Leadership And Management Styles In Healthcare Systems (Essay Sample)

Leadership and Management Styles in Healthcare Systems
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Introduction
Leadership has been described in different ways but the common ground in the numerous available theories is the representation or behavior of an individual when directing the activities of a group of people towards achievement of a common goal. The major aspect of leadership is to influence the activities of the group for which the leader in question is in charge and assisting the group in coping up with the rising changes during the process. The available leadership theories outline best behaviors that would ensure that an organization or a particular system is well manage and thus at a position to achieve its intended goals under the provided guidelines. However, there is a difficulty in implementation of those leadership styles in the healthcare system since most of them were developed outside the healthcare context, but in the business setting and their application is now implied from the business setting perspective, thus the numerous challenges faced in healthcare management systems.
The leadership and Management Styles Applied within the Healthcare System
The healthcare system is a rather congested system in terms of areas of specialization due to the composition that encompasses numerous healthcare professional groups that have specialties with very little interaction between them and the major contribution of such systems is the constraints that relates to the different available disease areas, the multidirectional goals and the multidisciplinary staff. The availability of such high number of subcultures within the healthcare system makes it a challenge to implement a leadership theory within the sector without facing major hurdles in the process due to diverse ways of reasoning and of operations by the many available professional sub groups. For that reason, it is important that leadership in the healthcare sector focuses on capitalizing on that very diversity, efficiently utilize the available resources in designing a management process and always encourage the personnel to work towards a common goal.
One of the common leadership styles in the healthcare system is management by walking around, which results from the tendency of the nurse leaders to walk around regularly to check on the operation of the activities with in the healthcare facility if they are at all moving as intended (Kohn et al, 2000). The styles gives the leaders a chance to how the team members interact with the residents and family members, it instills a sense of care among the workers making them feel that the leader is concerned about the work they do, it gives the leader an opportunity to evaluate the quality of care offered to the patients by the medical practitioners and it gives the leader a chance to demonstrate their interest in the daily operations within the facility (Armstrong et al., 2007). The general advantage of this kind of leadership or management style is that it provides an opportunity for the leader to identify what is going on through purposeful listening, teaching values by example and motivating the other workers to achieve positive outcomes that are desired according to the common goal within the healthcare facility.
Another leadership is style is leading staff through generational divides, which can be made effective in identifying the various available generations within the facility, knowing what divides these distinct groups of persons and what each of the groups considers important. Some of the available generations is the silent generation which includes individual that were born between 1925 and 1945, and an outstanding trait of this group is that they are disciplined, loyal team players with the ability to work very well within the available systems, they always seek approval from their employer and embody the traditional work ethics. The other generation is Baby Boomers and encompasses those born between 1946 and 1964, a group of people that are optimistic in attitude, very competitive and are very concerned with personal accomplishments, thus they work very hard and thus are often stressed (McGorry, 2007). The generation X members that are individuals born between 1965 and 1980 have a sense of dependence are often filled with resentment when someone looks over their shoulder; they question the authority, expect immediate result and are committed to their boss while the members of generation Y are those born between 1981 and 2000 and are individuals that are team oriented, perform very well in groups, and have the ability to multitask (Brandao de Souza, 2009). Healthcare managers tend to try understanding this generational leadership in order to identify how to group their workers, allocate them responsibilities and beware of what to expect from them.
Another leadership practice in the healthcare sector is Team Building, where every nursing department is normally composed of individuals serving in different roles and required to meet the needs of the residents (Roughead & Semple, 2009). The nurse leaders are aware that no one nurse is capable of achieving significant outcomes in attending to patients alone and thus there is need to come up with a way of collaborating so that they can achieve their intended goals effectively and efficiently so, within schedule (Schyns & Meindl, 2005). The nursing staff achieves more when the entire department functions as a team rather than when they stand alone and thus it is important to identify the best way to come up with a team of workers that are capable to transform the operations of the nursing facility appropriately and assist it in achieving the set common objectives (Matteson & Irving, 2006).
The leaders who fail to implement this kind of management in the healthcare system are affected by other factors such as ego, insecurity, and at times their temperamental trait that makes them not give the team Building king of operations an opportunity to implant success in the sector (Eagly et al., 2003). The failure that arises when the ego of a leader makes them find it difficult not to admit that there are certain things that can only be done better by others, is very disastrous since a medical error puts a life at risk every time it is committed. The insecurity factor is seen when a leader feels threatened by others and thus prefer not to draw on the strengths of those that make them insecure through team building and insecurity is the major factor for the failures to coming up with effective teams within the healthcare sector.
The authoritarian kind of leadership is also common in the healthcare system and it is demonstrated when leaders make all the managerial decisions alone without putting into consideration the views and input of the other members of the staff who in many occasions are better informed of the critical areas that needs urgency in attendance (Denis et al., 2001). The leaders often use negative reinforcement and punishment as a method to enforce the set rules and regulations, and blames that occur are laid entirely on the individuals rather in the entire process since the leaders of such attributes do not tolerate mistakes and would like that every one mistake committed is paid for by those involved.( Shediac-Rizkallah & Bone, 2008). This kind of leadership normally puts the health workers and unnecessary pressure and it makes them lose focus from the main process and focus only on the roles assigned to them. This method has advantages however, as it works perfectly in emergencies or chaotic situations when there is no time for consultations or discussions (Shediac-Rizkallah & Bone, 2008).
The leadership and management styles can be improved by adopting different strategies that would d the ensure team building is effective and efficient, collaboration between departments is appropriate and the workers are involved in the decision making process so as to lead to more informed decision making process that would lead to better decision making process. One such strategy is implementation of the transformational leadership approach, an approach that is based on building relationships and motivating staff members through a common vision and mission, which spells out the common goal towards which every member of the staff would be working (Krug et al., 2002). The transformational leader takes time an commits to communicate the vision of the facility to other members of the staff, takes actions to inspire their behavior towards implementing the set goals and objectives and assists the staff members to achieve both individual and group objectives during their operations in the healthcare system (Denis et al., 2001).
Another strategy is through implementation of shared leadership since studies have indicated that majority of healthcare workers do not respond very well to authoritarian leadership styles, especially those that have a direct responsibility for their patients (Lambert, 2002). The leadership system needs be collaborative with the leaders ensuring members of the staff support each other, duties and responsibilities are delegated effectively since this is the basic framework of a shared leadership model that encourages shared governance, a continuous learning process within the workplace and the development of an effective working relationship among workers of an a health care system.
Political, economic, social and regulatory factors s have different impacts on the kind of leadership and management styles adopted by different healthcare systems, depending on the flexibility and resources that are available within the systems. The political factors such as the type of government in place would influence the leadership style since every government have their idea of how the healthcare facility should be managed and as such if the government of the day is interested in transform...