Leader and Managing the Changes in Health Care

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.

Leadership has been defined in a number of ways, but the concept is still indefinable (Barr and Dowding 2016). Buchanan and Huczynski (2010, p. 596) define leadership as “a process of influencing the activities of an organised group in its efforts towards goal-setting and goal achievement”. In clinical practice, leadership translates to an ability to direct other to achieve evidence-based practice that supports enhanced patient outcomes (Kelly-Hiedenthal 2004). Like any other industries and organisations, an effective leadership skill is vital in the healthcare sector to improve the standards of the care and to achieve organisational goals (Bach and Ellis 2015). Sullivan and Decker (2004) stated that nurses often step up to the

Nurses are increasingly becoming the strong leadership in developing all aspects of health care policy and decisions. Unfortunately the shared consensus is that most nurses do not possess leadership skills adequate enough to keep up with the ever-evolving field. The IOM reports on this by stating: “Nurses at all levels need strong leadership skills to contribute to patient safety and quality of care.” (IOM, 2010 pp.223) It is felt that nurses are depicted as people who carry out

Nursing leadership plays an important role in the ability to improve the quality of care that is available to the patient, but in order to be able to reach this capacity of “change and innovation [it] requires a clinical leader mind-set that includes a strong personal awareness of one’s strengths and vulnerability, openness to other ideas, courage to challenge the status quo, and a highly developed comfort with rational risk taking” (Porter-O’Grady, 2013, p.71). The application of these leadership characteristics empowers the nurse to identify gaps in patient care, integrate evidence based research, and find alternate solutions to the problems identified in patient care (Committee, O. T. R. W. J., 2010).

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

Working in the health care environment the world needs effective, wise and visionary leaders, leadership matters in every organisation to change the health care environment so it may continue to grow to ensure it gives us better evidence based practice (Evans & M.L, 2015, p 34-50). All health care professionals are required at some point in their position to engage in management or leadership. As an AIN, EN or RN they all have a responsibility to educate, lead and manage within the health care profession (Innis & Berta, 2016, p.2-22). This allows each individual to develop useful and excellent leadership skills and management strategies to be able to educate and lead an exceptional team (Innis & Berta, 2016, p. 2-22). Although our greatest

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.

Nurse leaders are faced with issues or problems on a daily basis that are often expected and sometimes unexpected. It “comes with the territory” so to speak. If there were no issues to solve or hurdles to overcome the necessity of designating a leader would not seem quite as important. Nurse leaders can tackle issues that occur in their work environment using nursing theory to guide them. Nursing theory provides a framework that nurse leaders can use to implement interventions or changes to positively impact the staff they lead. This framework of the theory will set the standards for achieving the desired outcomes and is based on knowledge that is gleaned from practice and/or research.

Transforming nursing leadership is the third focus of the IOM report. According to the Key Message #3 of the report: “Nurses should be full partners, with physicians and other health professionals, in redesigning health care in the United States”. Nurses have proven that they have leadership abilities in their everyday practice. The IOM stresses the importance of developing of nursing leadership skill for the transformation of the health care system. Nurses are encouraged to collaborate and partner with physicians and other health care professionals which would make the transition to a new model of health care more efficient. New research would be smoothly translated from the nursing education to the practice with the help of competent nursing leaders. Partnering with physicians and other health professional would require all nurses to develop strong level of leadership skills and competencies. Developing and mastering nursing leadership would not be achieved effectively without the nurses collaborating with various health care professionals. The IOM report highlights that “…collaboration is a key strategy for improving problem solving and achieving innovation in health care” (IOM, 2010).

Leadership traits associated with nurse executives are honesty, credibility, supportiveness, visibility, and flexibility. Nurse executives analyze nursing functions and empower nurses through participatory decision making, shared governance, and employee involvement. Nurse executives share the vision and goals of the hospital and promote application of a nursing theory into the nursing care delivery system. They anticipate the future of health care and nursing and serve as monitor, role model, and preceptor to lower level management (Upeniecks, 2003). Nurse executives in the Magnet program are required to have advance practice degrees with certification in their specialty (ANCC). Understanding evidence-based management and enabling the use of evidence-based knowledge provides the nurse executive with the tools to improve patient outcomes. The transformational leader will remove barriers to improvement and encourage outcome based thinking. While nurse leaders are charged with questioning the status quo, nurse managers in the transformational approach to leadership are charged with maintaining the status quo.

The four major components of nursing leadership are decision-making ability, influencing and directing others, facilitating process and relationship building (Paul, Day, & Williams, 2016).Very closely associated with leadership is the concept of management and though many people use the two terms interchangeably, it’s very important to know that leading is one of the key functions of management; the others are planning, organizing and controlling activities to pursue

The concept Leadership is increasingly under analysis as it is a characteristic of the acute care work environment that affects both nurse and patient outcomes. Nursing leadership can have strong implications for how nurses manage their roles as patient care givers in the acute care setting. Nurses have identified that there are certain styles of leadership that interfere with their ability to provide quality patient care (Cook & Leathard, 2004). Working as a nurse leader requires complex skills and competencies that could affect not only staff, but also patients. Leadership module is a part of my Advanced Healthcare Practice (clinical) MSc Nursing program.

Compendium of Leadership Topics Nursing is defined as the art of caring. For nurse leaders this encompasses caring for the patient, the bed-side nurses, and the staff they will lead through the journey of health care. Important topics for nurse leaders and managers to explore are innovations, change management, systems thinking, communication, emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, policy, advocacy, decision making, organizational climate, and culture. Examining these topics is essential to understanding ones’ own values and perspectives, but also allows interactive conversations on the art of caring.

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.

Before I started this leadership/management coarse I had no idea what qualities a good leader manager needs to hold. I had no idea a registered nurse was considered a leader/manager. Now that I have reviewed all the chapters in the Leadership Roles and Management Functions in Nursing (Marquis & Huston, 2015) I have a full understanding of how important leadership/management functions play in a nurse’s career. Chapters 12-25 describe roles and functions that are needed for a nurse to become a successful leader/manager. These chapters discussed the roles and functioning of organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling.