Aspects of Leadership: A Case Study on Nurse Unit Manager

This report discusses the different aspects of leadership through a case study on a Nurse Unit Manager. It covers leadership theories, styles, challenges, and issues related to leadership.

Researching and
writing a case study on
aspects of leadership

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Theories or models of Leadership Style......................................................................................4
Issues and challenges related to leadership style........................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
The aspect of leadership is considered as an ability of a person or a group of members for
influencing, instructing, guiding and inspiring the subordinates or members of the group in an
organisation. The process of leadership is significant within a business as it helps the leaders in
motivating and growing as well as developing its employees. This report is based on a case study
on the aspects of leadership and the position of a person that is chosen within the report is Nurse
Unit Manager from a hospital facility (Cox and Hassard, 2018). The name of the manager that is
taken here is Sophia who is a nurse unit manager in a hospital named Weston General Hospital.
A Nurse Unit Manager is a a person who is engaged in the supervision and managing a nursing
team within the hospital facility. Within this report, different aspects of leadership will also
going to be discussed and some of these aspects include leadership theories and models,
leadership styles, importance of leadership and many more. The main purpose as well as
objectives of the case is to understand the multiple concepts that are associated with the
leadership.
MAIN BODY
Nurse Unit Manager within a hospital facility is responsible for managing the financial
as well as human resources. It also ensures the patient and employee satisfaction along with
maintaining a safe working environment for visitors, manpower and patients. Within this report,
the subject that is identified here is Nurse Unit Manager from Weston General Hospital. It is the
leadership position of the individual and the name taken for personnel is Sofia who will lead the
members of the team within the chosen workplace. Nurse unit manager takes steps in the process
of decision making for the purpose of undertaking the reporting as well as financial tasks on top
of the duties of healthcare. In context to present scenario, Sophia is a nurse unit manager in
Weston General Hospital. Sofia has a passion for the healthcare and is desirous to offer effective
as well as best practices and services in a constantly evolving environment(Einola and Alvesson,
2021). It is only possible through adopting the concept and understanding of the leadership
process as this approach will help nurse unit manager in effectively carrying out the business
activities through leading members of the team and providing guidance to them regarding the
process in which systematic work can be conducted towards attainment of organisational goals
and objectives.

In existing scenario, Nurse unit manager is a leadership position that helps in leading,
instructing, guiding and inspiring the members of a group, team or the organisation. It also
motivates the subordinates within the workplace so that they can do harder work towards
attainment of business objectives and goals. The process of leadership will also help Sofia, nurse
unit manager, in influencing other people for accomplishing the targets and directing the
business in such a way which creates it more cohesive as well as coherent (Fürstenberg, Alfes
and Kearney, 2021). The respective personnel will also carry out such process through
application of the leadership features like ethics, knowledge, beliefs, values, character and skills.
Theories or models of Leadership Style
Leadership theories or models are those explanations of how as well as why certain
people become the leaders and these types of models also concentrate on the behaviors or traits
which are significant for an effective leadership. These models and theories are the theoretical
frameworks can be used by Sofia in the process of managing the employees within the
workplace. The different types of leadership models facilitate in better explaining the process of
harnessing as well as developing the traits and attitudes of human resources within an
organisation. There are wide number of leadership theories or models which can provide
assistance to Sofia in conducting its business operations in an effective and efficient manner.
Some of these theories include contingency theory, situational leadership theory,
transformational leadership theory, transactional theory, behavioral theory, great man theory of
leadership and trait theory of leadership. These leadership theories will facilitate Sophia, a nurse
unit manager, in leading the members of hospitality facility. The description of some of these
leadership theories is given as under:
 Transformational Theory: It is a type of leadership theory in which a leader works with
its teams or employees beyond their self-interests for identifying required change,
developing a vision to guide the change through inspiration, influence as well as initiating
the change within the workplace with committed members of the team (Heffernan,
MacDonald and Longmuir, 2022). When Sofia will make use of this leadership theory
within Weston General Hospital then its followers or subordinates demonstrate great
level of job satisfaction as well as organizational commitment and also involve in
business human behaviours. With the support of such devoted manpower, it will certainly

be useful for the nurse unit manager to consider making efforts towards establishing ways
of transforming the hospital facility through this kind of leadership.
 Transactional Theory: It is another type of leadership theory that is based on the
thought or idea that administrators provide something to human resources that they want
in exchange for receiving something they wish. This kind of theory also posits that
manpower is not self-motivated and needs effective and appropriate structure, instruction
as well as monitoring for the purpose of accomplishing the work on time and in a correct
way (Kim, 2019). When Sofia will make use of such leadership theory, then it will
provide rewards to its employees on their better performance regarding completion of the
projects or assignments. For applying this leadership theory, nurse unit manager should
set goals for its team members and then give instructions to workforce as well as process
documents for meeting objectives. In case if subordinates of Sofia would perform well
then the personnel will reward them and if they perform poor then the nurse unit manager
will punish them in the form of fines and penalties.
 Great Man Theory of Leadership: This theory expresses that some individuals are born
with the essential features which set them apart from the other people and these traits are
accountable for their presuming positions of authority as well as power.as per this
leadership theory, a leader is a hero or a great man who achieve objectives against all
complexities for his subordinates. When Sofia who is a nurse unit manager will apply
such type of theory within hospital facility then it implies that it deserves to lead due to
the traits which have been endowed with itself.
 Behavioral Theory: According to this kind of leadership theory, the key concentration is
on the process of behaving of the leaders and also presumes that such traits can get
copied by other leaders. As per this theory, the leaders are not born successful but can be
developed on the basis of learnable behavior. When Sofia will apply this leadership
theory within the business then its behavior as a leader will impact the performance as
well as distinct leadership behaviours could be effective at different time period
(Naumov, Gryshova and Rozsa, 2018). Sofia can be an effective leader according to this
theory if it will have adaptability to flex its behavioural style and select appropriate style
that is suitable for every situation. In such way, this type of leadership theory will help
Sofia in ascertaining how its leadership style will impact the relationship between its

