Leadership Role Of A Nurse Leader

“Nursing is informed caring for the well-being of others” (Swanson, 1993, p. 352). Kristen Swanson’s relationship-based caring theory encompasses maintaining belief, knowing, being with, doing for, and enabling. Nursing is a profession with vast opportunities for growth and development. Each nurse has his or her individual passions; mine reside within obstetrics, women’s health, and nursing leadership. Nurse leaders play an integral role in the success of healthcare organizations. Nurse leaders shape the roles of nurses within their organizations. Nurse leaders seek methods to improve patient care. They also use innovation to gain efficiencies in care delivery and decrease healthcare cost. Many nurse leaders have an ultimate goal to aspire to be a chief nursing officer in a healthcare

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 this essay I will discuss the leadership style of 3 nursing leaders, which I chose from Nursing Leadership DVD (Orazietti & Singh, 2014). I will then describe impact the leaders ' style has on improving nursing care, organizational processes, and inter-professional collaboration. In addition, I will provide some examples of a change process or difficult situation which leaders encountered. Finally, I will explain how I have dealt with difficult situation involving my colleague and one of physician in the hospital department where I worked. Throughout this essay I will analyze what leaders should have done differently. 3 Leaders which I have chosen were Debra Bournes from group 1 because of her political and administrative success, Mina Singh from group 2 because she is renowned for her educational style at York University, and Esther Green from group 3 because she is the sound and knowledgeable practitioner.

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.

Nurse leaders are the background to the nursing care. Effective nurse leaders can promote a positive workforce and a healthy work place for other nurses. Workplace dynamics is an essential part of how each nurse functions. Nurses, being mentally and physically stressed, need to have support and guidance from a nurse leader to feel confident about performance. The impact of nursing leaders can be a positive and guiding force for the younger or more inexperienced nurse. Having strong relationships with solid leaders can instill values in the beginning stages of a newer nurses’ career. Gaining insight and core concepts from a more experienced leader can make a world of difference in the way a new nurse performs, provides patient care, and sets future goals for themselves. A newer nurse with a positive role model and nurse leader can model themselves to become a leader for future nurses.

For decades, something was missing in patient care. Crucial quality and safety-improvement professionals involved in healthcare delivery were formerly not located in the places where care was actually provided. This often resulted in a disconnect that fragmented healthcare quality, safety, and improvement. According to Reid and Dennison, in their article The Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL)®: Point-of-Care Safety Clinician, “The role of the Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL)® restores this vital connection. The CNL is a clinician who brings the locus of control for safe and quality care from the administrative areas straight to the unit’s providers who deliver the services. “

After taking the Leadership quiz I discovered that my leadership style is Participative. Participative leaders often ask the opinion of group members and solving problems but ultimately make the final decision. I agree with my findings and I often apply this leadership style at work. I find myself asking other coworkers their opinion on how to troubleshoot a problem. In the nursing occupation it is very important to have teamwork. Being a participative leader exemplifies teamwork. This displays that I value the opinions of my coworkers and feel that everyone should be able to make recommendations and suggestions and as a leader I can take those ideas and make a final decision. On my unit I was a charge nurse and as a charge nurse I always tried to include the recommendations of my coworkers.

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.

Nursing career is one of the few fastest growing fields in the health care industry not only in the United States but also in the world. Nurse practice has drastically changed in the last decade and as a result the need for changes in nursing practice is becoming more and more important. The Institute of Medicine report discusses so many aspects in nursing but this paper requires detailing the impacts on Nursing Practice (Transforming Practice), Nursing Education (Transforming Education), and the Nurse’s role as a Leader (Transforming Leadership). These three key aspects are discussed in the following pages.

There are many skills, traits, and behaviors one must possess in order to be an effective leader. The American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE) has compiled a list of competencies and skills that nurse leaders should be proficient in. The five competency domains identified by AONE (2011) are “communication and relationship building, knowledge of health care environment, leadership skills, professionalism, and business skills” (p. 3). The competency domain I believe is essential for one to possess in order to be an effective executive nurse leader is communication and relationship building. The competencies AONE (2011) listed under the domain communication and relationship building are “effective communication, relationship management, influence of behavior, ability to work with diversity, shared decision-making, community involvement, medical staff relationship, and academic relationships” (p.3). I will discuss how Tom (nurse manager of a psychiatric unit) did not meet these specific characteristics under that domain.

When one thinks of leaders, they think of those who hold a high profile position or someone who is highly visible in the public eye. A leader, regardless of prestige is someone who can easily influence and inspire the actions and goals of others. The definition of a leader in Nursing Leadership and Management in Nursing states, “leadership is commonly defined as a process of influence in which the leader influences others towards goal achievement (Kelly, 2012 p.2). Leaders are needed at all levels and nurses take a leadership role by being advocates for their patients. There are many leadership theories and styles in nursing but this paper will focus on transformational leadership and its application to nursing. Transformational leadership is important in nursing, due to its ever changing and ever evolving healthcare methods and technology.

Nursing shortage and nursing turn-over cannot be addressed through a single intervention because there are multiple reasons for the shortage and turn-over. Nurse managers and leaders play a major role in solving this problem by different approaches. Many different strategies are available to address these issues and they are described as follows.

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.

The ongoing instability evidenced from the high mobility of qualified nurses in the nursing workforce has raised many questions about the issue of nursing shortage and nurse turnover (Gates & Jones, 2007). The paper below discusses the issues of nursing shortage and nurse turnover. The paper also describes how leaders as well as managers in the nursing fraternity and other leaders can resolve those problems effectively and the different applicable principles, skills, roles of the leader, and theories of leadership and management.

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.