LEADERSHIP STYLES IN PROFESSIONL NURSING

Leadership Styles in Professional Nursing



Leadership Styles in Professional Nursing

Introduction

Leadership styles within the nursing practice can be evaluated by understanding the relationship between management and planning, change operations and organisation structure. As Zane and Prestipino (2004) point out, hospital disaster manuals and response plans lack formal command structure in most cases and the hospital authorities rely on the presence of certain individuals who are familiar with hospital operations or hold leadership positions and abilities during the routine operations and management of the hospital (Drenkard, 2004).

Management of emergency situations, especially in case of mental health patients who are prone to violence requires the expertise of a disaster management team. However such leadership patterns in which the hospital does not have a formal command structure may be unreliable and during critical conditions, the relying on a few individuals may be inadequate as the concerned persons may not be available at all times and even for prolonged events of crisis, this is not a feasible option or proper management.

The main focus of transformational leadership is to conjoin nurse managers and nurses to strive to meet a united goal. Leaders transform followers by increasing their awareness of task importance and value, getting them to focus first on team or organizational goals rather than their own interests, and activating their higher-order needs.

Considering the necessities of a disaster response team and the need for effective leadership styles of management of crises situations, in this essay we would discuss the various styles of leadership and how this relates to change management, nursing practice, and the quality of care during emergency and normal conditions.

Review of the Professional Nursing Literature

Our discussion will revolve around two forms of leadership patterns - mainly the transactional and the transformational styles of leadership. The differences between transactional and transformational leadership styles were first given by Weber (1947, in Turner, 1998) who suggested that transactional leadership is based on control on the basis of knowledge and hierarchical power and transactional leaders aim to negotiate and bargain to achieve higher efficiency. In case of transformational leadership, the leader is a charismatic personality who seeks to change or transform ordinary people with his qualities and seeks to change ways of thinking by using novel ideas within the organization (Bowcutt, 2006).

Hendel et al(2005)examined the relationship between leadership styles and the choice of strategy in conflict management among nurse managers. The study identified conflict mode choices of head nurses in general hospitals as nurses deal with conflicts on a daily basis and have to implement effective choice of conflict management mode to deal with the complicated situations. The authors point out that the choice of conflict management mode is largely associated with managerial effectiveness of the nurses. It is largely understood that the ability to manage conflict situations creatively to result in constructive and effective outcomes is a standard requirement in nursing practice.

For the purposes of the study, the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, the Multi-factor Leadership Questionnaire, Form 5X-Short (MLQ 5X) ...