Transformational Leadership in Nursing

This article discusses the benefits of transformational leadership in nursing, including increased morale, improved patient safety, and reduced burnout. It also explores the different attributes of transformational leadership and how they can be applied in the healthcare setting.

Running head: TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP IN NURSING
TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP IN NURSING
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TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP IN NURSING
Leaders can be defined as the individuals who take on the responsibility of guiding the
subordinates in ways by which achieving organizational goals become much easier. The leaders
are mainly seen to help subordinates overcome various barriers that come in the way of meeting
the objectives. They tend to motivate them making them work beyond their potential helping
them to achieve organizational mission and vision. Everything sectors of industrialization over
the year have seen examples of best leaders. they have helped the organization to overcome crisis
period and emerge out victorious through proper decision making skills, risk taking abilities.
They also help in encouraging employees to align with organizational goals (Vaismoradi et al.,
2016). Moreover, they also ensure employee dedication in the organization by attending the
issues faced by the individuals while trying to work for the betterment of the organization. In the
healthcare sector, leadership is a core criterion in the nursing domain. An expert leader has the
capability to encourage professionals to align with their philosophy at the same time ensuring
that they are working towards maintaining the safety of the service users. With the passage of
time, different types of leadership theories have come up (Fischer et al., 2016). This assignment
will mainly show how transformational leadership has helped to change the face of healthcare
ensuring not only the safety of patients but also high morale of nurses and better productivity of
the organization and profit.
The nature of the healthcare centers is continually changing due to the advancements
made in the field of medical science every passing year. Modifications in the technological
systems, patterns of care, new demands and needs of the present population and many others had
provided an ever-changing stature of the healthcare industry (Lin et al., 2015). Due to this
continually metamorphic nature of the healthcare system of the nation, researchers are of the
opinion that nursing professionals need to employ transformational leadership style. The

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leadership style mainly aims is to encourage professionals for adaptation to changes and helps
the leaders in recognizing areas where change is required. The leaders thereby guide the nursing
subordinates by inspiring them about the changes and creating a sense of commitment.
Researchers are of the opinion that when nursing leaders will be able to adopt the
transformational leadership style effectively, they will have many advantages. They feel more
confident and comfortable while engaging in the development of healthcare policies. They can
mentor new graduate nurses, manage teamwork and the ever-changing components of healthcare
technology of the present generation (Weng et al., 2015).
One of the most important aspects of transformational leadership in nursing is the
intellectual stimulation attribute. Researchers have put forward many studies that have shown
how this attribute has become an exceptionally important aspect in the present healthcare centers.
(Scully, 2015). With the help of this skill, the nursing leader can facilitate as well as encourage
his or her nursing colleagues for developing critical thinking skills and problems solving skills.
This would help for effective diagnosis of the patients, linking the symptoms with
pathophysiology and thereby developing care plans for the patients. The leaders are also able to
develop creative as well as innovative approaches for tackling daily tasks or other situations that
arise on the healthcare fields. The nursing leaders should have the skills to encourage the nursing
professionals for putting forwards their ideas and suggestions and asking for feedbacks for
handling different situations more effectively. Herman, Gish and Rosenblun (2015) had indeed
supported this attribute of the nursing leaders as they have stated that such attribute helps in
promoting employee engagement as nurse feel that their suggestions are valued. They become
encouraged, as they feel accepted by the organization. This in turn increases their dedication
towards their work.

