Perspectives on Clinical Leadership: Styles, Significance, and Impact

This essay examines the multifaceted perspectives of clinical leadership within healthcare settings, emphasizing the significance of various leadership styles in enhancing patient care and organizational effectiveness. The introduction defines clinical leadership as the integration of healthcare staff in leadership roles, promoting values and organizational goals. The thesis statement argues for the evaluation of different clinical leadership styles to meet the complexity and sensitivity of clinical objectives. The discussion delves into the importance of clinical leadership in healthcare, highlighting its role in improving services and ensuring quality patient care. Different leadership styles, including transformational, congruent, and aesthetic approaches, are explored, detailing their characteristics, pros, and cons. The essay further analyzes the application of these styles in modern healthcare organizations, emphasizing the need for adaptability and the integration of multiple leadership approaches. The conclusion summarizes the importance of adopting a range of leadership styles to address service quality issues and improve patient care, advocating for the use of diverse approaches based on situational needs and the skills of care workers. The essay references several academic sources, including journals and books, to support its arguments and findings.

Prospectives of nursing

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
THESIS STATEMENT: .................................................................................................................1
Discussion .......................................................................................................................................1
Clinical leadership and its significance .......................................................................................1
Different clinical leadership styles ..............................................................................................2
Clinical leadership within modern organisations full of complexities .......................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Clinical leadership is defined as the participation or involvement of healthcare staff
members in undertaking leadership roles such as using clinical experience to inspire and promote
values and to focus on organisational aim as well as on quality care and needs of patients. There
have been wide range of leadership styles which are adopted by the organisations as per their
organisational structures, aim and requirements (Weberg & et.al. 2018). Considering the critical
and sensitive nature of clinical practices a single leadership style may not provide the effective
solutions for care providers and management team of healthcare organisations.
THESIS STATEMENT:
To evaluate the significance and implementation of different clinical leadership styles in
organisational context so that the leadership styles can meet the complexity and sensitivity of
clinical objectives without adhering firmly to a single leadership.
Discussion
Clinical leadership and its significance
According to Mianda & Voce, (2018) leadership is known as the ability of an individual
to influence or affect other individuals or groups through skills, attitude and knowledge.
Leadership can be considered as the integral element of clinical environment and for improving
the clinical services. Health care services consist of huge number of individuals and associated
organisations. Thus, the leadership and management approaches in clinical practices are vital as
they provide professional obligation. In order to assure that quality services are provided to all
patients and all staff members are working effectively and accurately leadership development is
vital. It has been observed that most of the health professionals are receives education and
training only regarding their clinical and healthcare practices.
Thus, most of the healthcare professionals are not able to integrate their knowledge and
abilities with the management and organisational practices of healthcare. The same is reflected in
the quality of services when professionals are not able to work in teams or to achieve common
goals which are essential for the quality growth of hospitals. Healthcare services are expensive
and globalisation has made it possible to easily access the quality services. Thus, for the clinics it
has become challenging that they not only make their practices clinically accurate but also
feasible in terms of costs (Rupp, 2017). The use of leadership in clinical practices encourages
healthcare professionals to use evidence practices so that quality of care services can be
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improved. The leadership skills contributes to the growth of individuals by regularly monitoring
their actions and leading them towards the best professional practices.
It is the responsibility of the leaders to motivate and guide other team members so that
they can achieve operational efficiency as team and can overcome the personal and professional
skill barriers. Without clinical leadership healthcare service providers may not work effectively
as a team and this can have adverse impact on the overall care quality provided to patients. The
leaders regulate and guide the team members so that they can work together and can assess the
needs of patients, carers and other staff members (Brocklehurst & et.al., 2013).
Different clinical leadership styles
There is vast range of clinical leadership styles which can be used by healthcare service
providers. Each of these styles have their own pros and cons and thus from long term health
organisations are using these styles in different clinical aspects.
Transformational leadership:
In this leadership approach individuals and relations are emphasised. Since clinical
practices aims at delivering services as per the personalised needs of individual this is very
common approach used in clinical leadership. This type of leaders inspire others through
communication and have clear vision which helps them to empower others as well as to meet
others. For instance the nurses which providers care services to the mentally ill patients are very
good in communication. Their skill help them to understand the patient and to take decision for
the welfare of patients. These leaders are also required to have proper coordination and
communication with other team members so that they can take most suitable decision related to
patient's health. However transformational approach does not provide much emphasis on cultural
diversity or emotional dimension of the leadership. Thus type of leadership approach is more
