Essay Sample on Leadership in Healthcare: Essential for Effective Delivery of Services

Introduction

Leadership is defined as a practice of coordinating and directing activities of a group of people or a team towards achieving common goals (Sfantou et al., 2017). It can also mean the relationship between individuals tasked to lead and people that choose to be followers. Leadership in healthcare settings is essential as it contributes to achieving the desired goals by imparting a sense of positivity to healthcare providers. In order to ensure the effective delivery of healthcare services, nurse leaders must integrate different models, approaches, and leadership styles. This paper critically evaluates the leadership style a nurse leader in a patient care unit has adopted to inspire and motivate employees or followers towards achieving specific goals.

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Description of the Interviewee

As a nurse student, I interviewed Carol Burnett, a friend, and a nurse leader at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis. The goal was to understand her leadership perspective in the nursing context. The interview was conducted on 4th September 2020 at Carol’s home in Indianapolis. The interviewee is currently a head nurse in a patient care unit who performs several administrative duties while also providing patient care. Carol helps maintain patient records, build performance reports, and monitor inventory levels. This nurse leader is responsible for the performance of various groups of nurses in a certain patient care unit. As an organizer of day-to-day operations in the department, Carol reports to the patient care director.

Reasons for Selecting the Head Nurse

I chose to interview Carol Burnett because she has a vast experience in leadership as a professional nurse. Currently, the interviewee has six years’ experience as a head nurse, having worked at Raton Regional Hospital and St. Vincent Hospital. Importantly, I selected Carol for the exercise because I was interested in interviewing a lower level nurse leader with a vast experience in mentoring and inspiring direct care nurses. As a student nurse, I stand to benefit from Carol’s perspective of challenges that junior nurses experience in practice.

Objectives of the Interview

The interview aimed to achieve five essential objectives related to leadership and management in the nursing practice. The first goal was to know the interviewee’s leadership style and how it impacts her performance. Carol’s leadership technique is then analyzed to determine its strengths and weaknesses based on academic literature information. The second objective was to know how the nurse leader has been managing stress at work. Here, the strategy is evaluated to determine its overall effectiveness. The third goal was to understand the interviewee’s approach to resolving conflicts with co-workers, physicians, and nurses. The fourth objective was to assess the role of leadership in building a healthy workplace. Finally, the interview aims to know the nurse leader fosters teamwork and collaboration at work.

Carol’s Leadership Style

The interviewee identified five leadership styles that every nurse leader should know. These approaches are transformational, relationship-oriented, transactional, laissez-faire, and autocratic leadership. However, Carol practice a transformational leadership, which she likes because it focuses on motivating the followers and creating good relationships. According to Sfantou et al. (2017), several publications have associated transformational leadership with better patient outcomes and effective management. There is also evidence that this leadership style is useful in healthcare as it focuses on building a culture of patient safety (Sfantou et al., 2017).

Leadership Strengths and Weaknesses

The interviewee identified three weaknesses underlying her leadership. These elements include providing ineffective feedback, requiring constant communication from the staff, and micromanaging some nurses. According to Carol, these weaknesses arise from her desire to closely monitor staff members and track their work performance. The major leadership strengths that help the interviewee achieve her goals as a nurse leader are effective negotiation skills, excellent communication skills, and having self-awareness.

Communication Errors

Carol acknowledged that she had made numerous communication errors in several instances. The mistake that occurred when Carol had assumed a nurse leader's position was reacting emotionally in front of her colleagues. In this case, Carol shouted to one of the employees in frustration instead of responding calmly. This communication error adversely impacted the interviewee's reputation because it gave the impression that she lacked self-control. The nurse leader resolved the issue by apologizing to her colleagues for not controlling her emotions. According to Pipe et al. (2016), nurse leaders should practice personal-centered communication to create a better work environment. Mindfulness is one of the interventions that can help avoid communication mistakes (Pipe et al., 2016). Research has also linked person-centered communication with higher patient safety (Pipe et al., 2016).

Resolving Conflicts

The interviewee said that managing conflicts had been a part of her work as a head nurse. According to Carol, addressing disputes at an early stage is essential to avoid a situation where tensions escalate into physical fights. Carol has been resolving conflicts by listening to the views of the individuals involved in a row then reconcile them. Often, the nurse leader likes talking to such parties on the essence of respecting differences and knowing their boundaries. This strategy helps confront tensions and restore the good relationship between individuals. As a strategy to prevent conflicts, Carol has been nurturing a culture that values diversity.

