QUESTION
Discuss how leaders can communicate effectively to develop staff and transform an organization. Illustrate key points with examples from experience and the literature on leadership and communication
SOLUTION
This essay outlines the principles and effectiveness of leadership which is need to applied in practice to transform an organization. It also discusses its effectiveness and the impact of leadership communication on clinical practice. The essay highlights the predominant leadership styles, leadership communication, personal values of leadership and the effectiveness of leaders in any organization. In present days people talk much about the leadership and the need of leadership in any organization. In the current scenario the media, newspaper and all other sources of communication highlight the need and importance of leadership to operate an organization properly and to transform an organization to achieve the desired goal through strong leadership communication skills. The subject matter of leadership is not a new concept, the role and need of leadership has been also seen in the past to run an organization. The most important skill a leader must acquire is a strong communication skill. The leader of any organization must have the ability to communicate effectively.
The success of a good leader is associated with his ability to highlight the business fundamentals like the accountability for his/her role, discipline, strategic decision and managing the employees and empower them through clear communication. A good leader can inspire and motive his staff through good communication skill. The need of effective leadership been recognized more strongly from ancient times. The changing global business environment and the success of individuals and organizations leadership are required at all sectors, regions and nations (Bolton, 2004). The characteristic of a leader can be described as a visionary equipped well with the dynamic strategy, good communication skill and the desire to guide and direct the respective teams and serve for the future goal. The effective leadership is necessary to maintain the group effectiveness, applying problem solving process and promote group identification through his clear communication. The leader should be dynamic having motivational influence to the team members, should be passionate, focused on result and try to inspire other through his or her communication skill. The quality of a good leader has an honorable character that serve his organization and create an image in such a way that in the eyes of employees that the leadership is everything. The activities of a leader affect the objective and well being of an organization. The positive or negative outcome for organization depends upon the leadership practices. In case of clinical practice the proper leadership influences the outcome of health care and patients. The purpose of this essay is to examine and review the various literatures systematically to know about the factors which contribute to leadership in clinical practices and the significance leadership communication and effectiveness of education in developing leadership behavior and attitude among staff and nurses.
Leadership is a dynamic process through which peoples of an organization is motivated and encouraged to perform their duty in a suitable manner, analyzing the goal and giving support to achieve the goal (Frankel, A. 2008). In clinical practices in the daily routine of a senior nurse the shifts of 24 hour is coordinated by that nurse and give direction to the team members and other staffs on duty. The successful operation by facing the difficult situation in the shift which is carried out depends upon the caliber and competence of the leader and his communication skill.
The senior nurses in his/her daily life manage and coordinate his team and other staffs and accommodate the day and night shift. The team member and the support staff work under the guidance and supervision of that nurse which results in successful operation of the shift. The role of leadership is different from the functions of management. Leadership is the practice of doing right thing whereas the management is the practice of doing things right (Covey, 1999). Management aims to climb the ladder of success however leadership tries to find out the ways the success can be achieved by their skillful judgment and philosophy. So it is clear that it is more difficult to be an effective leader than a manager (Covey, 1999).
Role of effective leadership
Effective leadership play important role is maintaining group effectiveness and create group identification and problem solving. A leader must be passionate and have the ability to motivate and inspire other people through his pleasant communication to get the desired solution. Senior nurses should develop the leadership skills in them in order to get the respect and trust among the member to grow the clinical practice. By following an effective leadership pattern senior nurses set a standard through which he or she brings development for other staff and ensure the professional standard to promote the competent practitioners
The primary role of effective leadership in clinical practice is to take appropriate decision and try to short out the conflicts which have been arises and inspire to work with coordination and integrity. It is the foremost duty of a leader is to continuously aware about the issues and feeling among the staff with one another to nurture the thinking and transform it in ethical manner through proper communication. The continuous learning support in work environment in any organization and using the best practices can motivate the staff and enable to them to empower. The factors which are required in transforming clinical leaders are intentional successful training, providing the right career pathways and the instruments for clinical supervision and promote the centers for excellence for effective role model (Borbasi and Gatson 2002).
