Nursing leaders should create a positive organizational environment and motivate employees to build teams and embark on the change. Despite great changes in organizational behavior and structure, such notions as developing, encouraging, facilitating, integrating, stimulating, resolving, listening, coaching, sensing, monitoring, meshing, guiding, refereeing, and deciding are still important. At last, the nursing leaders must decide, the employees must be in control, and the staff must be the hero and get the credit. Problems should be seen as unique possibilities which facilitate change and create new environments for a change process. Nursing leaders should come in many forms, with many styles and diverse traits, and with each developing the right personal direction. Their sole common attribute is their knowledge and professional skills to make sure the goal is clearly defined and high-performance expectations are set. How aims and expectations are established is a matter of style, but setting them is a matter of performance and positive results. The leader’s task is to ensure that the subordinates set and maintains explicit high-performance expectations. With high-performance standards, the team is committed to achieving challenging goals. Clear goals and high-performance expectations are at the heart of the nursing leader’s task–independent of his or her style. If the nursing leader sets high-performance standards, chances are that the goal will be reached. Employees that constantly expect more of themselves perform at higher levels. While actions such as refereeing, resolving, and even monitoring the staff are within bounds, a leadership task that the team leader must not perform is to evaluate ideas (Whitehead et al 2006).
In healthcare, a holistic approach means a whole person approach based on the principle of moral values and personalized treatment of all patients. The nursing leader should develop his team through a complex structure and analysis of the needs and demands of customers and the nature of the industry in general. In this sphere, service is a core of all activities based on customer loyalty and satisfaction. Many medical institutions ate seeking realistic answers for marketing questions, including the kinds and nature of marketing goals, the realization of marketing goals under conditions of risk, the nature of the marketing decision-making process and environment, and the social and private obligations of marketing executives. The nursing leader can help resolve conflicts, but evaluating–including rejecting or promoting ideas–is out of bounds. The 21st century requires unity but not unanimity or concurrence. The agreement may or may not represent the majority. In the final analysis, staff agrees to support the decision even though employees may still disagree with some aspects of it. Many times, the agreement represents cooperation for a nursing leader. Cooperation may come after working through conflicting ideas. Individuals should not be forced to compromise their ideas just because they are tired of talking about the subject. Leaders should defend minority opinions and viewpoints and support and stimulate creative solutions. A continuing leadership task challenges the team to work through conflicting ideas. Compromises should be avoided until all alternatives have been completely explored. Other nursing leadership tasks include ensuring that the team is staying on the topics at hand and not wasting time (Whitehead et al 2006).
The main ethical principles that should be applied to nursing leadership are justice, patience, fair treatment, a sense of responsibility, and moral values. Ethical leadership requires the acceptance of strict moral rules, the adjustment to new situations, and the recognition of opportunity. Nursing leadership is concerned with the grit of basic values and is reflected in the kinds of medical strategies chosen and decisions made. Nursing leaders can only be effective through other people, for decisions are valueless until someone does something about them. Through good leadership, the organization should help human corporate resources reach high levels of accomplishment. When evaluation becomes necessary, the entire team should participate. The team possesses more information than any one individual so the whole team is in a better position to evaluate ideas than is the leader. The leadership task is different than the leadership task. The leadership task concerns influencing and the leadership function, team process. The leadership function has more to do with who is in charge of leading the team at a particular point and time. Objectivity is also important. The thoughts and feelings of others cannot be accurately predicted–even in closely mixed groups. In other words, we are not good at judging what other people think of us. Rather than worrying, team members are more productive if they concentrate objectively on the issues at hand. Objectivity is another of the ground rules for nursing membership and is a topic in which team members should be schooled. Subordinates should be taught to act more objectively and to sort out personality issues from substantive issues. When evaluation becomes necessary, the entire team should participate. The team possesses more information than any one individual so the whole team is in a better position to evaluate ideas than is the nursing leader (Whitehead et al 2006).
To identify a team’s potential and become a catalyst for change, a nursing leader should take into account the coherence of the team, personal relations climate, and team dynamics. The nursing leadership should have both personal and organizational dimensions, the former concerned with the leader’s influence over individuals and groups and the latter with the leadership of organizations. The two are interrelated, for nursing leadership influences the activities and effectiveness of organizations through setting goals and providing direction and motivation. Also, a nursing leader must know the psychological needs of his people as well as the organizational requirements and technical aspects of marketing. He needs “the ability to understand and appraise situations involving areas in which he is not an expert and he must have the ability to get things done through people who usually know more than he does in their field. The new social environment facilitates getting things done through others. The success of a leader will be measured by the performance of the organization under his authority. It has been said that an organization is merely the lengthened shadow of its leader and that the top executive personifies the business (Whitehead et al 2006). To become a catalyst for change, a leader should have a clear vision and strict personal values. It grows out of the ability to innovate and overcome the limitations of traditional patterns and methods. Clear goals and high-performance expectations are at the heart of the leader’s task–independent of his or her style. If the leader sets high-performance standards, chances are that the goal will be reached. This phenomenon is known as a “self-fulfilling prophecy.” Teams that constantly expect more of themselves perform at higher levels. The leader can help resolve conflicts, but evaluating–including rejecting or promoting ideas–is out of bounds.
References
Whitehead, D. K., Weiss, S. A., Tappen, R. M. (2006). Essentials of Nursing Leadership And Management (Essentials of Nursing Leadership & Management). F. A. Davis Company; 4 edition.