The Health Care System Of Nursing

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.

Nursing leaders are crucial to any nursing organization. They motivate, empower, influence, and communicate the organization’s vision to create change within the organization. Great nursing leadership depends on great nursing leaders. This paper will define nursing leadership and describe leadership characteristics. It will further depict the democratic style and transformational theory of nursing leadership. While exploring leadership in action, this paper will illustrate the aspects of nursing.

Nurse leaders play a vital role in establishing standards and leading organizational change. The effects of the Affordable care Act (ACA) on the healthcare industry is characterized by change (Delmatoff & Lazarus, 2014). Given this ACA paradigm transformation, I believe today’s nursing leaders must adapt quickly and assist new leaders to develop the skills necessary to envision and evaluate new healthcare delivery systems. According to Chism (2009), the roles of the doctor of nursing practice (DNP) prepared nurse graduates may be incorporated to meet the transformation of today’s contemporary healthcare. After reading the assigned material, I gained confidence that the DNP program will prepare me for eligible leadership roles within the healthcare industry.

Implementing a change in practice within these environments can produce anxiety or fear of failure in nurses, leading to a resistance to change. Several studies (Bozak, 2003; Lehman, 2008; Spetz, Burgess & Phibbs, 2012) expounded the need for a concise plan and clear communication between nurses and management when implementing a change of this nature. The use of Lewin’s Change Management theory can support nurses through the transitions and identify areas of strengths and resistances prior to implementing change. Without a framework for guidance, it can be difficult to keep on track.

One mistake that new nurse leaders make is that they believe that the only way to get things accomplished, is to be direct and autocratic (Kerfoot, 2008.) The new leader’s fear of failing can influence them to take on the autocratic role to try and earn respect from their employees. However, this is not considered to be very effective among staff. When the professional nurse takes on the autocratic leadership trait and uses it on a daily basis, employees feel micromanaged. When a manager micromanages their employees they take the risk of lowering morale, and losing good workers (North, 2011.) Nurses have a lot of autonomy in their profession. They work independently and take responsibility for their actions. When they become micromanaged by their nurse leader, it takes away that autonomy and creates a work environment that is very low in morale, and can hurt the relationship between manager and employee. Often managers are experiencing a substantial amount of stress from the administration concerning budgets, deadlines, and high performance issues, but this does not justify micromanaging employees (North, 2011.) It is important to give your staff some independence; this lets them know you trust their judgment (North, 2011.) A nurse leader may also change their leadership style depending on if they are dealing with an inexperienced new graduate nurse, or an experienced veteran nurse.

Strategies that could be used to improve responses to change could be to continue to educate the nurse on the importance of the change. Another strategy may be to educate the staff on how the change will help to improve patient care and will also give them more time. Make sure to have conversations about what the expectations will be in regards to the extra time the nurses will have. Also, allow them to suggest their ideas,

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.

Strong nursing leadership is essential if the strong future of a transformed health care system is to be achieved.

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.

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.

A transformational leadership style along with good communication skills can be used to manage the multiples issues Hartland Memorial faces. “Transformational leadership involves anticipating future trends, inspiring followers to understand and embrace a new vision of possibilities, developing others to be leaders, and reward learners” (Hellriegal & Slocum, 2009, p. 301). Elizabeth and her associates should have the necessary qualities of a transformational leader; integrity, accountability, and motivation, so the staff can identify with them. The nurse manager could give nurses opportunities to demonstrate and experience leadership in their profession on a regular basis. Effective leadership is critical in delivering high quality care; equally

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.

Transformational leadership is an emerging type of leadership that is more adaptable the changing environment within healthcare and has the ability to guide and empower staff to embrace the changes (Finkelman, 2012). This type of leadership is especially important today with many nurses felling unsatisfied, or unappreciated. In order to have a successful organization, it must first have the ability to retain nurses through job satisfaction. Transformational leaders have the ability to encourage staff members to embrace the changes to come, by promoting such things as team work, and recognition of hard work done by staff members (Smith, 2011). Having the ability to recognize staffing needs along with the compassion to try and meet those needs while maintaining the functionality of the organization, is the key to future

Without competent leadership change can have negative impact on both the employees and the patients. According to Wright (2010), lack of leadership in change management could lead to adverse outcomes such as resentment, rebellious attitudes, and could end up damaging the same people it intended to make better (p.20). Therefore, experts warned that it is very important to have competent leadership at the helm of change management (p.20). As the focus of providing leadership shifts to nurse administrators who are often in the frontline of change management, nurse administrator should use essential tools such as the American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE) five domain of competence as a framework in change management.

By empowering the community of nurses and sustaining employee engagement, patient and employee satisfaction would remain the same, if not increase (6 Leadership strategies for navigating perpetual change in healthcare, 2015). Change is tough for most people and the time to adjust varies with each individual. Taking some time to acknowledge each individual and their needs is an important factor to being a great leader (6 Leadership strategies for navigating perpetual change in healthcare, 2015).