Important Leadership Theories and Concepts in Nursing

This document discusses various leadership theories and concepts in nursing, including transformational and authentic leadership, delegation, conflict management, and more. It also covers the advantages of electronic health records, the challenges of succession planning, and the LEAD project for minority nurses. The document emphasizes the importance of effective leadership and management in providing quality healthcare services.

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1.
The two leadership theories that are important to nursing are transformational and authentic
leadership theories. Transformational nurse leaders changes work environment by: balancing
tension between efficiency and production, managing change process, involving staff in decision
making process. Authentic leaders develop better understanding of individual’s own passion and
way to display it in the work place. Authentic leadership is genuine, positive, trustworthy,
believable and reliable (Doody, 2012).
2.
Leadership and management are usually considered as two synonymous terms or used
interchangeably. Both leadership and management are significant for providing good healthcare
services. Leadership is a significant part of a productive and functional management. A manager
must possess the qualities of effective leaders and a good leader must have good management
skills (Azad, et al., 2017). Leaders begin and develop strategies which sustain and build
competitive advantages. The remarkable leadership behavior that focuses on creating
environment where every staff excels and develops is an important component of management.
Every organization needs robust management and powerful leadership for optimal organizational
productivity.
3.
Terese Bondas proposed a theory called Paths to Nursing Leadership on the basis of differences
between the nurse leader’s situational factors, commitment and education (Bondas, 2006).
 The four paths to nursing leadership are as follows:
 Path of ideals: In this path the nurse leader makes an ideal unit and caring culture.
 Path of chance: Several chance factors may lead to a leadership position.
 Career path: The career path provides more power to nurse leader.
 Temporary path: In this nurse accepts the position but they always have the choice to
withdraw.
4.
There are several health consequences of stressful work which leads to physical and mental
health issues (Ganster & Rosen, 2013). It gives rise to many medical implications like diabetes,
clinical eating disorders, pregnancy related issues, risk for stroke or heart disease, high blood
pressure, asthma etc. It also leads to several other mental and physical issues like skin or hair
related problems, digestive problems, hard to retrieve memory or think straight, back pains,

headaches, premature ageing, hard to concentrate, insomnia, reproductive disorders, mental
health diseases like depression, anxiety, etc.
5.
The various inappropriate time management and time traps includes:
 Lack of clear vision: the effective time management initiates with clear vision which is
crucial in setting any individual’s priorities, goals which further assist in making sound
decision.
 Giving importance to wrong things: at times, when there is more urgent works to
complete, even at that time certain task will be more important than others. Hence, one
task should of affect the entire work (Wittenberg, 2015).
6.
Critical thinking in nursing can be defined as a logical, reflective thinking that can analyze the
provided evidence and its implication to the situation of patient. The most important critical
thinking skills are interpreting, analyzing and evaluation. On the basis of this nurses must have
skills which involves: critical analysis, valid conclusion, introductory or commencing and
concluding justification, elucidation of concepts, separating opinions and facts to evaluate the
reliability of sources of data or information, recognizing conditions (Papathanasiou, et al., 2014).
7.
Emotional intelligence helps nurses in better decision making, improve relationships, manage
patients effectively etc. It is used as a means of communication, as all the staffs need to control
their emotions as all the while delivering any service or communicating with clients or
coworkers so that in case if something goes wrong they ae not reacting or showing inappropriate
or rude behavior (Franchheti, 2016). They can use it to communicate with people by developing
key skills like self-management, self-awareness, relationship management and social awareness.
8.
Conflict is one of the problem that occurs in every organization specifically in healthcare settings
where there is a continuous interaction between many people. It is a dynamic process which can
be negative or positive, dysfunctional or healthy, within any work environment. It is the result of
the perceived or experienced differences in common values, attitudes, feelings, goals, actions and
beliefs (Boendemaker & Leever, 2010). Nurses play several roles likes educator, care provider
etc. which lead to many interactions between coworkers and clients that significantly increases
the chances for conflict among nurses in hospital settings. It can be of several types:
intrapersonal, interpersonal, competitive, intergroup, intragroup and disruptive conflict.

9.
Delegation is a management and legal concept which includes planning, evaluation, assessment
and intervention. It can be defined as the transfer of responsibility to perform an activity from
one person to another whilst keeping the accountability for the result or outcome. The essential
elements of delegation include: accountability, authority and responsibility (Mueller &
Vogelsmeier, 2013). Here responsibility means assigning work to a person, authority includes
fulfilling of the responsibility when authority is delegated to other and accountability means to
assess whether the person is performing given responsibility in appropriate way.
10.
In nursing profession, when the nurse fails to act as per standard of competence and care, which
eposes the nurses to litigation (Glasgow & Oxholm, 2012). The litigation here refers to
negligence, not delivering the level of care that a prudent reasonable nurse under same
circumstances; malpractice and professional negligence which can result in reprimand of loss of
a license or nursing license.
11.
Teamwork is crucial as it leads to improved satisfaction in job, reduced healthcare cost and
improved patient care. Therefore, effective team is essential for creating a proper organizational
environment. According to Bruce Tuckman there are four stages of team development which
includes Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. Another stage called Transforming/
Adjourning was added later. The forming stage is the early phase where members are unsure
about their rules, roles, norms and hopes from them. Storming is the next phase in which
members get into defensiveness, competitiveness, jealousy and dispute over personalities and
roles; they may become disparaging of each other and leader. In the norming stage members staff
members get to understand and know each other, agree on working styles, norms and system to
follow (Kumar, et al., 2014). In performing phase all team members work with creative and
positive attitude to obtain the goals. In final stage called adjourning members bring sense of
bonding and closure with each other after the completion of team work.

