Models of Leadership in Health Care Facilities

Leadership is an important skill for all health professionals, especially those in managerial positions and recently qualified practitioners. This report explores the models of leadership in health care facilities, discussing their importance, strengths, and weaknesses.

Running head: LEADERSHIP
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Title: Models of Leadership in Health Care Facilities

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Leadership is an important skill for all health professionals but more so to those in
managerial positions and the recently qualified health care practitioners. The recently
qualified health care officers need to possess confidence and skills so as the guide students
and their colleagues. Success in coordination of shifts, how difficult situations are handled in
the health care facility and nurses’ morale depend on leadership skills the seniors display.
According to Joseph and Huber (2015) complexity, the strictness for safety, shortage of
workforce and the increased rate of changes are the reasons that make the leadership skills for
health professional important. Over the years history has taught how important it is to prepare
nurses for crucial roles in health delivery for both present jobs and future opportunities,
regardless of how difficult it could be to predict the future.
Structuring the abilities, knowledge and the skills and positioning the nurses in the
leadership role is a challenge in clinical leadership. According to the Institute of Medicine
(2010) there is a need to prepare nurses for leadership roles of health care. Motivation, goal
attainment, group process and communication are some of the leadership skills needed in
health care delivery. There are interdisciplinary models that go beyond the normal
ambulatory boundaries and the community settings in health care. These models according to
McCausland (2012) need credible and effective clinical leadership. Clinical leadership entails
using improvements and innovations so as to deliver safe and quality health care (Thomas
and Roussel, 2014). Clinical leadership adds more skills to nurse such as management in care
delivery and also installs the skill of evidence based practice in decision making, outcomes
management and problem solving (Huber, 2014). The public does not see nurses as leaders
but they (nurses) need to have leadership skills to help them in designing, implementing,
evaluating and advocating for the reforms needed in the health sector. Having leadership
skills and competences would also help nurses to act in partnership with other health care
professionals is redesigning and bringing reforms in the health care system. This report will

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focus majorly on the models of clinical leadership and their importance, strengths and
weaknesses as far as health care delivery is concerned.
Leadership according to Ceylan (2018) is a process whereby a person can influence
others (either an individual of a group) towards attaining a certain goal. The Institute of
Medicine (2011) a strong leadership is essential in realizing the dreams and visions in health
care system. Leaders must possess virtues such as honesty, inspiring, be reliable and
supportive, foreseeing and equalitarian, use their power appropriately, listen to others and
objectively evaluate them, be able to bring and support change, be aware of his power, clearly
express his opinions, should possess effective managerial and communication skills.
Leadership is a function of the quality of interaction between the leader and the subjects,
whereby a group of people is encouraged to voluntarily put more efforts in achieving a
common objective under some laid down conditions. Change leadership is the ability to
influence change in others and in an organization through vision and advocacy and access to
required resources and tools so as to come up with a rigid framework of change (Lapina,
2018). Change leadership entails powering up disruption that triggers and sustains change.
This disruption creates a platform for innovations and transformations (Brandham, 2017).
Change leadership has three main attributes according to Moslemi (2011). They are
communication, ownership and adaptability. For a person to show change leadership, they
must possess a variety of communication skills. A leader should display adaptability so that
the effectiveness of their leadership depends on situational characteristics and if the leader is
task oriented or relation oriented. Task oriented leaders have a directive leadership style,
making them effective in clarifying and defining responsibilities and making sure that their
employees understand their roles. Ownership is essential in change leadership. It helps a
leader evaluate success and failures in the firm, making the leader more proactive in

