Clinical Leadership and Nursing Practices

The assignment discusses the concept of clinical leadership in nursing, which is not exclusive to any professional group. It highlights issues such as lack of incentives, confidence in decision-making, poor communication channels, and clinician cynicism. Recommendations include focusing on current leadership styles, investigating demographic factors affecting nursing practices, and emphasizing leadership style among nurse leaders to make appropriate changes in decision-making.

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT
– CLINCAL LEADERSHIP
AND MANAGEMENT IN
NURSING

Contents
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................3
Clinical leadership in nursing and leadership theory.........................................................................3
Issues in Clinical Leadership...............................................................................................................4
Limitations of clinical leadership.......................................................................................................5
Recommendation..............................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Clinical leadership has been linked up to variety of different range of medical
function. Clinical leadership is implemented and required in hospital care that includes
system performance, care delivery on time, maintaining system integrity and efficiency and
achievement of health reform objectives. The healthcare services provided and delivered by
the hospitals are usually determined by various types of mechanisms that includes population
demographics, government policies, politics and the power of service providers. The main
importance of clinical leadership is to ensure about a high quality health care system that
constantly provides safe and efficient care to patient for their well-being. In order to improve
quality and safety inquiries, commissions and clinical reports have been promoted various
clinical leadership practices along with clinical engagement. It is acknowledge in health care
system that clinical leadership is not considered as exclusive domain of any professional
group. This paper mainly emphasis on the leadership theory, problem discussed along with
limitations and recommendations in terms of leadership development in nursing.
Clinical leadership in nursing and leadership theory
Leadership in nursing is considered highly valuable and it is defined as multi-angled
process in order to determine a goal and objectives, providing motivation, inspiring the team
towards action and support in order to attain mutually worked out goals and objectives.
Leadership is defined as the continuous process in order to influence people to accomplish
goals and objectives. The main key concepts of clinical leadership involves influence,
communication, goal attainment and group process. Clinical leadership is defined as the
process of improvement and influencing point of care innovation both individual care and
organisational processes in order to achieve safety and quality of care outcomes. Thomas and
Roussel reviewed that clinical leadership is all about clinicians care for the quality and safety
by using innovative method and process (Ennis, 2015). Clinical leadership needs targeted
preparation, as there is need of development of systematic, programmatic and strategic
approach to clinical leadership as it is ailing health care system is in urgent need. Clinical
leadership adds important components of general leadership theory, skills and management in
order to provide proper care delivery at the particular time of care. Clinical leadership and
theories allows to focus on skills by using evidence based practices for solving issues or
problem and outcomes management. In clinical practices, transformational leadership theory

is used usually implemented. Transformational leadership act as a relationship between the
leader and the follower. Both of them motivate each other to higher level in order to achieve
common goals and desires.
Transformational leadership theory mainly focuses on the changes. The leader that
actually follows this type of leadership style, they are generally regarded as change agents.
They uses and implement their qualities and personalities in order to motivate their follower
to achieve their target and goals. They also helps in empowering and sharing vision with their
influencers. Transformational leaders enables to influence their follower by encouraging and
inspiring them to achieve targeted goals. In context with nursing practices, nurse manager
follow transformational leadership theory that allows them to build a strong connection with
their followers. Nurse Managers are able to establish trust with their followers by being fair
and honest with their staff and by motivating them to become independent in their decision
making. Nurse Manager while communicating with nurses should listen their ideas, thoughts
as it can them identify and recognize the nurse’s needs and concern. Secondly, participative
leadership theory is adopted in the nursing practices that allows nurse manager to engage the
followers in the decision making process. Nurse Manager proper diagnose the decision
situation and thus make evaluation of the importance of the decision by identifying staff
relevant knowledge and skills (Boamah, et al, 2018).
In context with the transactional leader, they mainly focuses on the proper systematic
system, role assumptions and prospects in order to reward the staff members. The main
principle of transactional leadership theory is that is emphasis on rewarding staff members
for their extra efforts as none of the individual get something from anyone unless they get
something in return in form of monetary or non-monetary benefits . Both transformational
and participate leadership theory helps in resolving the problem and deliver effective
services. It creates positive impact in organisational commitment along with this it also
influence nurse’s performance (Stanley, 2016).
Issues in Clinical Leadership
It is found in the healthcare system, clinical leadership is not consider as the exclusive
domain of any of the particular professional group. Effective clinical leadership practices is
only offered by ensuring the optimal care and by overcoming the problem of the clinical
practices at workplace. In healthcare sectors, many issues arises in context with the clinical
leadership which involves with three forms of avoidant leadership. Firstly, placating