12.
The 3 different types of budget which are commonly used includes: Master budget, operating
budget and cash flow budget. The principle of budget includes: flexible, analyzes the past,
present and future, it’s a product of joint venture, it facilitates in planning and achievement of
desired goal, represents expected revenue in comparison to the anticipated expense These
budgets also assist in tracking and managing their resources (Rajan, et al., 2016).
13.
Health disparities can be defined as the gaps or differences in the quality of healthcare and health
across socio-economic, ethnic and racial groups. It refers to a higher burden of disability, illness,
mortality or injury experienced by one group relative to another population group. Health
disparities are also based on age, lifestyle choices, lack of access, environmental characteristics
and sexual orientation (Riley, 2012).
14.
The management of change is a process which is done to adapt according to the need of the
situation. The process is about planning evaluating and implementing tactics, operations and
strategies to make sure the change is relevant and worthwhile. The choices are not about
choosing between people or technologies but it’s a combination of both (Al-Abri, 2008). The
effective change is characterized by unfreezing old habits, introducing new ones and refreezing
them.
15.
There are several advantages of electronic health records which are as follows:
 Provides up to date, complete and accurate information at the point of care about each
patient (National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, 2018).
 It enables easy and quick access to records of patients for efficient and coordinated care.
 Improves interaction between healthcare provider and patient.
 Enhance security and privacy of data.
 Helps to promote complete, legible documentation and also provide accurate, efficient
billing and coding.
 Helps care provider to diagnose patients more effectively by providing safer care and
reducing medical error.
16.
The shortage in nursing means, the less number of nurses assigned to more number of patient
which will certainly affect the quality of service being delivered. Hence, there should be

adequate number of nurses for which staffing is necessary, as the more the number of nurses, the
better will be the quality of service (E.Nassar & Abdou, 2011).
17.
It is a process of analyzing the requirement of the job and then finding a suitable candidate who
are interested and are willing to apply for the job. This process is designed to pull more and more
candidate applying for the job and the company have more option to choose the best available
candidate (Newton & Chandler, 2014). It includes several steps such as: identification, research,
recruiting, assessment, interviewing, acceptance.
18.
The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses described authentic leaders as the glue
required to maintain a healthy work environment. These leaders are positive people who
promoted openness and whose attributes involves reliability, believability, trustworthiness,
compassion and genuineness. They engage employees to maintain positive behaviors in the work
environment. Authentic leader enhances the motivation, satisfaction, engagement, involvement
and commitment needed from followers or employees continuously to improve their
performance and work outcomes which ultimately improves the work environment due to
employee engagement (Shirey, 2017). This psychological engagement of healthcare workers or
employees by the authentic leaders creates a healthy work environment.
19.
LEAD project i.e. Leadership Enhancement and Development is a formal mentoring program
that helps to enhance minority preparations in health care settings for leadership positions for
minority nurses. Its main aim is to strengthen leadership skills of minority nurses via several
workshops on strategies to overcome and confront workplace barriers and on race and leadership
(Bessent & Fleming, 2003).
20.
Practice development is a continuous process of developing person-centered cultures. The main
objective of this model is to provide patient centered and innovative care. It mainly focuses on
the way to address the quality of advance health care practices and quality care. This learning
eventually brings transformation in individual and team practices. The person-centered care
includes the principles of inclusiveness, connecting and individual contributions and connect
(Heyns & Rensburg, 2017).

21.
The difference between mentoring and coaching are described below:
Coaching is usually performance and task oriented whereas mentoring is relationship oriented.
Coach helps individual to deal with problematic situation at work and plan for further phase of
their career. Mentors encourages people to work to achieve goals and develop self-resilience.
They assist individual by navigating the politics, rules and culture of organization (Podlesni,
2016).
22.
Environmental design that can decrease workplace violence includes:
 Developing emergency signals, monitoring systems and alarms
 installation of security devices like metal detectors, cameras.
 Providing emergency exists and staff restrooms (Anon., 2017).
 Security escorts at night to the parking lots.
 Installation of enclosed station for nurses
 Providing waiting areas to assist and accommodate patient s and visitors who may have
service delay.
23.
The several challenges of succession planning include: lack of interest of nurses in 24-hour
nursing leadership, negative view of leaders and managers of their roles and work; cultural
mentality about the promotion and durability versus readiness; inadequate opportunity for
promotion; aging workforce; lack of updated technology; shortage of funding, fixed number of
management levels in healthcare settings, rivalries or competition among coworkers fighting for
same position etc. (Ellinger, et al., 2014)

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