Introduction
Management entails the processes and practices that enable an organization to attain its goals efficiently and effectively. It is focused on the day-to-day nursing operations, such as staffing, performance, budgeting, and resource allocation. Alban-Metcalfe and Alimo-Metcalfe (2018) state that effective nursing management provides leadership and direction to guarantee high-quality patient care. Various theories define management practice by enabling managers to understand organizational behavior’s complexities better, identify critical factors influencing organizational performance, and develop strategies to improve organizational effectiveness. This paper covers a reflection on the human relations management theory. It is based on individual development goals aligned to the NHS’s nine dimensions of leadership behavior. The objectives define the action plans to enable safe and effective nursing care management, which is pertinent to the mental health nursing practice.
Management Theories and Relevance to Mental Health Nursing
Management practice has attracted the development of theories prescribed to help managers make effective decisions. The theories provide a framework for understanding and analyzing the varied aspects of management, including the behavior of managers, employees, and organizations. According to Blstakova and Palencarova (2021), human relations management theory focuses on effective communication, collaboration, and teamwork in achieving organizational goals and objectives. The approach recognizes the importance of human resources in an organization and suggests that managing people effectively is crucial for organizational success (Yuin et al., 2021). In the context of mental health nursing, human relations management theory supports the need for nurses to be dealt with as impeccable healthcare team members (Apen et al., 2021). Belrhiti et al. (2018) state that a nursing manager ought to recognize and appreciate the team’s contributions and push for positive relations between nurses, patients, and other healthcare professionals for improved quality of care. The approach helps to encourage collaboration across professional boundaries, especially in complex mental health cases that may require a team involving psychiatrists, social workers, and occupational therapists.
Management Developmental Needs and Internal and External Drivers
In the United Kingdom, healthcare services are managed under the National Health Service (NHS). In 2013, the NHS developed the NHS Healthcare Leadership Model (HLM) that guides healthcare leaders in practice (Davidson et al., 2020). The model creates a vision for leadership, which mirrors the best in care and compassion, one of the values proposed by the NHS. The HLM advocates for healthcare managers to prioritize the needs of patients and staff, seek feedback, collaborate with others, manage resources efficiently, delegate responsibilities, and embrace innovation (Patient Safety Learning, 2019). These leadership principles set the stage for driving positive change and improving the quality of healthcare services. It also empowers managers to organize their actions in handling external and internal factors influencing service delivery (Matsumoto, 2019). The fundamental external forces that leadership must ponder include changes in regulations, technological innovations and improvements, or competitive forces. In contrast, internal factors include leadership and management style, organizational culture, and employee engagement.
The HLM contains nine dimensions of leadership that aim to build capacity to enable people to meet future challenges. Kline (2019) states that the dimensions enhance individual and organizational learning by acting as role models for personal development. Therefore, the nine dimensions encompass the development needs to guide my selection of the goals. Each dimension is measured using a four-part scale: essential – proficient – strong – exemplary. I desire to attain the exemplary level for all the dimensions to become a better manager in mental health nursing.
Application of Management Development Goals and Critical Evaluation of Progress
Goal 1: Shared Purpose
Every nurse manager should be able to develop insight and apply the elements of the HLM model. As a mental health nursing practitioner, the model provides a powerful challenge for an aspiring manager. It forms the basis as I consider what to do and the upshot in the team, organization, and patients. Fennell, K. L. (2021) argues that collaboration and teamwork are integral in meeting the shared purpose and value of working together for patients, as proposed by the NHS. In mental health nursing, I realized that I have a strength in collaboration and pushing for the common goal of improved health outcomes in the local communities. Since collaboration is a significant value, I felt the need to ensure I continually develop my capacity to work with others.
