Hirschhorn () in his case study about the consulting a community legal agency raises a number of significant issues that often emerge at the work places. He walks us through the different psychologically traumatic work situations that cause chains of anxiety and social defenses that groups utilize to avoid their tasks and fight anxiety.
In the case study Louise, the leader of the community legal agency, was fighting the external circumstances to ensure the wellbeing of her agency, but at the same time she lost connection with her team that affected her leadership. At some pointed she became invisible for coworkers and lost a great portion of her authority as no one understood what exactly she was doing. She developed a strong boundary,
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At the other hand, the expectations of the team are very high as well. The day to day work with mentally ill clients, referred to our program from psychiatric hospitals, jails and other community agencies, is extremely challenging for the staff. They have to deal with a high level of stress as a part of their daily routine, and operate in very high paced crisis environment. In addition, their job is very regulated and paperwork instance. The billing that goes through the Medi-Cal insurance is arranged the way that program is financed based on the documented daily progress notes. That means that if the notes were not completed the program won’t get paid for the provided services. Often it is very hard for employees to focus and do their paperwork as they have to constantly deal with crisis, and ten take time for the emotional recovery. It’s understandable that team utilizes different forms of social defenses. They often fight new tasks or avoid doing them. Their expectation for me is often to support the team by discharging or not admitting difficult clients. They know that I see their daily struggles with troubled residents and feel lack of support if I don’t discharge these residents right away. There are certain factors that make this situation more complex:
1. The processes in our team are set up the way that majority of the decisions are made by the team. Even though, I can veto some of the decision, team does not
give a holistic view of the entire leadership process and clearly demonstrates how important it is
The Puerto Rican Family Institute clinic in Brooklyn is currently undergoing a new organizational structure due to a high turnover of recent employees. The previous director for the clinic had been in the same position for 25 years, and once she left, the structure started to decline. The new director, James Chavez, has been overseeing the clinic for a year now, and the clinic has been evolving ever since. Due to such a drastic change in roles, the clinic has been using a lateral organizational structure to help the director and keep the flow going. Since the clinic in Brooklyn is smaller, there is a lot of cohesiveness that happens within various departments. The director always has the final say, but many times, the staff will work together to help one another. I have received a lot of guidance due to the lateral structure, and I am thankful for that. The clinic has many full-time staff clinicians and the majority have a background in social work. Since the director comes from a social work background also, there is a strong social work presence. The social worker’s role is to provide one-on-one psychotherapy, give a pre-diagnostic impression, and complete treatment plans. They also assess for strengths, goals, and triggers to provide clients with a strong therapeutic experience.
He advances the idea that modern organizational superiors seek a sense of their own mortality through manipulation of people and objects at the expense of their subordinates. Slavery, he asserts, is the state of being a mere instrument, and the organization can reduce man to the stature of a thing. Instead of constructing human relationships on the outworn patterns of labor and authority he advances the alternative: leadership based on deriving meaning, action and continuity in our work in complex organizations. He suggests that leadership should not be seen as merely a position someone holds but rather as a dynamic that occurs within a group or organization. He suggests that the face-to-face encounter is the essence of freedom and it is also the primary unit of analysis in self-discoveries. This new definition of leadership has three essential functions: (1) to help the group or organization understand its needs and potential (2) integrate and articulate the group’s vision and (3) act as a "trigger" or stimulus for group action. When viewed developmentally, this form of leadership can be enabling and fulfilling in Denhardt's estimation. However, this places a very high value on communication skills and tilts again toward Freud: what we feel and why. Denhardt further advocates the notion that leadership should be distributed throughout society because leadership's essence is to create an energizing effect. The necessary
At the regular human resources committee meeting, the support workers shared with Wolcott who is organization’s human resources manager, their concerns about current organizational structure. They believe that such a structure caused
In this assignment, leadership will be defined and analysed, then explore different approaches and traits to leadership and its importance in the context of Social housing specifically referencing Cardiff community Housing Associations as case study and then summarise with conclusion.