Significance of leadership and communication
Most of the People agree that leaders can motivate, supervise, direct and inspire others through his strong communication skills. The person who aims to influence others in an organization, community and persuade them to follow the goal must have good communication skill. With the clear communication he can instruct others, control them and improve the performance of his team and the organization. The leaders with his effective communication led the organization and develop the understanding and maintain the trust which is necessary to inspire others to follow him. In the absence of effective communication a leader is unable to accomplish a desired result for his organization and he is also treated as an ineffective leader. One of an early HarvardBusinessSchool study found that to accomplish the success and promote an organization a leader must able to communicate well and he should have the ability to take sound decisions and to get the things done by his staff members (Deborah J. Barrett 2006). The process of purposeful transfer of ideas in a controlled manner by which the leader of an organization influence his team members may be termed as leadership communication. A leader tries to use his complete communication skills to deliver his message which guide and motivate the staffs to perform a certain action. Leadership communication includes both speaking and effective writing to influence the member’s staff to expand their skills for achieving the set goal. To become an effective leader anyone should improve his core communication skill to manage and lead the staffs by creating few of the qualities in himself like emotional intelligence and the knowledge of cultural awareness and mentoring them by listening the problems of member staffs. Leadership communication skills starts with emotional intelligence and the ability to understand the diverse culture and it should be interacted in a suitable way with individual as well as in groups (Leo F. C. Bruno; 2008),. Further listening is another essential skill which is required for managing the staffs. As the leader is the face of the organization and voice of the people he must posses the quality of clear and strong communication (Deborah J. Barrett 2006). Leadership communication influence the audience and motivate them to act so it is necessary for a leader to increase self awareness as well as awareness of others to develop emotional intelligence because without emotional intelligence it is not possible for leaders to communicate and manage the team.
Leadership activities and the responsibilities
In the clinical practice nursing leaders must be capable to respond and cope with continuous changing dimension of health care environment and the policy changes which are laid by the local and national government and satisfy the expectation of the organization. Best leadership is required in clinical practices because of the higher expectation of consumers and purchaser of health care services, particularly in nursing care. It has been observed that Leadership in the clinical practice is required to provide optimal patient outcomes and to produce enthusiastic clinical experts. Proper initiative is required to develop clinical leaders by collaborating education and health care sector for developing the health care profession (Davidson, P. M., Elliott, D., & Daly, J. 2006).
The key responsibility of an effective leader is that he should be competent enough to reframe the thinking of those people whom they lead by his communication skills and also facilitate them that these changes are achievable. The leaders in clinical practice should find ways to become involved in the decision making process of an organization on those issues which impacts the clinical care like the planning of work force, developing policy regarding the better health care. The policy should be framed by the leader in such a way that it can be accepted by the team member without any dispute. They need to manage the work place systems which promote good patient outcome, evaluating the expertise and show the nursing interest in decision making.
The leaders must try to inspire other staff by encouraging them to apply and adapt the theory in to practice and make them prepared to create dynamic skills with complete support in safe way. The aim of the leadership activities should be in such a way that it develops practice based learning. The leaders should adopt core values with mentorship, supervision and guidance and develop communication skill. In the clinical practice the nurses who serve the leadership role must try to reduce the emotional stress, sickness, and absenteeism among colleagues by various development and caring programme in the organization. It is the responsibility of the leader to influence the employees’ personal and professional outcome by providing the pleasant work environment and support the needs of the staffs. To become a successful leader the leader must consider every employee as an individual and try to identify and analyze their necessity separately (Leo F. C. Bruno; 2008).
The challenging task for the leader is to motivate the less motivated staff and also maintain the motivation of among the employees who are already motivated. Further it is necessary to take some steps and measures to create motivation and vision for the less motivated employees to achieve the desired result for the organization. It is accepted that leadership is an instrument by which staffs were motivated and encouraged to work in unity to achieve the desired goal. To achieve excellence in clinical practice the attitude to work with the team by developing the feeling of shared responsibility and ownership this is very important for the organization. To perform a task it is necessary to identify the strength and weakness related to that particular work among the staffs so that proper guidance, coaching and guidance can be given to complete the task in better way
Leadership models and the future goal
Proper attention should be given to identify that the staffs never feel micro managed and in case of junior staff they should be encouraged more and also give them more liberty to get information and they should inspire to share their ideas and opinion. It is expected that the leader should give them more opportunity to reflect their initiative which will help in building confidence and better decision making.
The role of mentorship is to promote the working environment in such a way that it maintain a sustainable professional growth by choosing some suitable role model and the less experienced workers learn from the experienced ones. There is various numbers of models which are available to guide the leaders how to lead other staffs. The commonly uses models are transactional and transformational model (Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978). The founders of transformational leadership theory interpreted that leaders self sacrifice is a means by which leaders try to motivate followers (Stone, A. G et al 2004).
The major distinction between the transactional and transformational model are that of duration of task. In the transactional leadership the leader interfere by using the negative feedback when he analyze that anything is going incorrect. Transactional leadership is applied on such condition and places where the work or project has to be finished in very short period. However in the field of health care and clinical practice is is observed that there is a requirement of such kind of model which offers long term relationship in between the leader and the staff members. The observation shows that transformational model is highly complex in nature but this kind of model results in much positive impact on communication and coordination among the employees in comparison to any other models which is generally used (Thyer, 2003).