team and itself along with fostering commitment towards the objectives and goals of
business.
 Situational Leadership Theory: This is another significant theory of leadership which
states that no single leadership style is best and effective at each situation. Rather than
this, it relies on the aspect that which kind of leadership as well as strategies are best
suited to the work. As per this theory, there is a faith that a leader should be adaptable to
the situation that is faced by it. If Sofia will apply such kind of leadership theory then it
should adapt its leadership style on the basis of current skills, readiness as well as
developmental stage of the members of team (Smith and et.al., 2021). With the support of
such theory, nurse unit manager is provided with flexibility to assess circumstance and
adopt a leadership style that best fits the requirements of subordinates.
Issues and challenges related to leadership style
A leadership challenge is said to be a direct threat to an individual’s position of executive
like leaders by another leaders. It can also refer to different business leadership challenges that
are engaged in running daily operations as well as meeting business objectives. There are
multiple challenges or issues that are associated with the leadership and some of these challenges
of leadership include developing others, providing inspiration, handling different perspectives,
leading change, dealing with imposter syndrome, managing a team and many more. These
challenges are described as below in context to Nurse Unit Manager of Weston General Hospital:
 Providing inspiration: At a position of leader, the team of Sofia will look at the
personality for providing inspiration as well as motivation in order to accomplish the
task. It can feel critical within a challenging working environment or in case if leader is
not feeling motivated itself.
 Developing others: A major part of Sofia’s role as a leader is talent as well as human
resource development. It is significant for the respective personnel to identify the
potential within its team members along with encouraging their development and growth
(Van Jaarsveld, Mentz and Ellis, 2019). The leader is required to understand the hopes of
its subordinates for future and identify approaches to overcome challenge and stretch
them.
 Leading change: It is another kind of challenge that is associated with the process of
leadership as change can often feel scary or is uncertain as well as leading a team through

it is considered as a crucial challenge for Sofia. The process of working is changing like
never before and the human resources will look for leadership to take guidance and
reassurance.
Handling different perspectives: The conflicts that occur within the workplace of hospital
facility can be highly detrimental when they are poorly handed by the leader and also causes
stress to almost half of the human resources of the business. There will be so much times as a
leader when Sofia have to manage the conflict between the members of the team (Zhu and et.al.,
2019)
 . Conflict can feel uncomfortable but the nurse unit manager is required to solve such
conflicts before it upsets the members of team.
 Managing Team: This is a major challenge that is concerned with the leadership as
when Sofia becomes a leader then it is either new to the team or it have been promoted
from within this. Both of such things can be tricky and due to which, the personnel is
required to build trust with new human resources or manage a new change with existing
ones.
CONCLUSION
From above explanation of the report, it has been concluded that the aspect of leadership
plays a significant role within an organisation. With the support of effective leadership, a leader
can create a vision and also can motivate the other people for making is a reality. This concept
entails the ability to communicate the vision to members of the team, having a clear and well-
defined vision and many more. Within this report, a case study that is based on the nurse unit
manager has been taken into consideration for demonstrating different aspects of leadership. This
report has been included a wide number of leadership theories in context to the given subject and
along with it, there has been a discussion on the challenges or issues that are associated with the
leadership.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Cox, J. W., and Hassard, J., 2018. From relational to relationist leadership in critical
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Einola, K., and Alvesson, M. 2021. When ‘good’leadership backfires: Dynamics of the
leader/follower relation. Organization Studies. 42(6). 845-865.
Fürstenberg, N., Alfes, K., and Kearney, E. 2021. How and when paradoxical leadership benefits
work engagement: the role of goal clarity and work autonomy. Journal of Occupational
and Organizational Psychology. 94(3). 672-705.
Heffernan, A., MacDonald, K., and Longmuir, F. 2022. The emotional intensity of educational
leadership: a scoping review. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 1-23.
Kim, J. 2019. How principal leadership seems to affect early career teacher turnover. American
Journal of Education. 126(1). 101-137.
Naumov, O., Gryshova, I., and Rozsa, Z. 2018. Leadership in Energy efficiency of agro-
industrial production: regional Aspects. In Leadership for the Future Sustainable
Development of Business and Education (pp. 579-590). Springer, Cham.
Smith and et.al., 2021. Exploring the link between principal leadership and family engagement
across elementary and middle school. Journal of School Psychology. 84. 49-62.
Van Jaarsveld, L., Mentz, P. K., and Ellis, S. 2019. Implementing the Multifactor Leadership
Questionnaire (MLQ) in a challenging context: Results from a large-scale quantitative
study. International Journal of Educational Management.
Zhu and et.al., 2019. Ethical leadership with both “moral person” and “moral manager” aspects:
Scale development and cross-cultural validation. Journal of Business Ethics. 158(2). 547-
565.