Effective Nursing Leadership Styles for Quality Patient Outcome

This article discusses effective nursing leadership styles such as transformational, servant, and democratic leadership and how they can increase the quality of patient outcome. It includes an analysis of three nursing leaders and their preferred leadership styles. The article also explains the reason for selecting leaders from different units in a public funded hospital in the United States. The article concludes that proper nursing leadership style helps to increase the quality of patient outcome while decreasing the rate of nursing error and nurse turnover.

Running head: NURSING LEADERSHIP
Nursing Leadership
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1
NURSING LEADERSHIP
Introduction
Nursing is a dynamic yet challenging profession that requires engaging and inspiring
leaders or role models. Proper implementation of the specific nursing leadership theories and
styles of leadership helps to increase the quality of care. The following assignment is based
on interview conducted over three different nursing leaders and analysis of their nursing
leadership styles.
Thesis statement
Effective nursing leadership styles help to increase the quality of care of overall
patient’s outcome
Preferred leadership styles and its importance
Leader 1
Preferred leadership style: Transformational leadership
Leader 1 is of the opinion that the preferred leadership style is transformational
leadership. It is a type of leadership, in which the behavior of the leader transforms and
inspires the teammates. This help them r to deliver beyond the expectations while
transcending self-interest for the betterment of the organization. Leader 1 opined that, “my
transformational leadership styles helped me to reduce the reported cases of the medication
errors along with improvement in the patient mortality”. Leader 1 also opined that,
“following transformational leadership also helped me to motivate my team mates and
keeping them dedicated towards their work”. This opinion of leaders 1 holds significance
under the context of the published literature. According to Hutchinson and Jackson (2013) a
transformational leader provides inspirational motivation involving vision of the future to
their followers and motivating them to deliver beyond the expectations. This intellectual
stimulation generates a positive energy, helping the nursing professionals working under

2
NURSING LEADERSHIP
transformational nursing leaders to deliver their best during pressure and that too on quality;
this reduces the overall chances of error.
Leader 2
Preferred leadership styles: Servant leadership
Leader 2 is of the opinion in his leadership style, he make sure to satisfy the
requirement of the individual team members while giving each person personalized inputs in
the decision making process. Thus, it can be said that leader 2 follows servant leadership
style. According to Parris and Peachey (2013) servant-leader puts the requirement of the
others first and thereby helping people to develop and perform in a highly productive manner.
Here the power pyramid is turned upside down that is instead of people working to serve the
leaders, the leader serves the people. This unlocks the purpose and ingenuity of the
teammates, helping to secure higher performance and engaged team collaboration. Leader 2
is of the opinion that, “In my leadership styles, I actively listen to the requirement of my team
mates and support them in their decision making process and this helped me to earn their
faith and loyalty and thereby increasing overall team performance”. In nursing, increase in
the team performance is guided by the increase in the quality of care procured to the patients.
Leader 3
Preferred leadership styles: Democratic leadership
Leader 3 is of the opinion that the, “I encourage in open communication and include
my team members in the decision-making process. For me the relationship is important
among the team members who help to focus on the quality improvement as a ream rather
than highlighting the mistakes of the others”. Thus, Leader 3 follows democratic leadership
style in nursing. According to Giltinane (2013), a democratic nursing leader tend to increase