My desire to choose shared purpose as one of my development goals is also centered on inspiring a team to work towards a joint objective or objectives. Drawing upon my reflection when working on a patient, I realized that the fundamental issue for the leader could help the team identify shared purposes. Even though I have the strength to hold to principles and values under pressure, in becoming a competent manager, I aim to have the courage to face and deal with challenges for the benefit of the service. According to Monkhouse et al. (2018), development can be facilitated by engaging in a few strategies, such as having a team ideology of care that each team member should support. The shared purpose can be further supported by developing mission and vision statements and having frequent multidisciplinary team discussions (Thusini & Mingay, 2019; Xiao et al., 2022). The goal further underscores a fundamental quality of being a competent leader, which entails setting an example in leading the team on proper ways of acting toward each other and the patients.
Goal 2: Evaluating Information
Evaluating information is an integral component of mental health nursing. It facilitates accurate diagnosis, treatment planning, risk assessment, communication, and evaluation of progress. Therefore, information empowers nurses to make informed decisions and provide effective patient care (Sipe & Testa, 2020). It is also aligned with the NHS value of improving the lives of patients and communities by providing the best possible care and promoting health and well-being (Streeton et al., 2021). I appreciate that technology has made information freely available and can be accessed easily from multiple sources. I chose this dimension as part of my development goals because I have had a weakness in leveraging information to critically evaluate the latest research and evidence-based practices to provide the best possible care.
Information has become part of humanity’s everyday existence and is even more at the workplace. However, I noted that information could be a best friend and worst enemy while attending to my duties. I came to appreciate the need for information when working on a patient whose mental health had been affected by engaging in substance abuse. Cook (2018) states that information should be correctly received, processed, and understood, a decision made and an action taken. I desire to make information highly beneficial in informing the appropriate action for a patient after it has been appropriately evaluated. In such a way, it will facilitate thinking in an informed way on formulating proposals for improvement. It will be able to safely and effectively lead and manage the nursing care of a group of people (Sze et al., 2021). I will also enhance my integrity and competency in prioritizing the needs of patients and focusing on delivering high-quality care.
Goal 3: Inclusive Leadership
Inclusive leadership is a critical quality any competent manager must expose. Malila et al. (2018) state that inclusive leadership involves engaging diverse viewpoints to drive high-quality care. I remember the day we were asked to give our views on a new technology that needed to be introduced to enhance service delivery. I realized that partners could collectively move through an iterative process, from identifying an issue and developing an action plan to addressing the issue. The process enables nurses to collaborate in executing the needed action and evaluating the response (Neal-Boylan & Miller, 2020; Nikpour et al., 2022). Therefore, I desired to develop my approach to inclusive leadership to collaborate in implementing care that has meaningful social and health impacts. This emerged as I participated in a community initiative that provided a distinctive opening to see the benefit of building trust. Inclusive leadership provides a unique understanding of the community’s health needs that should be determined and raised to promote health equity.
Conclusion
Nursing management entails the day-to-day actions that must be undertaken to drive an organization. The human relations theory emphasizes the need for the manager to collaborate and work with teams for enhanced quality of care. The NHS developed the HLM model to help nursing managers to have a vision for excellence. It proposes nine dimensions, out of which three informed my development goals. Having a shared purpose encourages working together in teams, including different healthcare professionals. Evaluating information is a goal I desire to meet to ensure the information available is best applied to deliver safe and efficient care. Finally, inclusive leadership works best in promoting the health needs of a community and brings practical touch to mental health nursing.
References
Alban-Metcalfe, J., & Alimo-Metcalfe, B. (2018). Engaging leadership – A better approach to leading a team? Nursing Times. Web.
Antrobus, S., & Kitson, A. (2019). Nursing leadership: Influencing and shaping health policy and nursing practice. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 29(3), 746–753. Web.
Apen, L. V., Rosenblum, R., Solvason, N., & Chan, G. K. (2021). Nursing academic leadership. Nursing Education Perspectives, Publish Ahead of Print. Web.
Belrhiti, Z., Nebot Giralt, A., & Marchal, B. (2018). Complex leadership in healthcare: A scoping review. International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 7(12), 1073–1084. Web.