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prioritizing change phases. Change is the act of making something look different compared to
its past.
There are different models of leadership. To start with is the authentic leadership
model. Authentic leaders are aware of their values, lead and act accordingly, while staying
true to their values hence demonstrating authenticity and genuineness in their behaviours.
This model of leadership is built on four constructs that differentiate it from other models.
These constructs include relational transparency, internationalized moral technique, balanced
processing and self-awareness (Ford and Harding, 2011). A leader with high level of self-
awareness understands what they are strong or weak at and through interaction and their
behaviour know their impact on people. A leader with self awareness also could mean that
they get to understand themselves better by interacting with other people and also through the
process of meaning making which constitutes how others view the leader.
A leader who is relational transparent can communicate openly about their thoughts
and feelings to the people they are leading. Balanced processing s the use of balanced
information to arrive at a decision. According to Carvalho, Cunha, Balsanelli and Bernardes
(2016) authentic leadership helps revel the level of openness and clarity a leader can be
towards their followers. Authentic leadership is capable of attaining long term goals which is
beneficial to the firm. This theory of leadership helps one protect themselves and the firm.
Authentic leaders are more effective in attaining their goals as compared to other leadership
theories (Gardiner, 2011). However, being untrue to oneself and the employees leads to a
short lived results. Authentic leadership is an organic process that has to be continually fed by
the leader through their willingness to know about themselves.
Situational leadership model is a popular and widely used model of leadership though
according to Luo and Liu (2014) this model has not been researched and studied extensively.

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This model emphasizes on adjusting the preparedness of the employees to complete a given
task, unlike the authentic leadership model. Since different employees would differ in their
competence and willingness to perform a given task, the leader has to adjust their leadership
style so that it fits the employees willingness and readiness for the task (Bedford and Gehlert,
2013). This model is made up three components, level of task direction, leader and follower
relationship and the confidence and competence of the followers towards their tasks.
According to Glynn and Dejordy (2010) the effectiveness of this model varies from one study
to another. Situational leadership model recognizes the need for flexibility, creates a
conducive environment for workers, it takes into account different developmental phases and
also increase the leader awareness. However, this model has disadvantages which include
focusing on immediate needs and leaving the long term needs, in task oriented situations, it is
ineffective, faces challenges in defining maturity and does not give information concerning
some leaders (Gaille, 2018).
Mulholland (2017) thinks that to manage and implement change, it is important to
concentrate on suitable plan. There are different organizational change models. The Lewin’s
change management model explains about structured and organizational change. The model
is made up of three states unfreeze, change and freeze. In the unfreeze stage, the firm is
getting ready for the change. People have to know why the change is needed. The change
phase is where the real change occurs. It could take sometime as most people take time to
embrace change. Finally, the refreeze stage, the firm is now stable as people have embraced
and implemented the change. The staff and processes have begun refreezing as things take
their normal pace.
The McKinsey 7S model has 7 stages: strategy is designed to win a competition and
reach a certain goal. This stage is procedural developing from step to step; structure stage is
an attribute that explains how the firm is divided; systems stage entails how activities are

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carried out, shared values stage entails the core values in which the firm runs; style stage
involves the process of adopting and embracing leadership and changes; staff stage involves
the work force and capabilities in the firm; and skills stage involves the skills and
competences members of the firm possess. This model helps understand the organization and
know how it runs, helps employees transition easily as the model incorporates practical and
emotional components of change and also the model sees every aspect being equally
important and worth being dealt with. It is faced with some disadvantages such as its
complexity, organization that applied this model face cases of failure and due to
interdependence of the factors in this model, failure of one leads to all failing.
According to Schneider and Nxumalo (2017) community health nurses are important
in improving health outcomes at the community level. The role of good leadership in
community health care has faced slow development over the previous years but recently it
has been taking pace due to quality care as a result of clinical governance. Good leadership is
an element in achieving quality care in the community Sfantou et al. 2017). A research
conducted in US and England indicated that good leadership in the health care setting helps
monitor and improve quality of services delivered (Lapina, 2018). The leadership influences
the quality and safety of health care services by coming up with strategic initiatives and
through direct interactions with the community health workers.
To conclude, good leadership in health care setting is important in ensuring the safety
and quality of health services. There exists different leadership models which could be
applied depending on the problem that could have presented itself. Tis report has tackled
situational and authentic leadership models, which are important in the health setting. There
are other models which could also be applied.

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