Responsibilities Associated With Nurse Managers

An essential role of the nurse leader is Financial Management, which involves planning, consolidating, managing and monitoring the monetary activities such as obtaining and application broad administration values in managing monetary funds of a given department. The nurse manager is responsible to obtain the financial resources and ensure maximum resource application.

Leadership, one of the seven professional standards outlined by the College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO), discusses how nurses are to be leaders in the workplace and with patients. This includes teaching health practices as well as promoting good health.

The lack of role definition combined with significant expansion of the Nurse Manager role and its associated responsibilities is argued to have increased the plethora of designations within the global nursing field (Cathcart et al 2010). Stateside, The American Organization of Nurse Executives (2011) provide a competency based conceptual

First let’s start with the meaning of leadership. Leadership is the ability of an individual to influence the behavior of others (ATI leadership pg. 2). As a leader it is important to form goals and to follow through with them. As a nurse you are a part of a team and it is

Nursing manager bears the responsibility for smoothly running the organization by ensuring each staff performed their job appropriately and correctly as per set standard. Therefore manager has to take an appropriate approach assessing working environment, adequate staffing, flexibility in work and schedule, patient nurse

Leadership is the multifaceted process of identifying targets and goals as well as supporting and motivating other people to act towards achieving mutually negotiated goals. In nursing, these goals and targets include coordination of day and night shifts, patient care, and change management. As such, nurse leadership skills are essential to ensure staff morale, successful operation of the shift, and managing challenging or difficult situations. Nurse leaders are, but not limited to, senior, frontline, and middle managers, chief executives, policy makers, administrators, and leaders in regulatory bodies. Nurse leaders must utilize their characteristics to demonstrate effective leadership and thus influence change.

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) defined the leadership as “a process of influencing the activities of an organised group in its efforts towards goal-setting and goal achievement”. Leadership in clinical practice described by Kelly-Hiedenthal (2004) as a direct involvement in clinical care while constantly influencing others to improve the care they provide. Moreover, Sulivan and Garland (2013) defined leader is anyone who uses their interpersonal skill to influence others to achieve a specific goal.

Leadership is about guiding and molding behavior (MacDonald, Burke, & Stewart, 2016). In nursing, leaders use the documented systems outlined in job aides and work flows to guide the work practices and behaviors of the staff to meet the goals of the organization (Marquis & Huston, 2015). The organization is only as effective as the structure and implementation of these systems (Marquis & Huston, 2015).

Nurse Managers have an important role in healthcare delivery system. They are responsible for managing the staff nurses, overseeing patient care and making sure quality care is delivered at lowest possible cost. “The effective management of nursing resources is essential” (Chitty & Black, 2007, p.363). There are budgets established by the companies, as a nurse manager you have to ensure the department has all available nursing resources and remains within the budget limit. Following this concept will help prevent the issue of cost contamination. The model nurse manager I choose to interview is Nurse Justin. I will describe Justin’s role in the healthcare system, including his responsibilities and roles with accountability. I will also discuss Nurse Justin opinion regarding nurse cost contamination. Nurse Managers are the frontline of the healthcare delivery system, while making sure the company mission concerning finance is accomplished.

Justin also reports “My hospital report regarding hospital acquired wounds, UTI, falls, etc., has to be turned in to my supervisor by Wednesday of each week” (J. Gudvangen, personal Interview August 2, 2015). A nurse manager is responsible for making sure the unit is organized, run properly and the staff member responds to the manager objective.

The Med Surg Manager at the facility is classified as a working manager. This means that at times they are required to perform patient care and tasks that are expected of their staff. As a benefit to both Hawkins and senior management, he had already mastered the organization’s clinical processes and expectations of the clinical nurse. This

Diane, as Assistant Nurse Manager, do you have responsibilities associated with staffing? If you are involved in staffing your unit, managing overtime, and assuring your unit meets specific staff-to-patient ratios, you possess financial management responsibilities, even if those duties are not directly related to budget planning, controlling, organizing and directing. Moreover, a unit’s budgeted productivity (nursing care hours per patient) is directly linked to staffing (Klaus, Dunton, Gajewski, & Potter, 2013). Additionally, given the current financial issues facing most hospitals restructuring to reduce costs frequently targets nurse staffing as payroll is one of the largest budgetary expenditures for

"Leadership is a process by whereby an individual influence a group of individuals to achieve a common goal" (Northouse, 2007, p3). Leaders influence other people to accomplish a goal or objective and directs the organization in a way that makes it more coherent and cohesive. All these process are carried out by the leaders by using their leadership skills and knowledge which is called process leadership. While leadership can be learned, the knowledge and skills processed by them can be influenced by their attributes: such as values, beliefs, ethics and character. The process of leadership is directly contributed by knowledge and skills, while other attributes help the leader to develop certain characteristics that make them unique. Nursing management is seen as different profession with its own skills and special training. The person has to be able to handle everyday management as behavior is being integrated in the situation, the manager should be aware of the task in hand, system and their leadership profile. The greatest potential for success arise when managers combine all these in their leadership (LaMonica 1990).

Huber defines a win-win conflict resolution outcome as an attempt “made to meet the demands of both parties simultaneously” (2014, p. 178). Before bringing all parties involved in the conflict together, the conflict needs to be assessed. The nurse manager needs to define the conflict and review options to resolving the conflict. According to Timmons it is important for the nurse manager to be able to remain objective, review their own response to the conflict and to plan ahead by determining an appropriate venue and allotment of time to resolve the conflict (2011, p. 33). The nurse manager may interview the individuals involved, providing active listening skills which portrays support to all parties involved. Meeting with the individuals allows

The role of the nurse manager is shifting away from an administrative one and becoming more hands on and as such; there will have to be a change in leadership style from task orientated to relationship orientated. Transformational leadership style emphasises relationship management. Relationship orientated managers, like Anne are able to increase self-efficacy and have a positive effect on individuals as well as the whole team (Nielsen et at.2009 and McGuie and Kennerlydy 2006). This is definitely a quality I recognised in Anne. She demonstrated high levels of emotional intelligence needed to relate to other people’s needs and emotions which was displayed in her self-awareness and social competence. Sullivan (2013) acknowledges emotional intelligence and transformational leadership are very much interlinked. Although transformational leadership has been shown to bring about positive changes within a team some studies suggest transformational leadership creates challenges for managers. Cleal (2011) concluded that cognitive challenging situations, along with challenging environment predicted transformational leadership behaviour. This study only used a small sample size and this must be acknowledged as a limitation of the study. Transformational leadership theory neglects to address all the relationship situations within a manger/ worker scenario. For example addressing issues related to conflict within the work place may impact negatively on relationship building (Rolfe