avoidance in which leaders confirmed about the desired concerns but abstained from
appropriate action implementation. Secondly, equivocal avoidance where the leaders are
unsure in their response and action. Thirdly, hostile avoidance in which the leader fails to
address proper concerns escalated hostility toward the complainant. All this forms of
leadership failure creates an effective impact on the organisational outcomes. In spite of the
widespread of the importance of effective clinical leadership for patient well-being or patient
outcomes, there are various barriers and issues in the clinical leadership. Some of the issues
that is found extensively in literature includes lack of incentives, lack of confidence to take
decision, poor communication channel, poor preparation of leadership roles and clinician
cynicism. Poor preparation of leadership roles is another issue that is faced in clinical
leadership.
Limitations of clinical leadership
In today’s changing health care environment it has become necessary to adopt and
practice clinical leadership by the nurses. The main limitation with the clinical leadership is
that it is not consider as the exclusive domain of any of the medical professional group.
Moreover, in clinical practices leaders confirmed about the desired concerns but refrained
from appropriate action implementation. In healthcare sectors, the leaders are unsure in their
response and action according to their pre-planning or decision. The scenario of patient’s
medication and treatment can vary anytime, so leaders are not sure about their decision or
pre-planning (Alligood, 2017).
Recommendation
It is recommended that there is effective need to focus on various concepts of clinical
leadership in order to provide path to new generation of nurses. It is very important to study
and focus on the current leadership style that is prevalent in nursing. It is crucial to
investigate the demographic factors that directly or indirectly affect the nursing practices.
Moreover, it is very important to emphasis on the leadership style among nurse leaders in
order to make appropriate changes in decision making (Huber, 2017). . It is also
recommended that it is important to focus on the effects of leadership styles on nurses as well
to enhance clinical leadership practices.

CONCLUSION
It is concluded for this paper that clinical leadership is not consider as the exclusive
domain of any of the nursing professional group. The healthcare services provided and
delivered by the hospitals are usually determined by various types of mechanisms that
includes population demographics, government policies. Some of the issues that is found
extensively in clinical leadership includes lack of incentives, lack of confidence to take
decision, poor communication channel, poor preparation of leadership roles and clinician
cynicism. The main key concepts of clinical leadership involves influence, communication,
goal attainment and group process. It is recommended to study and focus on the current
leadership style that is prevalent in nursing. It is important to investigate the demographic
factors that directly or indirectly affect the nursing practices.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Ennis, G., Happell, B., & Reid‐Searl, K. (2015). Clinical leadership in mental health nursing:
The importance of a calm and confident approach. Perspectives in Psychiatric Care, 51(1),
57-62.
Ennis, G., Happell, B., & Reid‐Searl, K. (2015). Enabling professional development in
mental health nursing: the role of clinical leadership. Journal of psychiatric and mental
health nursing, 22(8), 616-622.
Nzinga, J., McGivern, G., & English, M. (2018). Examining clinical leadership in Kenyan
public hospitals through the distributed leadership lens. Health policy and
planning, 33(suppl_2), ii27-ii34.
Boamah, S. A., Laschinger, H. K. S., Wong, C., & Clarke, S. (2018). Effect of
transformational leadership on job satisfaction and patient safety outcomes. Nursing
outlook, 66(2), 180-189.
Lynch, B. M., McCance, T., McCormack, B., & Brown, D. (2018). The development of the
Person‐centred Situational Leadership Framework: Revealing the being of person‐
centredness in nursing homes. Journal of clinical nursing, 27(1-2), 427-440.
Stanley, D. (2016). Clinical leadership in nursing and healthcare: Values into action. John
Wiley & Sons.
Alligood, M. R. (2017). Nursing Theorists and Their Work-E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Huber, D. (2017). Leadership and Nursing Care Management-E-Book. Elsevier Health
Sciences.