This paper will address why situational leadership theory is useful and relevant in developing an effective leadership culture. In addition, it will also discuss the three theories of situational leadership and what is considered to be the strengths and weaknesses of each theory when leading staff in the organizational environment.
family are directly impacted. Dealing with a mentally ill patient can be very stressful, especially
I see [hear] examples of how that would go every single day” (Burau, 2006). I currently work in the Mental Health Unit at St. Helena Hospital, so I’ve seen the effects of this firsthand many times. Many of the patients don’t have any family or are estranged from their family because of their mental health issues. From what I’ve seen, that takes just as much of a toll on the patients as their struggle with mental health. Dealing with mental health patients can be strenuous and dangerous, just like working in any branch of emergency services. We do a lot of speaking with, calming and listening to patients, similar to what dispatchers do during 911 calls. In less than a year working in the Mental Health field I’ve dealt with many stressful situations, and had to learn to leave my work at work, another concept Burau speaks about. Working in these fields and dealing with the raw patient experiences can take a
As nurse manager Barbara is responsible for managing the staff, scheduling and budgeting for the unit. Her staff includes twenty-five registered nurses and eight patient care assistants (PCA’s). The unit is known for its culture of confrontation, blaming, and favoritism. The staff is dissatisfied, unmotivated, and not functioning as a team to deliver quality patient care. In Barbara’s first month she has lost two RN’s and due to a hiring freeze at EMU Barbara was not able to replace the positions. The unit is short staffed, stress levels are high and employee morale is low. Barbara meets individually with twenty or so staff members and comes to the conclusion that no one is happy and she has a lot of work to do. There are multiple groups that Barbara has identified issues with and she must come up with an action plan to manage the discrepancies. She has found issues in downward management which involves senior nurses, newer nurses, and patient care assistants, and in upward management including administrators and physicians,
Question “3”: Behavioural theory of leadership (explain one theory by linking it with the case study):
Leadership has been described as “a process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task”. In the case study Josh Martin uses much different leadership techniques than Tom Saunders which, in summary, can be seen as a quite different style. In the book ‘Management’ leadership is discussed in relation to management. ”Management and
Leadership is an important factor within a business environment and often plays a significant role in achievement of organisational success (Landis, Hill & Harvey 2014). However, leadership is an art, therefore there is no simple formula for effective leadership (Hughes, Ginnett & Curphy 2015, p.33) and a leader’s effectiveness can often only be understood in the context of the leader-follower-situation interaction model.
It is evident that the relationship between work stress and mental health has been established by numerous research studies. As discussed in Koesky (1993), the fact that all jobs involve some degree of stress makes it all the more alarming as to the level of stress experienced by individuals working in the human services. That is, given that these individuals are heavily involved in the lives of others, they often develop mental health symptoms that are characteristic of work-related stressors. In fact, “This involvement, which requires caring commitment and empathic responding, places workers at risk for a special type of strain commonly referred to as 'burnout'” (Koesky, 1993, p. 319).
According to Elkin and Rosch (1990) workplace related stress in a major problem in the U.S. and it creates a major expense for corporations. Koeske, Kirk, and Koeske (1993) indicate that all jobs have some level of stress but jobs that are in the human services have additional stressors because they “derive from intense involvement in the lives of others”. (p.319). They also refer to the type of stress experienced by individuals working in human services as “burnout” (Koeske, Kirk, and Koeske, 1993, p.319). Another factor that can influence our stress level is how we handle life’s demands. There are different ways of reacting to the situations we face every day of our lives. We have all heard of expressions such as ‘road rage’ and ‘going postal’. These are terms that we have come to identified with violent reactions to stressors caused by situations all of us face every day. How many of us have experiences in the road that
As people are increasingly joining professional careers, more researchers are interested to uncover how some of these careers are impacting individuals. Stress is something that is experienced by almost everyone at one point. Nonetheless, when stress is occurring constantly and extensively, it negatively impacts an individual in all aspects of their life. Hence, many researchers want to figure out the causes and effects of job stress in particular on people. Considering the nature of the work involved, it is no surprise that one career that is commonly associated with stress is that of a lawyer. While there are a large variety of factors that may come into play for causing job stress, there are a few that are more prominent than others. Job stress among lawyers is often further impacted by and dependent on the gender of the lawyer, his or her level of commitment, and the occurrence of any conflict within their family.