suitable with only nursing professionals and limited to other clinical professionals.
Congruent leadership style:
Contrary to the transformational style, congruent style focus on beliefs and values of the
leaders and thus congruence is the foundation between deeds and actions of leaders (Davis,
Corless & Nicholas, 2018). This theory is more suitable from the clinical perspective. The
leaders who are expertise in their clinical practice and have passion for the quality care can gives
excellent training to the other professionals so that as a team organisational goals can be
achieved. Along with the communication skills this type of leaders are also required to have
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emotional intelligence so that they can reach their goals. Congruent leaders does not encourage
changes and thus creativity is also not appreciated. This type of leadership is vital for the
monitoring of clinical expertise so that clinical errors can be minimised and transition nurses can
be trained with excellency.
Aesthetic leadership:
Another most popular leadership style which can be used in the clinics is aesthetic style.
It is concerned with the way in which professionals works within communities and diverse
cultural groups. Since the clinical functions and services are related to communities from
different communities this leadership can be taken as one of the effective way to encourage
leadership in healthcare (Mannix, Wilkes & Daly, 2015). By adopting this leadership style
healthcare professionals can enhance the role of integrity and ethics in the nursing practices.
Clinical leadership within modern organisations full of complexities
Today's healthcare system and clinical activities are provided with the advanced
technology and service providing strategies. Since each type of leadership style have its own set
of principles and strategies a single leadership style may not give satisfactory outputs. There is
need of adopting various leadership styles in action irrespective of situations so that clinical
efficiency can be enhanced. For instance the transformational leadership is considered as best
option for the nurses. The nurses in their transition period may lack the ability to work in the
complex clinical environment and practical implications of the knowledge. In such situations
transformational leadership can help to prepare the effective leaders for the team.
Contrary to this while providing services to highly ethical diverse groups healthcare
professional may require considering the cultural aspect as well. Within healthcare teams also the
professionals may belong to diverse culture. Thus, the adoption of aesthetic leadership is
required to enhance the integrity and team work efficiency with clinics. The health condition of
the patient, their perspective and needs are also critical for the leaders in order to determine the
type of leadership style (Aagard, 2016). The efficiency of healthcare systems can be enhanced by
incorporating leadership styles at all levels so that strategic directions can be provided to all team
members. For metal health care patients the emotional and behavioural attributes are very vital
and thus instead of transformational leadership professionals must use congruence leadership.
This leadership will help leaders and team members to deliver more qualitative care to patients.
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It can be concluded that if clinical institutes will adhere to only a particular type of
leadership then the complete quality care may not be achieved. For instance for providing the
palliative care services leaders must think from congruence or aesthetic perspective. The use of
transformational approach in such cases will not deliver the satisfactory improvement in the
healthcare quality of patients. Similarly, when senior healthcare professionals provide training to
nurses it is expected that along with the clinical proficiency, ethical and emotional attributes are
also used in their teaching (Brocklehurst & et.al., 2013). This is not possible without integration
of different leadership styles.
Along with the quality of services healthcare organisations are also concerned with the
cost perspective. The resource management and effective utilisation of the clinical resources can
lead to profits and efficiency. However, from this perspective transformational leadership can
give desired results as compare to other two styles. In order to manage the routine functions of
healthcare services management can use diverse leadership style as per the nature and needs of
service providers (James, 2017). For promoting the team integrity and cooperation between team
members the shift and change in the leadership styles effective way. Thus, for incorporating the
operational and functional excellence healthcare service providers are recommended to find the
multiple choices of leadership styles for their decision making and for leading people.
CONCLUSION
From the above study it can be concluded that sensitive nature of healthcare services may
not allow a single leadership theory or style to achieve the excellency in clinical operations. It
has been analysed from the discussion that depending upon the situations, skills of care workers
and needs of patients healthcare professionals must adopt wide range of leadership styles. It can
also be concluded from the essay that use of various leadership styles will help to address the
service quality issues related to patient care and management of clinical services.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Aagard, M. C. (2016). Transforming the Nursing Workforce through Leadership Growth.
Davis, S. M., Corless, I., & Nicholas, P. (2018). The critical need for global nursing
leadership. DNP Education, Practice, and Policy: Redesigning Advanced Practice for
the 21st Century, 331.
James, L. (2017). Improving Leadership Communication In Nurse-Physician Dyad Teams.
Mannix, J., Wilkes, L., & Daly, J. (2015). Aesthetic leadership: its place in the clinical nursing
world. Issues in mental health nursing. 36(5). 357-361.
Mianda, S., & Voce, A. (2018). Developing and evaluating clinical leadership interventions for
frontline healthcare providers: a review of the literature. BMC health services
research. 18(1). 747.
Rupp, K. (2017). Intention to stay and RN job satisfaction: The influence of caring
leadership (Doctoral dissertation, University of Phoenix).
Weberg, D. & et.al. (2018). Leadership in Nursing Practice. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Online
Brocklehurst., P. & et.al., (2013). What is clinical leadership and why might it be important in
dentistry. [Online]. Accessed through
<https://www.nature.com/articles/sj.bdj.2013.219.pdf?origin=ppub>
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