Effective Leadership and Management Essay

Benchmark – Effective Approaches in Leadership and Management In this assignment, you will be writing a 1,000-1,250 word paper describing the differing approaches of nursing leaders and managers to issues in practice. To complete this assignment, do the following: 1.Select an issue from the following list: bullying, unit closers and restructuring, floating, nurse turnover, nurse staffing ratios, use of contract employees (i.e., registry and travel nurses), or magnet designation. 2.Describe the selected issue. Discuss how it impacts quality of care and patient safety in the setting in which it occurs. 3.Discuss how professional standards of practice should be demonstrated in this situation to help rectify the issue or maintain professional conduct. 4.Explain the differing roles of nursing leaders and nursing managers in this instance and discuss the different approaches they take to address the selected issue and promote patient safety and quality care. Support your rationale by using the theories, principles, skills, and roles of the leader versus manager described in your readings. 5. Discuss what additional aspects mangers and leaders would need to initiate in order to ensure professionalism throughout diverse health care settings while addressing the selected issue. 6.Describe a leadership style that would best address the chosen issue. Explain why this style could be successful in this setting. Use at least three peer-reviewed journal articles other than those presented in your text or provided in the course. Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required. This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion. You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. Refer to the LopesWrite Technical Support articles for assistance. This benchmark assignment assesses the following programmatic competencies: RN to BSN 1.1: Exemplify professionalism in diverse health care settings. 1.3: Exercise professional nursing leadership and management roles in the promotion of patient safety and quality care. 3.4: Demonstrate professional standards of practice.Effective Leadership and Management Essay

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Bullying in Nursing

Bullying is a form of aggressive behavior where the aggressor seeks to harm an individual considered vulnerable through aggressive, intimidating, and coercive actions. Within the nursing discourse, the victim is vulnerable could be based on their rank, their period of working in the healthcare setting, gender, religion, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, among other grounds. For instance, a nursing leader could use racially derogative words towards a new Asian nurse in the presence of a patient and their family members, causing the nurse emotional and mental turmoil, ultimately affecting their psyche to work as a nurse or in that particular healthcare setting. Bullying in nursing is a common occurrence and has a profound impact on patient health outcomes and satisfaction

levels. The following is a discussion on the impact of bullying on patient outcomes.

Lower Patient Satisfaction

Bullying that occurs in the presence of patients tends to lower their satisfaction levels based on the memories they develop after the incident (Gautham, 2020). Consider a situation where the head nurse reprimands a junior nurse at the triage room in the presence of patients and leaves them a derogatory remark that is racist and intimidating. Human beings tend to remember the negative events that occur in their life. Therefore, bullying in nursing lowers patient satisfaction because it exposes them to negative incidents that could be offensive or traumatic for them.Effective Leadership and Management Essay

Medical Errors

Medical errors can be fatal to a patient or lead to worse health outcomes because of the complications that arise from drug errors (Al-Omar et al., 2019). The bullied nurse loses focus and concentration at work because of the mental anguish they experience from the intimidating behavior. The mental absenteeism has adverse effects on the patients because of issues such as medication errors, which may arise because of a lack of concentration at the workplace.

Absenteeism

To avoid intimidating bullying behavior in the workplace, the victim avoids reporting to work, which is referred to as absenteeism. This eventuality is critical to patients because it increases the workload for the rest of the nurses, hence reducing the quality of nursing services delivered to the patient (Thompson, 2018). Additionally, some patients prefer receiving care from specific nurses. Therefore, if the nurse is absent for an extended period, the patient’s health deteriorates because of lowered satisfaction levels.

Maintaining Professional Conduct

To maintain professional conduct within the healthcare facilities, nursing leaders should involve themselves in the change process. One of the changes that need the implementation to curb bullying and nursing incivility would be to conduct frequent training sessions in which the nurses receive training on how to identify and recognize bullying, and how to respond through approaches such as the cognitive rehearsal, which reduce the reactions in the parties involved in a conflict. Additionally, the training should include scripting techniques that entail role-playing among the participants, as an effective method of demonstrating how bullying occurs and the impact it has on the nurse and the patient. Another way to maintain professional conduct and reduce bullying within the healthcare setting is to institute strict policies against bullying. A zero-tolerance approach towards bullying is necessary to discourage nurses from incivility and to bully each other. Therefore, one of the policies could be to impose compulsory and unpaid leave for nurses found liable for bullying. Such punishments should discourage bullying and promote civility among nurses. Another approach to curb the bullying and maintain professional conduct among nurses would be to institute policies that allow patients to report any cases of bullying they witness because some cases fail to reach the management.

