Clinical Leadership Article

The report covers 4 different leadership articles for understanding the theory of leadership used in clinical practices. The first article addresses how clinical leadership is applicable in improvement of services and perceiving quality initiatives by Health professionals. The second article addresses the significance of clinical leadership in hospitals. The third article addresses opportunities and prospects in education and clinical leadership development for nurses. The fourth article addresses needs of leadership development.

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Running Head: Clinical Leadership Article
Clinical Leadership Article

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion on clinical leadership based on articles...................................................................4
Article 1..................................................................................................................................4
Article 2..................................................................................................................................5
Article 3..................................................................................................................................6
Article 4..................................................................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The report covers 4 different leadership articles for understanding the theory of leadership
used in clinical practices. The first article addresses how clinical leadership is applicable in
improvement of services and perceiving quality initiatives by Health professionals. The
second article addresses the significance of clinical leadership in hospitals. The third article
addresses opportunities and prospects in education and clinical leadership development for
nurses. The fourth article addresses needs of leadership development. The theory and
problems identified in these 4 articles are discussed in the report. The relevance of findings
analyzed from the articles for development of leadership in nursing practices also discussed
in the report. In addition to this, the limitations and recommendations contained in the articles
are also analyzed in the report.

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Discussion on clinical leadership based on articles
Article 1
“Health professionals’ perceptions of clinical leadership. A pilot study.
According to this article, clinical leader is a person having clinical expertise in an area of
practice and uses interpersonal skills for enabling the health professionals in delivering
quality care to patients. In other words, a clinical leader is skillful and posses great
knowledge of an area of practice who lead his followers by giving them vision and directions
and empower them for providing better health care to patients. Clinical leadership is the work
of practicing clinicians possessing expertise and holding a position of leadership to suggest
and direct the other clinicians for providing better health care (Stanley, Blanchard, Hohol,
Hutton, and McDonald, 2017). There are certain attributes that are required in clinical
leadership which includes clinical competence, communication excellence, management
skills, trustworthy and holds integrity, and visionary.
The effectiveness of clinical leadership is not dependent on the leadership or formal
management training as many of the health practitioners do not receive any management or
leadership training. Rather the qualities for clinical leaderships are developed through years
of experience. Clinical leadership also plays a supporting role in taking opportunities for
influencing policies at different levels and making the health professionals versatile and
leading them in response to change. There are certain factors which act as a barrier to clinical
leadership in health profession. These barriers include industry constraints such as lack of
time for clinical leadership as experts are engage in their own practice due to high clinical
demand. Likewise, the self constraints in clinical leadership include lack of mentorship,
confidence, resources and managerial support. The other constraints include change
resistance, isolation, and inability to manage work life balance.

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A significant growth is observed in the research which explores clinical leadership and from
the perspective of nursing. Clinical leaders in nursing are present in adequate numbers but are
rarely seen in the roles of senior management. Leadership in nursing is developed when they
act upon their beliefs and values related to care. Apart from this, there are certain
competencies which are needed to be applied in nursing for developing leadership. It includes
demonstration of personal qualities, team working, management and improvement of
services, and setting of directions (Kadu, and Stolee, 2015).
The information pooled in the article in context of clinical leadership from the perspective of
health practitioners is very shallow. Therefore, research is needed for developing insights and
generating knowledge and information related to the perception and application of clinical
leadership (Tandfonline.com, 2018).
Article 2
“The importance of clinical leadership in the hospital setting”
The hospitals have diverse environment varying in complexity and size determined in playing
their role as a system of health care. In the present scenario, the struggle of health care
systems continues with the increasing demand of services and costs escalations. Wide range
of health care systems functions are linked to clinical leadership. It is effective in enhancing
the performance of the health care in hospitals, timely delivery of care, improving integrity of
system and efficiency. Clinical leadership is also considered to be a critical component for
improving safety and quality in the health care system. According to an Australian example,
the position of Nurse Unit Manager is reviewed and redesigned for supervision of patients
and ensure that 70% of the time is spend of clinical duties. The rest of the time could be spent
on management and administrative tasks.
Clinical leadership is considered to be an ability of clinical leader in influencing the members
to act and be able to perform clinical practice (Bender, 2016). Through clinical leadership,

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the required motivation and support is provided to peers. Moreover, directions are enacted
and a vision of safety delivery of services is implemented in the healthcare. In the hospital
sector, demand for the leadership role is becoming more complex as there is a need of
different leadership forms. It is suggested in the article that dissatisfaction may be
experienced by nurses because of working environment within the hospitals. The poor
working environment in the hospitals adversely impacts the clinical care delivery and
outcomes for the patients. However, the quality of environment for nursing work is improved
through increased empowerment and responsibility, enhanced communication, and improved
communication which is patient-centered, clarity, and interdisciplinary collaboration (Arnold
and Boggs, 2015).
One of the major concerns is that many of the health professional cannot understand
leadership and therefore cannot perform leadership roles as the leadership content lacks in
undergraduate courses of healthcare To overcome this deficiency many health service
providers are implementing leadership development programs in the. In Australia, hospital
medical registrars can avail training programs in teaching hospitals. Moreover, a specific
program is developed for NUMs specifically so that their clinical leadership skills can be
enhanced through activities of professional development (Dally, Jackson, Mannix, Davidson,
and Hutchinson, 2014).
The article explains that clinical leadership is beneficial in improving the care in healthcare
systems but it does not explains how patients will be benefitted from it. Therefore, it can be
recommended to elaborate the benefit of clinical leadership in context of outcomes for the
patients (Dovepress.com, 2018).
Article 3
Clinical leadership development and education for nurses: prospects and opportunities

