Leadership in Healthcare: Transformational and Caring Leadership Theory
Overview:
Effective leadership is essential in health care organizations and is necessary for driving innovation, effective patient care, patient safety, improving working within clinical teams, sorting out issues within emergency context and other aspects necessary for effective and efficient running of healthcare organizations. A number of theoretical leadership approaches can be applied within healthcare. However, not all aspects fit in perfectly into healthcare, and thus some adaptation may be required.
Situation:
Sarah Barrett is the manager in charge of a 12-bed step-down unit in the New Horizon Community Hospital. The New Horizon hospital administration is down-sizing and the step- down unit is moving to a telemetry floor that has 40 beds. In six months, this full transition is to be completed. Sarah has been informed that the nurse manager of the telemetry floor will remain the administrative leader and her position will no longer exist. The staff, who have been very supportive and loyal to Sarah, are angry about the change and many have requested transfers to other floors. For several years, the 40 bed telemetry unit has had high staff turnover and high use of agency nurses. The administration believes that this down-sizing plan and transition of nursing staff to the 40 bed unit would lead to a more stable nurse staffing for the larger unit. The morale on the unit continues to deteriorate, and Sarah is worried that patient care will be affected and family members may hear the negative discussions that have increased in recent weeks. As a nurse leader at this hospital, Sarah wants to leave this position and close the 12 bed unit on a positive note.
Directions:
Using leadership theories to support your analysis, discuss the leadership style and strengths that the nurse executive in the situation will require to make a positive work environment for the patients, families and staff. Discuss two different types of leaders and how each style of leader would approach this situation.
What strategies will work best? What strategies will not work? Explore the solution according to each selected theory. Provide literature support to analyze leadership styles and apply them to this case.
1. Develop your paper using correct APA format (including title page and reference page) and citations, grammar, and spelling in this assignment.
2. Utilize at least 5 current references to support your paper
Leadership in Healthcare
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Leadership in Healthcare
Nurse leaders have a responsibility as change agents in their organizations. According to Wagner (2018), nurse leaders fulfill this role by guiding and directing organizational change and acting as role models for their followers. They must effectively support change in healthcare organizations by influencing the actions of their followers. As such, they require effective leadership styles, strengths, and strategies to facilitate change, especially because employees are often uncomfortable with change and likely to resist. This paper discusses the leadership styles, strengths, and strategies that Sarah can employ to enhance employee morale and facilitate the positive transition of her nursing staff to another unit. Two key leadership theories that can help her and her team transition smoothly are transformational leadership theory and caring leadership theory.
Transformational Leadership Theory
This theory focuses on merging the goals of the organizations with those of individual employees. The purpose of transformational leadership is to ensure that employees are committed to the vision and mission of the organization (Gopee, 2022). This is particularly important when the organization is going through changes because employees can remain focused on the vision. They are inspired and motivated to promote successful change in the organization. The New Horizon Community Hospital's goal is to downsize and improve employee retention at the telemetry unit. Transformational leadership can ensure that Sarah's team is on board with the hospital's plan because both the organization's and the employee's goals are aligned.
Leadership Style
Sarah must adopt the transformational leadership style. Leaders who utilize this style focus on inspiring and motivating their followers by influencing their attitudes, behavior, values, and beliefs to pursue what is important for the organization (Giddens, 2018). To achieve this, the leader must engage in idealized influence, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation, and individual consideration. Each of these concepts allows the leader to build their followers' confidence, encourage followers to view old challenges with newness, share a clear organizational vision, and focus on the individual needs of followers. The core strengths of transformational leadership that will help Sarah navigate the current challenges in her unit include the ability to inspire and instill confidence in her staff. Also, transformational leaders can communicate appealingly and persuasively (Gopee, 2022), which is why they are able to convince their followers to align their goals with those of the organization.
In addition, transformational leadership is empowering. It not only empowers followers through teamwork and collaboration but also through recognition and celebrating accomplishments (Fitzpatrick & Alfes, 2023). Sarah can empower her followers by appreciating small milestones, recognizing them for exemplary work, and celebrating any achievements the followers make as a team. These aspects of transformational leadership are associated with improved employee engagement and satisfaction. It can contribute to improved nurse morale and retention in the unit.
Strategies
* Sarah must enable her followers to act by involving them in what is happening, especially about the changes. Fitzpatrick and Alfes (2023) state that when transformational leaders enable others to act, they empower them to do their job. They also allow them to be involved in planning. Sarah can enable her followers to act by involving them in planning small day-to-day activities, making them feel capable of dealing with the changes ahead.
* Sarah must also model the way for her followers. One of the concepts of transformational leadership requires leaders to go first. They must lead by example by showing their followers how to achieve organizational goals. They act as role models, exhibiting the behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes they want their followers to emulate (Giddens, 2018). In Sarah's case, she must show passion, support for the change, and a positive attitude toward the leader of the new unit. She must also be highly...