Critical Evaluation of Health and Safety Leadership at NMC Health

This report provides a critical evaluation of health and safety leadership and strategies at NMC Health, a major healthcare provider in the UAE. It examines the company's comprehensive health and safety strategy, which prioritizes professional training and monitoring to ensure compliance. The report outlines the application of facilitative leadership styles, specifically transformational leadership and the path-goal contingency leadership theory, and their importance to the organization's health and safety operations. Furthermore, the report emphasizes the critical role of teamwork in health and safety leadership and its benefits for NMC Health. Key components of health and safety, such as training, monitoring, and auditing, are highlighted as essential for all organizations. The report discusses the challenges in the global business environment, including regulations, healthcare financing, and technological advancements, and the role of leadership in addressing these challenges, including offering legal protection and developing ethical codes. The report also evaluates the impact of teamwork, team structures, and dynamics on the realization of health and safety in the workplace, highlighting effective communication, coordination, and learning outcomes.

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HEALTH AND SAFETY REPORT
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Executive Summary
Health and safety is an important component for every organization. This report presents a
critical evaluation of health and safety leadership and strategies at NMC Health, the largest
private healthcare provider in the UAE. The Company has a comprehensive health and safety
strategy that prioritizes professional training and monitoring to ensure compliance and
adherence. Also the report outlines the facilitative leadership styles and theories that apply to the
company to help it achieve its goals. The transformative leadership style and path-goal
contingency leadership theory are explained in detail. Their importance to the organization’s
health and safety operations are articulated. The report further articulated the importance of
teamwork in health and safety leadership, while mentioning how teamwork can benefit NMC
Company. The conclusion from the report is that training and regular monitoring and auditing
are important components or health and safety that all organizations should strive to achieve.
1. Introduction
NMC Health is a private health company located in in the United Arabs Emirates. NMC Health
specializes in two aspects including provision of healthcare services and distribution of
wholesale companies in the UAE. In the healthcare line, the company owns and operate day
surgery Centres, hospitals, pharmacies and medical Centres. In the distribution line, the company
distributed various healthcare equipment and products such as veterinary products, education
products, food, FMCG, pharmaceutical and education products. The Company envisions to
provide quality personalized care, characterized by genuine concern, and overall societal
wellbeing. The focus is to help communities live a healthy life by providing them with hope
(NMC health PLC, 2014). Health and safety leadership is a critical component of the vision for
the company as it has implemented various measures to ensure the occupational health of

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members. The important aspects of health and safety include competent supervision, advice and
training, whereby the involved health and safety personnel must be competent and adhere to the
instructions of health and safety advisors to avoid falling of business standards; monitoring,
which entails continuous evaluation of the systems to ensure that they are in good condition and
working appropriately; risk assessment, which entails identifying the root cause of health and
safety-related adverse events; and legal liability of an individual in case of failure of health and
safety requirements, which means that the organizational leadership should be charged for
neglect of the health and safety standards (Health and Safety Executive, 2013).
2. Literature Review
2.1 Critique on the Current Issues
NMC Health fully complies with the Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) standards set by
different authorities within its jurisdictions of operation. The company also provides
accommodation and housing facilities to its employees. Apart from developing health and safety
procedures and policies, the Company also performs continuous monitoring and risk assessment
by conducting comprehensive and regular audits, incident investigations, timely inspections, and
continuous improvement to the Company’s health and safety management system and processes.
The Distribution division at NMC healthcare acquired environmental health and safety
certification, Environmental Management Systems Certification, and Occupational Health and
Safety Advisory services certification (NMC health PLC, 2014).
NMC health also ensures adequate advice and training by conducting routine training and
awareness programs for its employees. The training focus on areas such as occupational safety,
fire and safety, prevention and control of infections and health talks. The Company also has a
Health and Safety Committee in each of its centers to ensure that it meets the key performance