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Clinical leadership is becoming significant in the healthcare workforce due to many reasons
which include chaos, complexity, high change rate, quality and safety issues, and shortage of
workforce. It is impossible to exactly picture the future but looking at the present situation of
healthcare sector it can be analyzed that there is a crucial need for preparing nurses for
handling key roles in the delivery system of health care. The clinical leadership role includes
integrated care, working with authority, autonomy, and accountability for coordinating care
and management across the healthcare setting and disciplines (Huber, 2017). The process of
influencing people for accomplishment of goals is known as leadership. Leadership concepts
include communication, influence, goal attainment, group process, and motivation.
Therefore, clinical leadership can be defined as the process of improving individual care
practices and organizational processes as well as influencing point-of-care innovation.
Nurses hold the responsibilities of safety, quality, and improving the experience of patients.
Therefore, clinical leadership can be developed in nursing by using their skills and adding
components of skills related to management and leadership in the delivery of care.
Development of clinical leadership in nursing will be beneficial in improving communication
within the teams for improved safety, increasing coordination for medication administration
and prescribing and transcription. The ongoing gaps in care could be easily resolved through
energetic actions of nurses based on care coordination, teamwork, and competencies of
clinical leadership at the point of care. The challenge in implementing clinical leadership
includes the structuring of skills, abilities, and knowledge required so that the nurses can be
positioned to perform roles which are required in clinical leadership (Grossman and Valiga,
2016). Interdependency and innovation are the two main concepts which act as an
opportunity for the development of clinical leadership, education, and practice.

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The article does not show the practices which are ongoing for the clinical leadership
development. Therefore, more research is required in the area of ongoing practices
(NCBI.com, 2018).
Article 4
“Identifying leadership development needs”
The functions of leadership include communication, achievement of group consensus, setting
directions, and maintain cohesion in group for achieving effective performance. Clinical
leadership includes midwifery and nursing to empower individuals for engaging in change. It
also involves motivating and influencing the peers through inspiration, supervision, and
mentorship. Clinical leadership also includes care coordination, ensuring adequacy of
resources, management of involvement in patient care, understanding politics, partnerships,
and networks, and involvement of self in initiating change, team building, and motivating
others. Midwifes and nurses are reported to have higher requirement for leadership
development. It is more challenging to develop clinical leadership in the nurses and midwives
as they hold the middle position in management, carry multiple as well as conflicting
responsibilities, and their roles are not even defined properly (Gauld and Horsburgh, 2015).
In order to support the development of clinical leadership in nurses few approaches can be
used such as consideration of development of both leader and leadership as a part of
spectrum. Moreover, the development programs shall incorporate experience of learning in
the work setting only so that opportunities for participants could be reflected (Nursingtimes.
Com, 2018).

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Conclusion
It can be concluded that development of clinical leadership is a combined responsibility.
Those who are already in leadership position are required to work together for recognizing
the needs and develop programs to achieve it. An agreement of partnership between health
services and higher education is required for development of clinical leaders.

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References
Arnold, E.C. and Boggs, K.U. (2015). Interpersonal Relationships-E-Book: Professional
Communication Skills for Nurses. USA: Elsevier Health Sciences.
Bender, M. (2016). Conceptualizing clinical nurse leader practice: An interpretive
synthesis. Journal of Nursing Management, 24(1), E23-E31.
Daly, J., Jackson, D., Mannix, J., Davidson, P.M. and Hutchinson, M. (2014). The
importance of clinical leadership in the hospital setting. Journal of Healthcare
Leadership, 6, 75-83.
Dovepress (2018). Journals. Retrieved from: https://www.dovepress.com/the-importance-of-
clinical-leadership-in-the-hospital-setting-peer-reviewed-fulltext-article-JHL
Gauld, R. and Horsburgh, S. (2015). Healthcare professionals’ perceptions of clinical
governance implementation: a qualitative New Zealand study of 3205 open-ended
survey comments. BMJ open, 5(1), e006157.
Grossman, S. and Valiga, T.M. (2016). The new leadership challenge: Creating the future of
nursing. USA: FA Davis.
Huber, D. (2017). Leadership and Nursing Care Management-E-Book. USA: Elsevier Health
Sciences.
Kadu, M.K. and Stolee, P. (2015). Facilitators and barriers of implementing the chronic care
model in primary care: a systematic review. BMC family practice, 16(1), 12.
NCBI (2018). pmc. Retrieved from:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5740995/
Nursingtimes (2018). Clinical-archieve. Retrieved from:
https://www.nursingtimes.net/clinical-archive/leadership/identifying-leadership-
development-needs/5041224.article

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Tandfonline (2018). Doi. Retrieved from:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/citedby/10.1080/2331205X.2017.1321193?
scroll=top&needAccess=true Stanley, D., Blanchard, D., Hohol, A., Hutton, M. and
McDonald, A. (2017). Health professionals’ perceptions of clinical leadership. A pilot
study. Cogent Medicine, 4(1), 1321193.