Managing Stress

Carol said that she always strives to remain happy, more positive, and focused on her work. The interviewee identified three strategies for managing stress. First, she keeps a positive attitude to help cope with the daily affairs of her leadership role. The nurse leader said that having a positive attitude brings optimism to her, making it easier to avoid negative attitudes and worries that trigger stress. Secondly, she regroups on tasks whenever she feels the work is stressful. Gaining focus has helped Carol manage stress in her job. Thirdly, she manages time well, avoid multitasking, and spends her free time interacting with colleagues to remain happy.

Fostering a Healthy Workplace

The nurse leader said that she is responsible for fostering a healthy workplace because every employee has a right to work in a safe environment. To achieve this goal, Carol has been implementing various interventions to minimize fatalities, accidents, injuries. She believes establishing a safe environment is part of her daily work as a nurse since several laws require employers and organizational leaders to keep the environment safe. Carol ensures that nurses in her unit implement infection control evidence-based practices to keep the workplace healthy.

Critical Thinking and Decision Making

Critical thinking contributed to better decision making during the interview. Carol was a critical thinker because she could explore multiple perspectives and distinguish facts from opinions. In this interview, the nurse leader recommended the best possible course of action for issues such as workplace conflicts after examining situations from different perspectives. This aspect is an example of how critical thinking enabled Carol to develop and express decisions confidently. In the interview question about communication errors, the leader also used critical thinking skills such as reflecting, analyzing, interpreting, and solving a problem. Here, Carol thought critically about the issue before giving her responses. This situation implies that the possession of critical-thinking skills contributes to faster and more objective decision-making.

Fostering Teamwork and Collaboration

Healthcare settings provide an excellent environment for team researchers to test theories of team effectiveness and examine key factors that enhance collaboration (Rosen et al., 2018). According to carol, nurse leaders should promote teamwork and collaboration to realize goals that an organization cannot achieve with individual employees. The interviewee said leaders could foster collaboration by nurturing a culture that recognizes teamwork as an asset to achieve organizational success. Moreover, it is necessary to foster friendships and focus on tasks that require collective responsibility. Rewarding group success rather than individual efforts helps prevent interpersonal competition that discourages teamwork. Rosen et al. (2018) added that it is essential to equip employees with knowledge, skills, and attitudes that encourage collaboration.

Communication Skills Applied in the Interview

I used various communication skills to achieve the goals of the interview. Some of these elements are active listening skills, showing confidence when speaking, maintaining proper eye contact, and being patient. The most fundamental aspect of this exercise was active listening skills. Throughout the interview, I did not interrupt the interviewee with questions and comments because active listening requires patience. Several factors show that I used my active listening skills during the activity. For example, I managed to capture all the interviewee's responses and answered her questions without missing any inquiry. I also demonstrated written communication skills by capturing every aspect of the interview I needed to achieve my objective.

How the Leader’s Position Impact the Practice

The interviewee’s position as a head nurse shapes the nursing practice because it involves influencing and coordinating other healthcare workers in the facility to achieve positive patient outcomes. In addition to performing administrative duties, the head nurse also serves as a clinical leader who influences others to deliver quality patient care. The fact that nurses in this position are accountable for junior staff members' performance means they impact the nursing practice through efforts to improve the quality of care. Besides, nurse leaders are experts in providing patient care, and because they are effective communicators, approachable, and empowered, they use their skills to motivate others. The leader also supervises other healthcare providers in the department in providing patient care. Together, these responsibilities impact nursing practice since it helps ensures that nurses maintain quality patient care.

Conclusion

A nurse leader, who is also a friend, was interviewed to know her perspective of nursing issues. A head nurse reports to the patient care director and is in charge of organizing nurses in the facility. Individuals in this leadership position are responsible for the performance of nurses underneath them. Carol is a head nurse practicing transformational leadership, which values the practice of inspiring and motivating followers to achieve their goals. This method produces positive outcomes when applied in healthcare settings because it encourages nurses to achieve their best. Some of Carol's leadership weaknesses are requiring constant communication and giving infective feedback to the followers. Here, strengths are excellent negotiation and communication skills, besides having self-awareness. In addition to administrative duties, head nurses should focus on making the working environment safe for all healthcare providers by minimizing the risk of infections, accidents, and injuries.