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indicators and goals. The work of the committee is complemented by adequate policies,
standards, guidelines and risk management mechanisms that are used to enhance consistent
monitoring of the health and safety performance within the Comoany (NMC health PLC, 2017).
From the assessment, it is evident that NMC Health has put in place adequate health and safety
leadership mechanisms that upholds competent supervision, advice and training; monitoring; and
risk assessment.
2.2 Challenges in the Global Business Environment and the Role of Leadership
Currently, the global business environment is characterized by numerous changes with regard to
supervision of services within different countries and regions, regulation if healthcare products
and services and healthcare financing. Therefore, companies, organizations and institutions are
required to change their responses to address the emerging health determinants and outcomes
(Labonté, Mohindra, & Schrecker, 2011). Challenges have continually emerged as a result of the
growing pressure on companies to enter into negotiations on collective arrangements with local
and international organizations, within the private and public sectors. At the societal and system
levels, the complexity of healthcare systems is also increasing to address the societal,
demographic and epidemiological shifts that are linked to the provision of private and public
health services and primary healthcare in various contexts such as aged, chronic and acute care
(Figueroa, Harrison, Chauhan, and Meyer, 2019; Senkubuge, Modisenyane, & Bishaw, 2014).
Also, there is increased pressure to adapt to the government reforms in the healthcare sector, and
increased use of technology. The Company also has to deal with the increased costs of
healthcare, operations and management and the crisis associated with limited health resources
(Figueroa et al., 2019). Al the organizational level, the Company is faced with the challenge of
increased demand of healthcare against cost of human resource management, and balance the

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business models to ensure effective outsourcing activities and adoption of lean management.
Additionally, effective training strategies are important to ensure efficiency of operations
(Figueroa et al., 2019). Another important challenges is the changing roles of health managers
based on emerging reforms, policies, guidelines and procedures (Figueroa et al., 2019).
NMC Health leadership has an important role to play in addressing the emerging challenges.
They should support and encourage their employees and supervisors to pursue continuous
education to remain relevant and understand the increasing health and safety needs. There are
various international bodies that offer educational programs targeting workers, supervisors and
employers such as World Health Organization (WHO), Internationsl Labor Organization (ILO)
and the Pan American Health Organization (Lucchini & London, 2014). Additionally, the
leadership needs to offer legal protection for health professional and workers, and develop
ethical codes that present robust positions in terms of occupational health and safety to enhance
independence and avoid conflict of interest. In the era of rapid changes in the business
environment, health and safety professionals may be faced with challenges of dual loyalty
associated with difficulty in balancing between the interests of internal members such as workers
and patients and external forces such as the government, partners and financiers; hence resulting
in a violation of workers’ rights. High ethical conduct and robust institutional interventions are
essentiality address the factors that may facilitate unethical practice (Lucchini & London, 2014).
3. Application of Theory to Practice
3.1 Evaluation of the Health and Safety Leadership Styles
NMC Health employs a transformative leadership style to enhance health and safety in the
workplace. Transformational leadership entails stimulating and motivating the employees to
achieve the organization’s objectives and even surpass the expectations, through the

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development of their individual leadership capacities. Transformational leadership entails
enhancing the intellectual stimulation of the followers through inspiring them to focus beyond
their personal interests and achieve collective group objectives (Ali, Jangga, Ismail, Kamal, &
Ali, 2015). Transformational leadership is influential in facilitating change within an
organization and enhances analysis of positive outcomes. The four components of
transformational leadership include idealized influence, whereby the leaders instills a unified
vision and mission to employees in the form of values, respect, beliefs and a sense of purpose;
intellectual stimulation, where the employees are able to understand various viewpoints and
think critically, individualized consideration which entails accepting the contribution of each
individual; and inspirational motivation, which entails inspiring and motivating the followers
(Yasir, Imran, Irshad, Mohamad, and Khan, 2016). At NMC Health, transformational leadership
is achieved by continuous training and advising of employees and supervisors on various health
and safety issues. Also, the Company has put in place a Committee that looks into all issues
associated with health and safety in the organization. The health and safety managers also work
closely with employees to ensure adherence to the standards and guidelines and the realization of
goals and key performance indicators.
3.2 Contingency Leadership Models (Path-Goal Theory)
The path-goals leadership theory is appropriately employed in NMC Health Plc. The path-goal
theory is based on the idea that motivation plays a critical role in the interaction between the
supervisor and subordinates, and consequently, the success of subordinates in accomplishing
their tasks (Polston-Murdoch, 2013). According to Farhan (2018), the path-goal theory describes
leaders that are able to motivate their subordinated to adopt a learning culture with the aim of
achieving a direction, support participation and achievement-oriented behavior. The leaders also