It has been found that knowledge alone cannot handle or operate a team but it is also accepted that without knowledge it is not possible to supervise or operate a team. The leaders should be aware about the needs of their team member individually or in group to coordinate and integrate them towards the common goal. Adair provide a slightly different model popularly known as three circle model of leadership in which the circles contains the individual, need of certain task and the team of members (Adair 2002). In Adair’s three circle model of leadership each circle is interrelate to one another and with other groups. Each circle is related to other. This particular model is supposed as the democratic model of leadership in which opinion of each individual has been considered to set the goal and to complete the decision making process. It consolidates the people knowledge, skills and experience into work for the development of the organization (Adair, 2003). If this model is applied in the clinical practices it will be very useful for the nursing leader to carry on the activity but it is also recommended that they should know how this model can be applied in framing the suitable strategy. So it is recommended that it should be used as a framework to build an effective leadership for those whom they lead as well as for the leader himself.
Importance of leadership learning and communication for better outcome of patient care
Philosopher and thinkers advice that leadership learning in the field of clinical practice is necessary for the positive outcome in the field of patient care and health environment because the leadership learning will provide increased emotional intelligence which enables them toward deep understanding of patient problem and develop responsibility and identity for the role among the leaders and the staff members whom they lead (Allan et al, 2008).
It is thought that to develop the health care standards at certain height improvement and attention is required to develop the system of education and communication skills while practicing the profession and try to grow the skills and professional identity. To be a effective leader he must try to find out the ways and means to generate opportunities for the junior staff to develop self potential, attitude and inspire to share their opinion with other staffs which may form the base of professional development in future. The leader should be a dynamic person with vision and insight and try to generate unique and new opportunities in his specific field to influence the work environment for the growth of the organization.
The leader has the high influential role and should target to change the attitude of the staff members through his clear communication to create an environment which produce skilled and expert staff with the motive to achieve the goal which is set for them (Marriner Tomey 1993). The ultimate goal of any healthcare organization should aim to improve patient care system through good leadership. It is the responsibility of the leader to encourage the junior nurses and the support staff to understand the needs of the patient and provide outmost care. A good strategy developed by the leader will enable to increase the patient’s satisfaction. The nurses who are motivated by the leadership communication are eager to apply the evidence based practice and try to serve for the goal of the organization and deliver their duties with full effort for the betterment of the patient (Kuokkanen and Leino Kilpi, 2000). The leader should aim to provide better patient care and health care system by developing the level of competence and high level of skill and ability.
The way of organizing and describing the role and responsibility to the members of the group comes under task behavior whereas the process by which the leaders try to maintain relation between themselves and with the other members comes under relationship behavior. The effectiveness of leadership can be judged by observing the communication skill, leadership style how they tackle the situation and perform the duty in certain condition.
The appropriateness of work can be judged by matching the leadership style. The preparedness of work and skills can be judged by the follower’s knowledge, ability, skills and their experience to work confidently with commitment to achieve a specific task (Frankel, A. (2008).
Conclusion
This essay highlighted the importance of leadership role in clinical practices and effectiveness of leadership communication in developing skilled and making competent staff. It has been observed that good leadership skill along with effective communication skills contribute a lot in transforming the staffs and the organization. The leaders must use their leadership behavior and communication skill in such a way that their followers believe him and his leadership while growing their own professional ability and skills. It is also the duty of a good leader to use his skills in such a way which contribute toward positive influence and the result obtained should be positive for the organization and in case of nursing care the staff should be appreciated for develop the nursing care in positive direction aims to optimize the patient’s care.
In the health care system there is always a requirement of a good leader who can develop and grow the clinical care system by their positive attitude, strong communication skill, knowledge and facilitate an efficient and sustainable health care system. Leaders need to understand the peoples need to find out their strengths, skills and what are the element which motivates them. Proper attention is required on individual basis as well as in group about the necessity and problems for developing a health work environment which in turns give positive result and growth of the organization. At the bottom line the most important factor to transform an organization and its staff an effective leadership communication is necessary.
Reference
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Kuokkanen, L., Leino-Kilpi, H. (2000) Power and empowerment in nursing: three theoretical approaches. Journal of Advanced Nursing; 31: 1, 235-251.
Leo F. C. Bruno(2008), Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations, Brazil. Available from: http://www.gcasa.com/PDF/Bangkok%202008/Bruno,%20Bangkok,%202008.pdf (Accessed on 1 October 2011)
Marriner-Tomey, A. (1993) Transformational Leadership in Nursing. London
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Thyer, G. (2003) Dare to be different: transformational leadership may hold the key to reducing the nursing shortage. Journal of Nursing Management; 11: 73-79.
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