3
NURSING LEADERSHIP
job satisfaction along with team engagement via taking into consideration all the diverse
opinion coming from the different team members. Leader 3 further stated that, the style of
leadership helped to increase the staff development along with decrease in the turn-over of
nursing professionals. Moreover, feedbacks given to the teammates in a friendly approach
helped them to improve on the quality of care.
Reason for selection of the leaders
I have chosen three nursing leaders from a single public funded hospital in United
States. Three nursing leaders are from three different units in hospital like pediatric, palliative
and emergency department.
Reason for selecting pediatric nursing leader (leader 1)
According to Corno and FETCS (2013), the nursing professionals operating in the
pediatric unit are required to manage endless problems experienced by the sick children and
this includes genetic disorders, pre-natal diagnosis, prematurity, neonatal physiology,
traumas, limited resources and ambulatory monitoring and care. Corno and FETCS (2013) is
of the opinion that working under limited resources, high workload increases the stress
among the nursing professionals along the rate of medication error, and an effective
leadership style is the best possible way to control the entire situation.
Reason for selecting palliative care nursing leader (leader 2)
According to Oishi & Murtagh (2014), caring for dying patients is extremely
demanding. Family of caregivers has frequently acknowledged numerous unmet requirements
associated with the role of the nursing professionals. Family members of the end-of-life care
patients have reported that they require more information and support from the healthcare
professionals. This demanding requirements coming from the family members and stringent

4
NURSING LEADERSHIP
end-of-life care requirements of the patient increase the challenges of the nursing
professionals working in palliative care. Proper intrapersonal communication and support
from the nursing leaders the best way out to reduce the stress of this profession while
increasing the quality of work (Oishi & Murtagh, 2014).
Reason for selecting emergency department nursing leader (leader 1)
According to Adriaenssens, De Gucht and Maes (2015), organizational and job
related characteristics of the nurses are important predictors of stress and health related
outcomes. The nurses who operate in the emergency department are exposed to stressful
work-related events along with unpredictable work conditions. Proper leadership style helps
to y handle the entire situation along with providing motivation to the nursing professionals
to work under pressure.
Compare and contrast leadership style
As per my understanding from the interview, transformational leadership style
inspires the team to perform their best and creates a highly productive environment. On the
domain of the servant leadership, I have concluded that it promotes positive cultures while
uplifting the morale of the staffs. Democratic leadership is slightly different from
transformational and servant leadership and it encourages open communication while
increasing job satisfaction and staff engagement. However, I think in servant leadership
styles, listening to the requirement of all the team members can delay the decision making
process. In transformational leadership styles, what I have noticed from the excerpts of the
leaders is, it motivates the employees to perform, overlooking the details of getting the job
done.

5
NURSING LEADERSHIP
Proper framing of the questions in the domain of the challenges the leaders
experienced while executing their particular leadership style might have helped me to draw
more detailed comparison among the three different nursing leadership styles.
Conclusion
Thus from the above discussion it can be concluded that three effective nursing
leadership styles are transformational leadership, servant leadership and democratic
leadership. Proper nursing leadership style helps to increase the quality patient outcome and
while decreasing the rate of nursing error and nurse turn over.

6
NURSING LEADERSHIP
Reference
Adriaenssens, J., De Gucht, V., & Maes, S. (2015). Causes and consequences of occupational
stress in emergency nurses, a longitudinal study. Journal of Nursing
Management, 23(3), 346-358.
Corno, A. F., & FETCS, F. (2013). Great challenges in pediatrics. Frontiers in pediatrics, 1,
5.
Giltinane, C. L. (2013). Leadership styles and theories. Nursing Standard (through
2013), 27(41), 35.
Hudson, P. L., Aranda, S., & Kristjanson, L. J. (2004). Meeting the supportive needs of
family caregivers in palliative care: challenges for health professionals. Journal of
palliative medicine, 7(1), 19-25.
Hutchinson, M., & Jackson, D. (2013). Transformational leadership in nursing: towards a
more critical interpretation. Nursing inquiry, 20(1), 11-22.
Oishi, A., & Murtagh, F. E. (2014). The challenges of uncertainty and interprofessional
collaboration in palliative care for non-cancer patients in the community: a systematic
review of views from patients, carers and health-care professionals. Palliative
medicine, 28(9), 1081-1098.
Parris, D. L., & Peachey, J. W. (2013). A systematic literature review of servant leadership
theory in organizational contexts. Journal of business ethics, 113(3), 377-393.