Nursing Leadership & Management
In this assignment, you will be writing a 1,000-1,250-word essay describing the differing approaches of nursing leaders and managers to issues in practice. To complete this assignment, do the following: 1) Select an issue from the following list: nursing shortage and nurse turn-over, nurse staffing ratios, unit closures and restructuring, use of contract employees (i.e., registry and travel nurses), continuous quality improvement and patient satisfaction, and magnet designation. 2) Compare and contrast how you would expect nursing leaders and managers to approach your selected issue. Support your rationale by using the theories, principles, skills, and roles of the leader versus manager described in your readings. 3) Identify the approach that best fits your personal and professional philosophy of nursing and explain why the approach is suited to your personal leadership style. 4) Use at least two references other than your text and those provided in the course. Prepare this assignment according to the APA guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
Nursing Leadership & Management
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Nurse Managers and nurse leaders perform distinct but complementary roles in addressing problems in the health sector. Central to nurse leadership is activity that is geared towards motivating people while management concerns control to accomplish tasks. Leaders propel people towards realizing the vision of particular organizations while managers plan on the activities towards realizing the vision (Kerridge, 2013).There is a burgeoning nurse turnover and nurse shortage catastrophe in the healthcare industry and nurse managers and nurse leaders address nurse retention in different ways.
It has been estimated that United States may have a shortage that is well over twenty percent in six years to come (Acree, 2006).The problem primarily emanates from the declining number of people pursuing a career in nursing, understaffing, poor image of the career, and the growing number of nurses approaching retirement age. Many nurses are unable to cope with the stressful work environment and change their careers into other less cumbersome professions.
Nurse leadership is important in influencing the retention of clinical nurses among other health outcomes in the hospital. Nurse leaders would employ transformational leadership to address the shortage and turnover problem. This includes using their skills and personal attributes to influence the workforce towards attaining the desired goals. They use problem solving skills to drive nurses towards addressing various needs that arise, they also utilize intellectual rigor to stimulate the workforce's capabilities, charisma to promote warmth and acceptance from the workforce which fosters teamwork, inspiration to propel their resilience, individualized attention for support in tasking and stressful tasks and for developmental support (Acree, 2006).
Nurse leaders' perceived care for others has been ranked among the top factors associated with burnout and job dissatisfaction. To this effect, nurse leaders would solve the turnover problem through displaying superior levels of care, consideration and support towards bedside nurses. Nurse leaders' approach is characterized by a tendency to facilitate bedside nurses' work rather than issuing orders on tasks to be performed (Acree, 2006). This way, bedside nurses view the leader as a team member that offers guidance and encourages collaborative action to achieve the set goals. Nurse leaders may also push for the establishment of smaller work units to ensure that nurses' safety and improve workload conditions. This positively impacts job satisfaction (Currie & Hill, 2012).
Nurse leaders would solve the turnover and shortage problem through including bedside nurses in exploring the longer term solution for the problem. The nurse leader implements both short term solutions that are task oriented as temporal solutions and continue to pursue longer term solutions. Some of the short term solutions may include developing a reporting channel where bedside nurses can inform the leader about patient outcomes and the challenges encountered in their work. This may also involve frequent encouragement, coaching, and mentorship geared towards attaining desired goals (Raup, 2008). A longer term solution may be formulating a strategy to ensure continuous stimulation and adoption of new ways of solving existing problems. This may also be accomplished through availing customized educational opportunities for foster nurses' with structured assignment professional growth.
Nurse Managers' approach in addressing turnover and shortage would be focused on solving the problem using needs based solutions. For instance, they would engage the nursing executives to develop retention...