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Individualized consideration is another attribute that is extremely important for nursing
leaders to adopt the transformational leadership style. The nurse leaders should develop this
attribute, as this would help them to recognize the concerns of the nursing professionals and
identify the barriers that they are facing during their practices for which high quality care is not
provided to patients. This would help the nurse leaders to express their concerns about each of
the nurses individually and help them to provide solution helping them to overcome the issues.
This skill helps the nurse leaders to connect with the nursing professionals by developing proper
bonds that help them to attach with the employees emotionally (Huber, 2017). When nursing
professionals help subordinates to overcome the various issues they are facing by providing them
advices, sharing resources, giving them training and others, the subordinates feel satisfied. They
feel that they have leaders on whom they can rely in crises that in turn release their stress and
pressure. Therefore, they are able to work without tensions and reduce the chances of medication
errors, wrong interventions and others. Spano et al. (2016) had supported the view and had put
forward certain benefits that are associated with their attribute. This ensures emotional stability
in the nursing professionals and prevents the nurses from burning out. The rate of absenteeism
decreases and turnover rates also become low. It also ensures job satisfaction and ensures
employee engagement.
Another important aspect of transformational leadership is called inspirational
motivation. With the help of the skill, the nurse leader would be able to inspire as well as
motivate the nursing professionals to provide their best quality work that is not only safe but also
ensures patient’s comfort and satisfaction. The nurse leaders can accomplish this by describing
the mission and vision of the healthcare delivery in the healthcare system in the hospital and
assuring their compliance with the organizational goals through commitments. After setting of

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the vision, the nursing leaders should encourage their staff members to develop SMART
objective s by which they can develop their skills and meet the organizational goals effectively.
Researchers are of the opinion that nurse leaders who are expert in transformational leadership
have the capability to motivate the employees by which they can work beyond their potential and
help them to meet their objectives easily (Wong et al., 2015). Motivation has the capacity to
make the nursing professionals to develop intrinsic ability to dedicate themselves not only for
developing the goodwill of the organization but also for delivering the best care to patients and
ensuring error free, high quality service delivery.
Another important aspect of this style of leadership is called the idealized influence. This
feature enables the nurses to be an effective, positive role model by “walking the talk” policy.
The nurse leaders can achieve this skill by being consistent in their words as well as actions that
are not only professional but also supportive of the policies and procedures of the hospitals, its
policies as well as procedures. They should also display traits like honesty, dependability and
enthusiasm so that nursing subordinates also get influenced and try to achieve the traits like this
leaders during serving the service users (Brewer et al., 2016). This attribute not only helps in
enabling a collaborative work environment that brings leaders and followers together to act as a
team. This attribute thereby results in working for the professionals together in the pursuit of
shared vision , nurturing of the employees, directly addressing the current nursing shortage and
thereby helping in overcoming various barriers.
Transformational leadership in nursing is of exceptional importance in healthcare as it
helps the working staffs to adapt with the new modifications of the working environment with
guidance of the leaders in every step. This form of leadership focuses on development of
relationships among the employees at an emotional level. This helps in sharing of concerns and

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effective feedback exchange. This makes the employees feel satisfied and reduces the scope of
burning out. It helps in inspiring people, promoting their enthusiasm and allows quick
formulation of a vision. However, certain researchers have criticized the theory stating that this
form of leadership results in facing the severe detail challenges might overlook reality and truth,
carries potential for abuse (Cheng et al., 2016). Evidences for success rate of this form of
transformational leadership are quite high and had already proved to be helpful in many
healthcare sections all over the nation.
From the above conclusion, it can be easily known that transformational
leadership has a large number of benefits when maintained effectively by the leaders. It helps to
increase morale of the nurses as they feel that the organizations care and respect their wishes and
concerns. Moreover, as the leaders help the nurses at an individual level in overcoming their
concerns and issues, it becomes possible for them to express their barriers and concerns. The
leaders engage in effective feedback giving and receiving sessions that make employees feel that
their suggestions are respected. This ensures creativity and innovation in workplace. The leaders
help in solving such issues that helps to reduce their pressure and helps them to gain emotional
and mental stability. This reduces absenteeism and prevents nurses from burning out. This also
reduces turnover and increases job dedication. Therefore, it is expected from every nurse leaders
to adopt the transformational leadership style so that employees remain motivated and dedicated
in their care towards patients and help to provide evidence based care ensuring patient
satisfaction.

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References:
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Cheng, C., Bartram, T., Karimi, L., & Leggat, S. (2016). Transformational leadership and social
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