most effective, while her use of the laissez-faire
This paper aims to address and discuss about the leadership and management of the nurse leader interviewed. This experience was a great opportunity to witness first hand how a nurse leader cultivate and manage their staffs in real life setting. Moreover, it provides a great access to gain insight and knowledge about nurse leaders’ vital responsibilities and role diversities in the organizations they work with. Nurse leaders pay more specific and close attention in handling the staffs and most importantly, patient care.
In today’s healthcare system, effective leadership is essential to improving and reaching organizational outcomes. A leader is someone with the ability to influence others but, an effective leader uses positive strategies to inspire employees to work towards the same goal. Leadership in nursing requires a constant effort to motivate others to become part of the organizational transformation. This can be achieved using a transformational leadership style with a focus on communication, motivation, and empowerment.
Leaders are the ones we turn to when life gets to be too much. Good leaders set examples and provide guidance through education (Huber, 2014). As a new nurse I can understand how important it is to have a leader you turn to when you are unsure. Furthermore, in the business of health care we are managing people 's lives and one wrong move can be deadly. Therefore, it is important to collaborate with other health care professionals to ensure a safe competent method of delivery. Ideally, the role of a leader in health care is one that is knowledgable, firm, and confident, with the ability to deviate from the plan to assist with an emergency. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to reveal three key behaviors successful leaders exhibit, assess my personal leadership style, referencing theories, while determining an optimal work environment based upon the aforementioned.
America’s health care system has become very complex with a rise in health costs, patients with complex medical issues, and Medicare cuts. Nurses must find a way to juggle the health care industry while maintaining positive patient outcomes. Patients will either have good or bad outcomes during or after their care based on the decisions of the nurse and the interdisciplinary team. The new goal in healthcare is for outcomes to be patient centered. This means that the patient is looked at holistically and also that the patient is equally involved in the care planning process as the nursing and medical staff. This
Leadership is encountered in every occupation and in everyday life. In nursing, leadership is not only prevalent; it is crucial to patient care and employee satisfaction. The nurse leader that was interviewed was a nurse at the Newport Hospital in Newport, Washington. This is a small hospital in a rural community. She is a charge nurse in the acute care unit, as well as in charge of leading infection control in the hospital. With these roles comes a lot of responsibility, and tasks that must be completed in a timely manner to create a workflow for the rest of the staff. There is a lot of juggling and balancing everything that is included in all of those positions.
Every day, a set team of nurses and nursing managers set out to ensure the health and well-being of their patients. To achieve this goal, a nurse manager must adhere to a specific style of nursing leadership. There are many different styles of leadership in the healthcare field. Bass and Barnes (1985) stated that the two most common are transformational and transactional (as cited in Frankel, 2008, p.24). This paper will define leadership, the two different styles, how each are executed, as well as pros and cons of each.
In healthcare it is very important to have strong leaders, especially in the nursing profession. A nurse leader typically uses several styles of leadership depending on the situation presented; this is known as situational leadership. It is important that the professional nurse choose the right style of leadership for any given situation to ensure their employees are performing at their highest potential. Depending on which leadership style a nurse leader uses, it can affect staff retention and the morale of the employees as well as nurse job satisfaction (Azaare & Gross, 2011.) “Nursing leaders have the responsibility to create and maintain a work environment which not only promotes positive patient outcomes but also
Effective nurse leaders are often flexible and are able to change style of leadership to suit changing circumstances. They ensure that their people are regularly being challenged to grow and learn. Nurses show leadership by giving feedback and empowering others to bring out their best and the opportunity to grow. I believe that good leaders help people to see that what they do makes a difference. Nurse further their education to expand and gain knowledge so they can render excellent quality care that patients deserve. Also, the leaders would also help other nurses to work as a team to help the facility run to deliver high-quality care. A leader, “should think and talk about future trends that will affect the team's work, and make sure you communicate your vision to your team regularly” (Pearce, 2007, p. 25). I vision a leader as someone who can move others in achieving their goals and mission. For instance, our nurse supervisor addresses the
Leadership and management are essential to any health care organization, balancing patient care, employees, physicians, and the organization. Nursing is founded on interpersonal relationships. As a people-oriented profession, nursing leadership styles are influenced by humanism. The mission, attitude, and behaviors of a health care organization begins with its leadership, which creates the direction and purpose of the organization. The purpose of this paper is to differentiate between leadership and management, describe views of leadership, and explain the
Not all nurses go into the profession with leadership ideas. The nursing profession must produce leaders throughout the health care system. Leaders must function as workers, and administrators with leadership qualities, while still meeting their budgets and running effective units with high functioning and happy staff members. They need to trouble shoot necessary and work with the medical faculty while pleasing their staff and the administers.
As the health care environment in our country continues to change at a rapid pace, the need for properly prepared leaders in all health care environments will grow. The Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) prepared nurse will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to rise to the highest levels of leadership in the institution of health care. To be an effective leader requires knowledge of the organization’s mission and the guidance of a theory of leadership congruent with and capable of delivering the facility’s objective. The traits of the leader must harmonize with the theory of leadership that is applied. Through careful examination of an organization’s structure, an appropriate leadership style to match the traits of the leader and followers may be identified. Connecting the organization, leadership style, and traits of the leader and followers will promote success with the implementation of new processes to improve the quality of patient care for the population served.
What makes a good leader? Many people have their own perceptions on what entails a good leader. People have high expectations when a leader is involved. Our country is led by a Commander in chief and without their leadership things would be chaotic. A transformational leader, such as the Commander in chief, is known for being strong person, observant, and exercises great listener skills (Zerwekh&Garneau, 2015). They have a clear vision and will have an influential impact on others (Zerwekh&Garneau, 2015). In this in paper I plan to describe what makes a good leader, how transformational leadership function within the field of nursing, how transformational nursing can be implemented in my own practice, how I have gained personal growth and how Stephen Covey’s book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People implements leadership.
In the healthcare field, nursing leaders and managers face consistent issues in their respective practices that force them to alter the way they work and the way they think. In taking on a role as a leader within the field, nursing leaders and managers also take on the role of ensuring that work within an organization runs smoothly regardless of new issues that may arise in the healthcare arena. For instance, in today's healthcare environment, the issues of nurse shortage and nurse turnover have the capacity to alter the healthcare field and many of its respective branches and organizations should these problems not be managed properly by the leaders in the field. In viewing the issue at hand and in discovering how nursing leaders and managers are expected to act, and do act, in order to approach this issues, along with pinpointing the best approach possible to aid this issue, one can better understand which leadership styles are necessary for leaders to function.
Nursing is a very complex career that at many times requires one to be a leader. Nurses can be leaders in formal roles and also on the unit during any given shift. Nursing is a career that truly tests the character and attributes of those who choose to enter this career. Leadership in nursing is vital in creating a successful environment for patients. According to Stichler (2006), “effective leadership is essential to transforming organizations into environments that are safe for both patients and staff” (p. 422). Therefore, it is vital that as new nurses start out his or her careers that they learn from great leaders who are already in the profession. There are several great leaders working in the field who have a plethora of