Effective Leadership in Contemporary Healthcare: Challenges and Solutions

Introduction
In general, leadership can be defined as the attribute that enables an individual to guide his
or her subordinates to achieve a particular goal by working beyond their potential. (Weiss &
Tappen 2015). It is challenging to be an effective leader in the workplace, as an excellent
leader need to see above the plethora of facilities, policies, protocols and procedures to
maintain the routine work in the organisation. They also need to overcome the bureaucratic
influences to achieve the goal of organisation and help in its successful development and
growth (Daly, Speedy & Jackson 2015). When leadership definition is extended in the
nursing context, it can be stated that the leader is the person who can provide support,
motivation, coordination and resources to facilitate the followers. This, in turn, help the
organisation go forward and accomplish collective objectives (Australian College of Nursing
(ACN) 2015). The rapidly changing demands in healthcare make it more difficult and
challenging for the caregivers to provide high quality patient-oriented care. Therefore, it
requires flexible and talented leaders to ensure that safe care and optimal patient outcomes
are achieved by allocated proper staff in the workplace(Cummings et al. 2008).
The first section of this report will discuss the main concerns about current health
care system in Australia. It will also portray the most significant factors that can boost the
effectiveness of leadership in health care and the ways they affect both patients and health
professionals. There are five people who have been interviewed. One of them is the General
Practitioner(GP). The other interviewees are two Registered Nurse (RN), who are
undertaking the Master degree, one Physiotherapist and one General Manager in Aged care
facility. In the second section of this report, the author aligns the interviewees’ responses
with a particular leadership style and thereby discuss the potential outcomes of the chosen
and preferred leadership style in contemporary healthcare setting.
Issues the contemporary healthcare is facing
Aging population Nurse to Patient ratios
Indigenous people to access appropriate
health care
Difficult to attracting health professional to
work in rural areas
Increased diversity in patient’s culture Medication errors
Increased chronic illness cost Staff retention (poor nursing staff wellbeing)
Funding inefficiency Insufficient training and support
Shortage of health professional Increased paperwork (including electronic-
based), less time for patient care

From the above interviews, it can be seen that the healthcare system is now facing a
number of challenges in Australia. Armstrong et al. 2007 has stated that “The next
Australian Government will confront major challenges in the funding and delivery of health
care”. With the development of current healthcare system, it is observed that high average
life expectancy and low rate of infant mortality is mainly leading to increased aging
population and burden of chronic illness. The outdated organisation management is also
unable to adapt to the rapid expansion of healthcare needs (Armstrong et al. 2007). In
addition, chronic diseases also are one of the main issues and are mostly suffered by
Indigenous communities. The lack of access to primary, acute and rehabilitation services are
also identified from the interview. Therefore, it urgently requires the establishment of better
links between fundamental healthcare services and Indigenous communities(Armstrong et
al. 2007).
Because of limited resources outside of metropolitan areas, the health professionals
are seen to be unwilling to work in those areas. Here, they cannot meet the criteria for social
lives and their families. This affects their decision, as they cannot decide where to live and
practise. This results in significant shortage of GP, dentist, nurses and others outside the
metropolitan cities, especially in Indigenous communities. Therefore, it is important to
develop innovative methods to attract health professionals for working in rural and remote
areas.(Armstrong et al. 2007).
Education is the cornerstone for all health professional to provide safe and quality
care to patients. Researchers have provided the fact that information that is acquired by
people in university or the college gets expired in 5 years after graduation (Shahhosseini &
Hamzehgardeshi 2015). Therefore, continuing education is important as it provides the
chance for health professionals’ to update their knowledge, improve their skills and modify
their thinking. However, as identified by Shahhosseini & Hamzehgardeshi (2015), heavy
duties in the workplace, time constraints, lack of managers’ support, huge expenses and
many others are among the reasons why nurses are unable to spend enough time in
continuing education.
From the above discussion, it becomes evident that an effective leadership is
required to deal with the challenges and issues that are faced by healthcare professionals in
Australia.
Factors enhancing effective leadership
Personal Qualities: Behaviours:
Self-awareness Support staff
Empathy Act as a mentor-being a model for your