Leadership Discussion: Democratic Leadership and Nursing Practice

This discussion post delves into democratic leadership within the healthcare setting, emphasizing its relevance to nursing practice. It highlights the importance of leadership skills in organizing departments for successful patient outcomes. The post defines democratic leadership, outlining its key characteristics such as open communication, respect for all members, and collaborative decision-making. It contrasts democratic leadership with other styles, emphasizing the leader's role in facilitating a collaborative environment while retaining control over decision-making. The post also addresses potential challenges, such as the risk of over-using freedom of expression, and stresses the need for leaders to monitor staff progress to prevent misunderstandings. References support the discussion, providing further context on leadership styles and organizational commitment within healthcare.

Leadership Online Discussion: 1
LEADERSHIP ONLINE DISCUSSION
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In healthcare, leaders are often responsible for organizing their departments to achieve
successful healthcare outcomes. Thus leadership competent skills are required that can help
leaders lead their departments in a more organized manner. Since both the theoretical and
practical skills are required, the leaders should ensure that they organize the laboratories and
assign duties to the juniors to meet the needs of the patients. They need to incorporate executive
leadership skills into their professional strategies. Clinical nurses can in a better way to
coordinate health programs, nurse-led procedure and administrative responsibilities within their
places of work (Al‐Yami, Galdas, and Watson, 2018, p.541). A department leader should thus
adapt and emulate at least a leadership style that best rhymes with their day to day operations.
Therefore, nurse leaders must understand different leadership styles to be able to apply them.
In this discussion, we shall discuss democratic leadership as it is the style that best
describes and fits my choice. A democratic leader should embody the following traits; keeps
communication open, focus on the discussion, respect and value everyone, build skilled nursing
team with varying expertise and lead with confidence and commitment (Joshi, 2019, p.146). The
ruling decision is arrived at by the majority but not the minority. Hence every view matters in
decision making.
In democratic leadership, nurse leaders involve fellow nurses in the decision-making
process during the systematic changes. After then, the clinical nurse selects ideas from the
members after which he will filter them to come up with the best solution that contains and
summarizes the whole ideas contributed by the members. This is done to improve the quality of
care for the patients and administration (Kaiser, 2017, p.110). To maximize the effectiveness of
democratic leadership, the clinical nurse should thus encourage professional and causal

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relationship among the subjects to allow for openness and free expression amidst disagreements
and differences in opinions among the members. Unlike the transformational leadership style,
democratic leadership leaves the final decision to be made by the leader limiting the extent to
which the members can exercise their freedom of participation in decision making. It enables
nurse leaders to still have control over the decision-making process.
It is worth noting that this type of leadership generates a workplace environment that is ideal for
all the workers (Lean Keng, and AlQudah, 2017, p.475). All members are equal at the decision-
making point regardless of whether you are vocal or not. On the other hand, if the members are
not given limits to which they can express themselves, it can harm an organization since some
members might be tempted to over-use the freedom. Thus the leader should be very keen on the
progress and should note keenly the progress of his staff to avoid the misunderstandings and the
unnecessary disagreements.

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References
Al‐Yami, M., Galdas, P. and Watson, R., 2018. Leadership style and organisational commitment
among nursing staff in Saudi Arabia. Journal of nursing management, 26(5), pp.531-539.
Joshi, B.S., 2019. Leadership Style Paradigm Shift in Hospital Industry: Need of the Day, in
Comparison with Hospitality Industry. Journal of Health Management, 21(1), pp.141-153.
Kaiser, J.A., 2017. The relationship between leadership style and nurse‐to‐nurse incivility:
turning the lens inward. Journal of nursing management, 25(2), pp.110-118.
Lean Keng, S. and AlQudah, H.N.I., 2017. Assessment of cognitive bias in decision‐making and
leadership styles among critical care nurses: a mixed methods study. Journal of advanced
nursing, 73(2), pp.465-481.