Clinical Leadership and Patient Safety: An Essay Analysis

This reflective essay delves into the critical relationship between leadership styles and patient safety within the nursing profession. It begins by defining leadership and patient safety, emphasizing the importance of effective leadership in enhancing nursing practices and ensuring positive patient outcomes. The essay explores various leadership styles, with a particular focus on servant leadership and transformational leadership, highlighting their impact on team dynamics, nurse efficiency, and the creation of a safe and supportive work environment. The discussion extends to the issue of medication safety, demonstrating how leadership styles can mitigate risks and improve patient care. The essay underscores the significance of teamwork, communication, and continuous learning in fostering a culture of safety within healthcare settings. It concludes by emphasizing the essential role of leadership in promoting safe nursing practices and adapting to the evolving demands of the healthcare sector.

Running head: REFLECTIVE ESSAY 1
Reflective Essay
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

REFLECTIVE ESSAY 2
Reflective Essay
Leadership Style and Patient Safety
In the field of nursing, leadership styles are considered as the most powerful tool to
provide better nurse practices and to ensure patient safety being handled by the nurses. This is
highlighted through the education that is imparted to make the nurses better leaders and to
provide quality services in the hospitals. For this purpose, nurses are being made aware of the
leadership styles and the use of these styles during their practice. This will help in the better
service provision and collaboration with the other staff nurses and will promote the learning at
the workplace (Milesa & Scottb, 2019). Through the implementation of relevant leadership
styles, the efficiency of the nurses is enhanced and the learning among nurses also triggers.
"Nurses develop interpersonal communication and work directly with the patients and other staff
nurses, so they need to develop effective leadership styles to cater to the needs of the patients and
to highlight the safety and security of the patients”
Leadership is a skillful activity in which a leader can lead a whole unit, group, team,
individuals or the organization at large. A leader knows the art of managing and leading the
people through its vision and proper guidance (Western, 2019). Patient safety is a process and
responsibility of the health care providers that patients must be secured, protected, analyzed,
cared and reported if any medical fault is done to them, it must be immediately removed to
provide them security and safety (Graban, 2018).
Due to the development in technology, artificial food, and other prominent factors, the
rate of the diseases has been grown in the recent past and there is an increased need for the
effectivity of the health care providers to ensure the better services in the healthcare sector. The
diseases have become complex and not a single individual is capable to perform the treatment for

REFLECTIVE ESSAY 3
a single disease. Instead, teams are working together to treat the patients and all the team
members need to comply with the patient safety rules as the medication and technology have
also been integrated at a complex level (Keats, 2019).
Leadership in nursing is dependent on a few factors through which the leader nurses
provide autonomy to the team members in which they perform their duties according to the
ethical and moral guidelines. Leader nurses provide backing, chances, medical resources and
complete knowledge about patient safety and let them perform their duties to make them
professional and develop the leadership skills by working individually. They also provide their
assistance, respect, devotion, trustworthiness, and affiliation to the team members to develop
effective leadership skills in them (Adam & Carol, 2019).
There are a lot of leadership styles being used in nursing but the most common types of
leadership styles are servant leadership and transformational leadership. These leadership styles
are used widely by the nurses who are in the lead roles and they are also working on other nurses
to make them leaders for the future (Stanley, 2017). The servant leadership makes the leaders
selfless and he thinks for the wellbeing and success of the others. He puts himself in the role of
serving and provides his services for the sake of the happiness and wellbeing of others. He is the
one who keeps individuals in mind rather than just achieving the goals for a particular
organization (Eva, Robin, Sendjay, Dierendonck, & Lidene, 2019). In the profession of nursing,
the nurse leaders create a passion and sense of affiliation in the nurses on their teams to serve the
patients who come for the treatment. This passion and sense of belongingness creates a rapport
between the nurses and the patients and the nurses can be able to educate the patients about their
safety too (Jill Barr, 2019).

