Introduction
The current issues in the healthcare industry requires that leaders in various healthcare organizations embrace a transformational, servant, and situational leadership styles in order to address both the internal and external factors influencing healthcare service delivery. Here, many studies show that leadership and governance remains to be the only option in efforts aimed at helping healthcare organizations to transition into market economies by allowing healthcare administrators to forego the transactional leadership styles, and embrace different leadership styles and behaviors in organizing and coordinating the human resource (Schwartz & Tumblin, 2002, p. 1419; Goldman & Dubow, 2007, p. 9). Over the years, the service industry has embraced many leadership styles and behaviors including autocratic, bureaucratic, charismatic, democratic/participative, Laissez-faire, servant, and transformational among others. However, many scholars recommend that successful leaders should demonstrate a wide range of behaviors and styles that capture different leadership competencies relative to various situations (Goldman & Dubow, 2007, p. 9).
Accordingly, this essay considers the leadership abilities and style of a nursing supervisor that I once worked under in a bid to review what makes a successful leader. Additionally, the essay reviews the abilities of the nursing supervisor relative to the core competencies of leadership as provided by the Baptist Leadership Institute. Finally, the impact of the nursing supervisor’s leadership abilities and style on my personal leadership style is also reviewed in this essay.
The leadership abilities and competencies of the nursing supervisor
Considering that the duties of a nursing supervisor as a leader entails controlling, monitoring, and organizing the human resource in order to meet the healthcare organization’s policies, procedures, and guidelines, there is evidence to show that the supervisor considered in this case is successful in many ways. Here, according to the Baptist Leadership Institute’s ten core competencies, a successful leader should demonstrate and participate in goal achievement, team-oriented, organization/prioritization, personal awareness, people development, innovation, reward and recognition, communication, commitment to service, and resourcefulness (Dixon & Bilbrey, n.d.). Accordingly, relative to goal achievement, my supervisor always based his priorities in organizing teams of about ten nurses who were supposed to work collaboratively towards achieving common goals. Furthermore, the supervisor’s people development approach follows from his ability to build morale among all employees through challenging individuals to embrace the best practices in terms of achieving quality of services and ensuring the safety of patients.
On the other hand, there is evidence to suggest that my supervisor’s communication approach was very successful. Here, it is certain that the supervisor believed in the power of two-way communication by allowing all employees working under his supervision to have full and open communication characterized by constructive feedbacks with each other. And to build a team-oriented approach, the supervisor’s duties entailed dealing with under-performers by showing them the need to blend in, and working as a team towards achieving common goals. Furthermore, accountability for each service outcome was treated at an individual level in order to assess the contribution of each team member to the team’s output. Subsequently, the supervisor’s approach to innovation involved providing the necessary tools for continuous quality improvement in our organization besides organizing seminars and workshops whereby employees and other participants could share new ideas and solutions to everyday challenges in healthcare (Dixon & Bilbrey, n.d.).
Further, the supervisor’s approach to commitment to service was another important aspect of his success. Here, the supervisor ensured that the customer service personnel were excellent in terms of portraying a positive organizational image to all clients. Conversely, he also ensured that other hospital staff was supportive in terms of excelling in other hospital operations particularly in addressing client needs. Here, the supervisor achieved organization and prioritization through organizing employees into teams with specific priorities and time frames while delegating duties to each team member. Reward and recognition was also an aspect of the supervisor’s leadership approach through ensuring that the contribution of each team member was recognized, and thus, high-performers were entitled to promotions while low-performers were given the opportunity to do better next time (Dixon & Bilbrey, n.d.).
On the other hand, the supervisor’s approach to delegating duties shows his ability in being resourceful as a leader. Here, besides his duties involving organizing and coordinating employees, he also took his time to assess appropriate skills held by each employee before delegating any duties. Further, the supervisor kept on encouraging each employee to face different challenges encountered with a positive attitude. Moreover, the foregoing abilities could not add to success in leadership without the supervisor’s approach to personal awareness. Here, it is important to note that the supervisor understood his strengths and weaknesses by embracing a participatory approach in his leadership, and thus allowing other junior employees to complement certain skill limitations in his supervision (Dixon & Bilbrey, n.d.).
The supervisor’s leadership style
From the foregoing review of the supervisor’s abilities and approaches to hospital leadership, it is certain that his leadership style entails a democratic or participative style. Here, there is evidence to show that besides the supervisor having authority in making the final decisions, each employee is given the chance to own his or her approach to decision-making, working hard, and developing personal skills. Furthermore, considering that quality is paramount in the hospital organization, the supervisor’s approach to leadership is best suited for the current environment and situation (Schwartz & Tumblin, 2002, p. 1424; Goldman & Dubow, p. 12).
The impact of the supervisor’s leadership style
Looking at the supervisor’s leadership style, I realize that my approach to healthcare leadership has changed in many ways. Here, it is certain that financial rewards does not form the centre of healthcare leadership, but achieving the quality of services and ensuring the safety of clients goes a long way in portraying a positive organizational image to the community, and thus forms the basis of long-term financial stability. Moreover, quality in healthcare is achieved through leaders seeking a democratic and participative leadership approach whereby employees work in teams, and own decisions and accountability for the duties delegated to their dockets. Overall, I would wish to become a democratic or participative leader in the future.
Conclusions
The essay reviews the abilities and competencies of my nursing supervisor relative to the core competencies recommended by the Baptist Leadership Institute. Further, the essay has provided the supervisor’s leadership style, and the impact this style has on my personal approach to leadership. From the foregoing discussions, it is certain that the leader has achieved the ten core competencies in different ways. Furthermore, the leader has realized the need to put quality and safety first before financial rewards in a healthcare organization. As a result, the leader follows a democratic or participative approach, which has proven resourceful since employees work in teams and make their own decisions aimed at achieving common goals. Overall, the supervisor’s leadership style has impacted my approach to leadership in that I can now see the importance of teamwork, democratic decision-making, two-way communication, and participative leadership in the healthcare sector more clearly.
Reference list
Dixon, D. & Bilbrey, P. (n.d.). Developing Leaders Daily. USA: Baptist Leadership Institute.
Goldman, E. F., Dubow, M. J. (2007). Developing and Leading Successful Growth Strategies. Healthcare Executive, 22 (3), 9-12.
Schwartz, R. & Tumblin, T. (2002). The power of servant leadership to transform health care organizations. Archives of Surgery, 137, 1419-1427.