Blstakova, J., & Palencarova, J. (2021). Human resource management in healthcare. SHS Web of Conferences, 115, 03003. Web.
Cook, T. (2018). Community-based participatory research for health: Advancing social and health equity. Educational Action Research, 27(1), 144–145. Web.
Davidson, D., Kilbane, J., Boyd, A., Shawhan, K., Jones, S., Singh, K., & Chambers, N. (2020). Formative evaluation of NHS England and NHS improvement’s culture and leadership programme: Final report. In University of Birmingham. Web.
Fadda, J. (2019). Value based healthcare: An effective leadership tool to build a successful healthcare business model. Acta Scientific Pharmaceutical Sciences, 3(11), 22–24. Web.
Fennell, K. L. (2021). Conceptualisations of leadership and relevance to health and human service workforce development: A scoping review. Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare, Volume 14, 3035–3051. NCBI. Web.
Kline, R. (2019). Leadership in the NHS. BMJ Leader, 3(4), 129–132. Web.
Lamb, A., Martin-Misener, R., Bryant-Lukosius, D., & Latimer, M. (2018). Describing the leadership capabilities of advanced practice nurses using a qualitative descriptive study. Nursing Open, 5(3), 400–413. Web.
Malila, N., Lunkka, N., & Suhonen, M. (2018). Authentic leadership in healthcare: a scoping review. Leadership in Health Services, 31(1), 129–146. Web.
Mango, E. (2018). Beyond leadership. Open Journal of Leadership, 07(01), 117–143. Web.
Matsumoto, A. (2019). Effective human resource management strategy for hospital nursing organizations. Management Science Letters, 9(2), 243–252. Web.
Monkhouse, A., Sadler, L., Boyd, A., & Kitsell, F. (2018). The improving global health fellowship: A qualitative analysis of innovative leadership development for NHS healthcare professionals. Globalization and Health, 14(1). Web.
Neal-Boylan, L., & Miller, M. (2020). How inclusive are we, really?Teaching and Learning in Nursing. Web.
Nikpour, J., Hickman, R. L., Clayton-Jones, D., Gonzalez-Guarda, R. M., & Broome, M. E. (2022). Inclusive leadership to guide nursing’s response to improving health equity. Nursing Outlook. Web.
Northouse, P. (2019). Leadership: Theory and practice (8th ed.). Sage Publications.
Patient Safety Learning. (2019). Healthcare leadership model: The nine dimensions of leadership behaviour (2013, v1). Patient Safety Learning – the Hub; Web.
Pesut, D. J., & Thompson, S. A. (2018). Nursing leadership in academic nursing: The wisdom of development and the development of wisdom. Journal of Professional Nursing, 34(2), 122–127. Web.
Sipe, L. J., & Testa, M. (2020). A dynamic model of mentoring for hospitality leadership development. Open Journal of Leadership, 09(01), 11–33. Web.
Streeton, A.-M., Kitsell, F., Gambles, N., & McCarthy, R. (2021). A qualitative analysis of vertical leadership development amongst NHS health-care workers in low to middle income country settings. Leadership in Health Services, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print). Web.
Sze, G. W., Yuin, Y. S., Durganaudu, H., Pillai, N., Yap, C. G., & Jahan, N. K. (2021). Narrative review of leadership development programs among medical professionals. OALib, 08(06), 1–12. Web.
Thusini, S., & Mingay, J. (2019). Models of leadership and their implications for nursing practice. British Journal of Nursing, 28(6), 356–360. Web.
Yuin, Y. S., Sze, G. W., Durganaudu, H., Pillai, N., Yap, C. G., & Jahan, N. K. (2021). Review of leadership enhancement strategies in healthcare settings. OALib, 08(06), 1–14. Web.
Xiao, Q., Cooke, F. L., & Chen, L. (2022). Nurses’ well‐being and implications for human resource management: A systematic literature review. International Journal of Management Reviews. Web.