REFLECTIVE ESSAY 4
The transformational leadership is the special type of leadership in which the leader
transforms his team members and their innate talents and skills are polished. He makes all his
efforts to make them work with the given resources and at the optimal levels. They are
transformed under his supervisor and guidance. Transformational leadership in nursing involves
the reforms and transformation in the processes of medical care and to provide patient safety to
the patients. This reduces the overall costs of the operations and the processes become cost-
efficient and safe (Fischer, 2016).
To transform the teams, leader nurses should be knowing all the managerial practices and
the characteristics of leadership which are effective and are a good reason to transform the teams
and to create a safe and protective environment for the patient safety (Sally Weiss, 2019). This is
important to be considered because the new health policies cannot be implemented if the nurses
do not develop transformational leadership. Without the presence of transformational leadership,
the teams will not be able to learn new practices in nursing and patient safety can be at high risk
(Mary Zaccagnini, 2019).
The medication safety issue is often seen in the health care centers in which the safety of
the patient becomes at stake. Medication is used for the treatment of the diseases but when the
diseases are not controlled and the situation becomes worse because the wrong medication
results in the emergency. This issue not only raises at the home when patients take wrong
medicines but this may also happen if the nurses are not aware with the right kind o medication
and they provide a wrong medication and the results become shocking (Giles, et al., 2019). The
issue of medication safety can be resolved with the help of leadership styles used in the
profession of nursing. Servant leadership and transformational leadership styles can help to solve
out this issue for the safety of the patients.

REFLECTIVE ESSAY 5
The servant leadership styles help in the provision of medication safety to the patients
because it involves the attention and care of the nurses and the teams underworking a leader will
provide their maximum time in identifying the needs of the patients and to serve them
effectively. This also happens when most of the team members take inspirations from each other
ad try to serve the patients in the most influential manner than the other team members. This
practice is most of the time is seen in the private hospitals where the performance is evaluated
and the promotional chances of the nurses are higher. That is the reason why nurses are
developed into the roles of leadership as they learn and move on towards excellence (Shelley
Farrington, 2019). This leadership also makes the nurses aware that they are serving the
humanity and all the ethical considerations are taken into account. The ethics and moral
principles put a high responsibility on them to serve the patients and to make them able to be
away from the harm of the medication, hence providing medication safety.
The transformational leadership styles help teach the nurses that medication should be
provided to the patients in a safe amount and the appropriate manners prescribed by the doctor.
The changes in the composition of the medicines and the new diseases are two factors which can
create problems for the nurses but they learn if the transformational leaders are available to teach
them about the new diseases and the new medicines. When the transformational leaders teach the
team member about the updated techniques, processes, procedures and the medicinal use for the
safety of the patients in the healthcare, nurses become autonomous and the chances for the error
become low which will result in the medication safety. When the team of nurses is transformed
and they learn their duties well, they feel confident and become more confident than before
(Jameel, Hussain, Hwang, & Sahito, 2019). When nurses feel empowered, their actions and
performance become structured and they avoid any mistakes because the transformations

REFLECTIVE ESSAY 6
through learning, collaborating and communicating in the positive environment makes them
proficient at their work and they take care of the patient safety in the possible best manner and
provide them with the medication safety.
To sum up, it has been summarized that leadership styles are crucial for the safe nursing
practices which they must be proving to the patients. Leadership styles, their adoption, and
implementation has become necessary for the healthcare sector because the complex ailments are
now treated with the help and assistance of the teams and if the nurses are properly trained and
equipped with the latest information and the use of the technology, they will be providing their
services for the safety of the patients. The two leadership styles including servant leadership and
transformational leadership are the most significant styles which are improving the quality of the
services that nurses are offering in the healthcare sector. An issue of medication safety can also
be handled with these two styles of leadership in nursing. So, it is established that teamwork is
mandatory in the health sector and the collaboration and communication of the nurses with the
staff and the patients create new ways to handle the patients safely and save them from any bad
harms with the help of the mutual learning.

REFLECTIVE ESSAY 7
References
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Structural Empowerment Influencing Patient Safety Climate. Sigma Theta Tau
International, the Honor Society of Nursing. New Orleans, Louisiana, USA:
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Eva, N., Robin, M., Sendjay, S., Dierendonck, D., & Lidene, R. (2019). Servant Leadership: A
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Fischer, S. (2016). Transformational leadership in nursing: a concept analysis. JAN-Leading
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Giles, Lewis, Phipps, Mann, Avery, & Ashcroft. (2019). Capturing Patients' Perspectives on
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Keats, J. (2019). Leadership and Teamwork- Essential Roles in Patient Safety. Obstetrics and
Gynecology Clinics, 293–303.

REFLECTIVE ESSAY 8
Mary Zaccagnini, J. P. (2019). The Doctor of Nursing Practice Essentials: A New Model for
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Milesa, J., & Scottb, E. (2019). A New Leadership Development Model for Nursing Education.
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