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adopt appropriate styles of leadership so as to meet the needs and expectations of employees.
The focus is to influence the learning attitudes of employees, clarify the direction by eliminating
obstacles and fostering employee satisfaction (Farhan, 2018).
Directive leadership involves clarification of directions and giving of specific guidance to
enable subordinates to work based on the desired riles, standards and expectations. Supportive
leadership involves practicing respect, equality and concern for the well-being of subordinates
particularly when they lack confidence to accomplish their tasks. Participative leadership
involves consulting subordinated prior to making final decisions in complex situations.
Achievement-oriented leaders set goals that are challenging for subordinates and expect them to
perform to their highest level to enhance confidence (Polston-Murdoch, 2013). NMC Health has
achieved success over the years due to its clearness in setting policies, standards and guidelines,
and supporting their employees towards achieving them. They also perform continuous
monitoring and risk assessment to ensure that they remain compliant to the external standards.
3.3 Impact of Ensuring Team Cohesiveness, Team Structures and Dynamics
Teamwork plays a critical role in the realization of health and safety in the work environment.
Teamwork enhances effective communication. Rosen et al. (2018) cited that communication
failures are significant contributors to preventable harm. Hierarchical structures that involve
professional roles and occupational tenures can be critical barriers to effective and assertive
communication that is required for the effective recovery from adverse incidences or effort.
Teamwork helps to address the challenges emerging from neglect of coordination by the
organizational systems. For instance, NMC Health is a large Company with various centers and
hospitals spread throughout the UAE. Management and communication at the company is rather
involving and complex; hence coordination may be a major challenge, particularly in the health

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and safety leadership domain. Teamwork enhances integration and coordination even in
situations that require delegation of tasks or different components of work.
Additionally, teamwork promoted better learning outcomes. Research has indicated that the
cognitions, behaviors and attitudes of teams can be trained. Team training can facilitate learning,
and most importantly, facilitate behavior change to enhance better organizational outcomes
(Hughes et al., 2016; Salas, Zajac, & Marlow, 2018). NMC Health prioritizes training as an
important aspect of health and safety at work. The adoption of teamwork as a strategy in training
can facilitate better outcomes and improved adherence and commitment towards the
organizational goals.
4. Conclusions and Recommendations
The case study of NMC health is insightful on the important components of health and safety
leadership at work. The findings indicate that the Company has laid the necessary guidelines and
strategies to promote the safety and health of organizational members in the workplace. A
concept that stood out is the importance of training of workers and supervisors to ensure that
they understand the standards and requirements for action in complex situations. Another
concept is monitoring, which is achieved through regular audits and incident investigations. The
concepts are complemented by a transformative leadership style and alignment with the path-
goal theory. The company has been recognized for its compliance with health and safety
requirements, following the successful implementation of the important components of health
and safety leadership.
The findings imply the need for organizations to adopt meaningful health and safety strategies so
as to remain successful in the current era of globalization. The training of employees must be a
priority to help them deal with the dynamic challenges. Additionally, organizations should set

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clear guidelines and policies that address conflict of interest in the internal and external
environments.
The recommendations from the research is the need for NMC Health to embrace teamwork as a
core strategy in the organization. Teamwork enhances better learning outcomes and promotes
adherence and behavior change. Large companies such as NMC Health can dramatically benefit
from team work, particularly in the health and safety leadership domain.

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