Introduction
Leadership plays a very important role in healthcare organizations and this fact is indisputable. Individual styles of superb leadership vary so much. The intelligent quotient and technical aspects are very critical for leaders. Organizational leaders create vision and describe a dream in a way that people would want to follow.
Study Setting Research Question
The study setting of the investigation was in New Jersey where a manageable sample of Nurse Managers in administrative positions together with a convenient number of registered staff nurses (SN’s) were studied. These participants were selected from acute care departments of the major health facilities in the region (Casida 2008). A fundamental assumption taken by the investigator was that the sample was a true and realistic representation of a natural or normal population in an organization. The members of the population are also assumed to be sharing similar viewpoints, values and mission (Nemetz-Mills, 2007).
The question of research was developed from the fact that there is no evidence to connect culture and organizational leadership in nursing. As a consequence the research question was; “is there a relationship between Nursing Manager’s way of headship and the organizational culture in the nursing units as professed by staff nurses?” The main hypothesis was then developed with further sub-hypotheses to ensure that the investigation is done exhaustively.
Consequences of NM’s Leadership Styles on the OC
There are several leadership styles being studied by scholars worldwide. This survey covered only three types coded as TF, TS and LF styles (Casida 2008). Correlation analyses carried out revealed that Nurse Managers who used TF style of leadership correlated positively with the organizational culture in the nursing unit. The TS leadership indicated a positive relationship with the organizational culture though with lesser organizational culture correlation as compared to the TF style. However, LF type of leadership indicated a negative relationship with OC in the nursing unit (Casida 2008). TF type of leadership is therefore considered to be the way forward to influence and shape the healthcare culture in a way that will epitomize the basic culture attributes (adaptableness, involvement, constancy, and mission).
Essentially, the staff nurses viewed the categories of leadership into two basic types; Transactional and transformational types (Robbins & Davidhizar, 2007). As a result the nurses rated patient satisfaction and quality of healthcare service based on these two paradigms. The transactional leadership did not indicate any relationship with greater performance in acute care patient nursing units. On the other hand, those Nurse Managers who practiced transformational leadership were closely connected with their staff nurses, hence greater patient satisfaction (Robbins & Davidhizar, 2007). This means that transformational leadership encourages employee retention and significantly averted turnover (McGuire & Kennerly 2006). TF is closely related to transformational type of management hence they deliver same type of results. LF is more like transactional management.
Leadership Styles as Identified in the Research and OC Characteristics
Organizational culture concerns exemplifying behavior and reinforcing practices by a group of people (McNamara 2004). The OC is wide, delicate, and strong force exclusive to work groups like nursing units. It’s usually based on core values but it’s manifested via character.
Making a comparison of the three types of leadership styles investigated, it’s evident that the TF style of headship is very effective performance and better service delivery since it has indicated that there is high level of job satisfaction on the part of the staff nurses (McGuire & Kennerly 2006). The major aim of medical care service is to make sure that the patients are well attended to and that they leave the facility satisfied. Nursing being very sensitive career dealing directly with human life, it’s very important the patients get the care they deserve in the best way possible. Generally the research revealed that TF leadership by the hospital management translated to better nursing units. The organizational culture precipitating from this type of leadership also portrayed high levels of realistic cultural traits like adaptability and constancy (Robbins & Davidhizar, 2007). Suggestions to better performance point out that these leaders should be trained and mentored towards achieving transformational kind of leadership (McNamara 2004), essential in establishing organizational culture in acute patient departments to align with the hospitals mission and other strategic objectives.
According to the investigation, the TS leaders come second to TF’s in terms of performance. This can be set as a contingence initiative to be used by nurse managers since they also encourage involvement and constancy. This leadership type is considered to be very practical particularly in acute patient section (McNamara 2004). This can effectively augment TF strategies. On the contrary, LF did not have any influence on the culture of the organization since this type of leadership is deficient in decisive interaction between Nurse Managers and their staff. It therefore lacks better performance and job satisfaction (Nemetz-Mills, 2007).
Conclusion
Further Studies on NM and OC: More extensive studies need to be carried out to offer more statistically significant results to draw conclusions from. Definitive conclusions need to be found since the research did not address causation. This is because tackling two variables makes the design very limited in scope. Leaders mainly in the healthcare organizations need a great amount of emotional intellect since cultural diversity is being embraced all over the world in many organizations. It’s a challenge for organizations to build their own organizational culture.
References
Casida J (2008). Leadership: Organization Culture Association in Nursing Units. Acute Healthcare Hospital. Nursing Economics, 26 (1), 7-15
McGuire E. & Kennerly. S.M. (2006). Nursing Managers. Transactional and Transformational headship. Nurse Economics, 24 (4), 178 – 186
McNamara. C. (2004). Indication of Leadership in an Organization. Web.
Nemetz-Mills, P.(2007). Leadership Basics. Web.
Robbins, B., & Davidhizar, R. (2007). Transformation Leaders in Health care. The Healthcare Management, 26, 233 – 238.