Leadership in Nursing and Midwifery Essay Example

and transformational leadership. A transformational leader is effective if the project t hand ought to be carried out in a certain way or during a crisis. This kind of a leader promotes patient safety since they give direct orders that aim at improving quality care (Démeh & Rosengren 2015). A transactional leader motivates workers through punishment and reward. Therefore, employees are sensitive to the goals of the organization. They offer services to the expectation of the leader thus chances of medication errors are minimal. If the nursing manager is leading employees who are low-skilled, this style can provide success (Rumsey 2016). The primary focus of transactional leadership is to follow rules not to make changes. As such, quality nursing care is achieved when rules are followed to the latter.

Transformational leaders are active in promoting patient safety since they enhance the performance and morale of the employees. Such leaders drive change within an organization, unlike transactional leaders. This style has a positive correlation to quality of services provided. Such leaders help the nurses to understand the vision of the organization and the procedure to follow (Thompson 2016). As such, quality care is easily achieved because nurses are sensitive to the minimum standards of patient safety. Transformational leaders lead by example, trust others and act responsibly. This means that they unify the entire organization since they can work even with nurses who have been performing poorly.

Democratic Leadership

In democratic leadership, decisions are made through consensus. Democratic leaders value group discussion. The director makes the final decision, but only after considering the opinions of team members (Frankel & PGCMS 2016). Decisions are made depending on what the majority want.

Through democratic leadership, creativity and teamwork come into existence in a group setting.

Authoritarian Decision-Making

In authoritarian leadership, leaders make all group decisions and expect compliance from the rest of the team. Such leaders make decisions without the consent of other team members and demand the decisions to be followed (Pullen 2016). This leadership style is time-saving since a decision can be quickly made. However, the decision making can be easily abused as there are no consultations and the leader can be viewed as controlling or bossy.

Laissez-Faire

In this leadership style, workers are given the freedom to participate in decision making. It is the duty of the leader to provide the group members with materials needed to meet their goals (Lorber et al. 2016). The manager is not involved in decision making. This style is ideal if the team members are trustworthy, experienced, skilled and educated.

The authoritarian style of leadership involves a nurse manager making all decisions, giving orders, and issuing directives to junior staff who must follow what they are directed. An autocratic leader expects the subordinate employee to follow the instruction without question. This can negatively affect the patient safety since an employee can at times find it hard to hide negative sentiments (Thompson 2016). The nurse can end up not delivering their best since they might feel neglected and not part of the organization. The authoritarian style of leadership is ideal for settings which require workers to follow orders without question. It can only be applicable in nursing if indeed there are simple tasks to be completed.

Democratic style of leadership advocates for participation from the subordinate employees in the decision-making a process of the organization.

Before making a decision that affects the staff, a Democratic leader gathers information, feedback and ideas from them (Pullen 2016). As such, subordinate employees feel valued and in return are likely to offer services that are free from flaws. Patients benefit from this leadership style since they can get full attention from the nurses and their needs adequately meet. When a worker feels that their inputs are an integral part of the decision-making process, they are likely to go out of their comfort zone in service delivery (Thompson 2016). Democratic style is ideal for healthcare organizations since employees have different education backgrounds and skill sets. It puts the safety of the patients in good check. The major drawback of this style is the fact that it consumes a lot of time to solicit everyone's inputs.

Laissez-Faire leadership style allows the subordinate employees to perform their duties with little or no supervision. Therefore, nurse leaders are only required to give minimal guidance and give the subordinate employees freedom to do what they want. As such, employees make their decisions, goals, and provide solutions to problems that come up. The style can promote patient safety since employees are held liable in case of errors occur (Rumsey 2016). They are given the freedom to create a favorable working environment that will enable them to attend to patients in the best way. Laissez-Faire style is convenient if the subordinate staff is motivated, highly skilled, well-educated, experienced and self-directed. This leadership style is ideal in clinical practice because it values inputs and feedback from the leader. However, it tends to be ineffective if utilized with employees who are unmotivated, inexperienced, and

those who are not good in time management.
The different nursing leadership styles can be used to promote patient safety in the inpatient hospital setting. Good leadership styles result in patient satisfaction, patient healthcare utilization, and patient safety outcomes (Démeh & Rosengren 2015). Democratic leadership style reduces medication error since it makes the nurses feel they are an integral part of to the organization. Democratic leadership is associated with manager trust and support. In return, this has the effect of lowering medication errors. Also, the democratic style is linked to minimal cases of patient falls (Curtis et al. 2011). However, manager support is not directly related to declining rates. Since democratic leadership focuses on decision making through consensus, despite it being associated with lower medication errors, reduced rates of infection can be realized.

In authoritarian leadership, the manager the manager does not offer support to the subordinate. Therefore, this style of leadership results to reduced patient falls (Rumsey 2016). Additionally, authoritarian leadership is ideal for lower medication errors since the assistant ought to comply with the manager's decision and deliver according to the expectation of the manager. In certain levels, manager support is not linked to patient fall rates. Authoritarian leadership is not associated with manager support. Therefore, this style can lower patient falls despite the manager not offering support to his subordinate.

The laissez-Faire style gives the employees the freedom to make their targets and goals. Since it is ideal for skilled, experienced and motivated workers, it results to lower medication errors. Still, this leadership style is associated with lower infection rates. Also, this leadership style can significantly lower patient falls since the employees make independent decisions.
Manager

support is one element that results in patient safety in the inpatient hospital setting. The leadership in practice can also influence how long a patient stays in the hospital and hospital readmissions (Curtis et al. 2011). Hospital readmission is an indication that process of patient safety is inadequate. Poor patient safety cultures depend entirely on the style of leadership.

References

1. Curtis, E. A., de Vries, J., & Sheerin, F. K. (2011). Developing leadership in nursing: exploring core factors. British Journal of Nursing, 20(5), 306.
2. Démeh, W., & Rosengren, K. (2015). The visualisation of clinical leadership in the content of nursing education—a qualitative study of nursing students' experiences. Nurse education today, 35(7), 888-893.
3. Frankel, A., & PGCMS, R. (2016). What leadership styles should senior nurses develop?. nursing, 10, 32.
4. Lorber, M., Treven, S., & Mumel, D. (2016). The Examination of Factors Relating to the Leadership Style of Nursing Leaders in Hospitals. Naše gospodarstvo/Our economy, 62(1), 27-36.
5. Pullen Jr, R. L. (2016). Leadership in nursing practice. Nursing made Incredibly Easy, 14(3), 26- 31.
6. Rumsey, M., Catling, C., Thiessen, J., & Neill, A. (2016). Building nursing and midwifery leadership capacity in the Pacific. International nursing review.
7. Thompson, P. E. (2016). New generation leaders: the future for nursing and midwifery. Journal of nursing management, 24(3), 273-274.