Nursing Leaders vs. Nursing Managers

To manage the bullying that occurs in healthcare settings, among the nurses, nursing leadership and management is necessary. Therefore, the input of a nursing leader and manager is necessary to maintain professional conduct among the nurses. However, their modes of operation differ because of the differences between a nursing leader and a nursing manager. Firstly, to help maintain professional conduct, the nursing leader will seek to inspire the nurses to adopt healthier behaviors, through techniques such as transformational leadership. A nursing leader is charismatic and inspirational (Hafsteinsdóttir et al., 2019). For instance, when addressing the nurses about bullying, the nursing leader may provide personal testimonies to inspire the nurses to change their behavior. This is an example of transformational leadership in nursing. Conversely, the nursing manager focuses on the vision and mission of the healthcare setting; therefore, they adopt a “take it or leave it” perspective and approach. In a bullying situation, the nurse manager will demand that the bullying stops; otherwise, the bully nurse risks employment termination because their actions impede achieving the mission and vision of the healthcare organization.Effective Leadership and Management Essay

The nurse leader also plays the role of taking risks in managing the bullying incidences at the workplace. Nursing leaders are more willing to try new risks compared to nursing managers (Hafsteinsdóttir et al., 2019). Leaders understand that failure is part of growth, and therefore, risking the implementation of new ideas is second nature to them. Therefore, in a situation where the nursing manager needs to address the bullying occurring at the healthcare facility, the leader takes the risk of rehabilitating bullies, instead of firing them or taking disciplinary actions. A nursing manager would conversely control the risk of additional bullying incidents among the nurses by firing the uncivil nurses who engage in bullying. Therefore, a nursing leader would take a risk, while a nursing manager would control the risk.

Additional Aspects of Leaders and Managers

            The following are additional measures that the nursing leaders and managers could take to ensure professionalism throughout the diverse healthcare settings:

• Hire a diverse nursing workforce. A multicultural workplace exposes the nurses to different cultures and ways of life, which allows them an opportunity to learn and appreciate them. Additionally, a multicultural nursing workforce reduces the chances of bullying because of the representation of many cultures, as opposed to having a workforce with a majority and minority culture setup. If the minority are outstanding, chances of bullying based on race are high.
• Introduce cultural etiquette, awareness, education among the nurses frequently to expose nurses to cultural knowledge, to limit ethnic discrimination and bullying among nurses.
• Introducing a robust promotional program, this ensures that all nurses access promotional opportunities because bullying sometimes occurs because of nursing ranks and superiority issues.

Leadership Style

            The best leadership style that would address bullying in nursing would be the autocratic leadership style. While this leadership style is rarely considered effective in business situations, it would be highly effective in ensuring that nurses maintain professional conduct and avoid bullying other nurses at the workplace. An autocratic leadership style is a leadership approach where the leader makes all decisions without input from others. The leader does not consult with the team under them before making decisions or taking a specific direction (Blais, 2016). The team members are also expected to adhere to these decisions as stipulated by the leader. Therefore, the leader becomes the sole guider of the organization without external influence. While this leadership style appears rigid and ineffective, it would be the best option in nursing bullying cases where the employees who bully are automatically punished through forced unpaid leave or firing from the workplace.

However, to regulate the leadership powers and authority in such cases, it is necessary first to ensure that policies regarding bullying are in place. Therefore, whenever an incident occurs, and a nurse is proven guilt for bullying, then they should be fired or forced to go on leave. The autocratic leader is, therefore, required to implement these policies. The major reason for implementing such a leadership approach is that bullying is unacceptable and compromises patient safety and outcomes. Eventually, the healthcare organization fails to achieve its mission and vision. Therefore, the autocratic leadership style would be the best for such a nursing problem. Effective Leadership and Management Essay      

References

Al Omar, M., Salam, M. & Al-Surimi, K. Workplace bullying and its impact on the quality of healthcare and patient safety. Hum Resour Health 17, 89 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-019-0433-x

Blais, K., & Hayes, J. (2016). Professional nursing practice (2nd ed.). Boston: Pearson.

Gautham, K. (2020). Addressing Disruptive and Unprofessional Physician Behavior. The Joint Commission Journal On Quality And Patient Safety, 46(2), 61-63. doi: 10.1016/j.jcjq.2019.12.002

Hafsteinsdóttir, T., Jónsdóttir, H., Kirkevold, M., Leino-Kilpi, H., Lomborg, K., & Rahm Hallberg, I. (2019). Leadership in Nursing. Cham: Springer.

Thompson, R. (2018). Nurse Bullying and Patient Safety: Understanding the 3 P’s of Safe Patient Care. Retrieved 29 August 2020, from https://healthyworkforceinstitute.com/nurse-bullying-and-patient-safety-understanding-the-3-ps-of-safe-patient-care/

Effective Leadership and Management Essay