NURBN3018: Nursing Leadership Styles in Clinical Practice

This report, focusing on NURBN3018, explores four key nursing leadership styles: autocratic, laissez-faire, transactional, and transformational, and how registered nurses incorporate them in healthcare settings. The report begins by defining the importance of leadership styles for registered nurses in achieving positive healthcare outcomes. Autocratic leadership is described as a direct, decisive style, often used in emergency situations. Laissez-faire leadership is presented as a more hands-off approach, empowering employees. Transactional leadership emphasizes order, structure, and short-term goals, while transformational leadership focuses on inspiring and motivating team members to drive change and improve healthcare practices. The report provides examples of each style's application, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. It emphasizes the importance of nurse leaders selecting the appropriate leadership style to ensure effective coordination of healthcare programs, nurse-led procedures, and team management. This report is a valuable resource for nursing students seeking to understand and apply effective leadership strategies in their clinical practice.

Running Head: NURSING LEADERSHIP 1
Nursing Leadership
Student’s Name
Institution Affiliation
Tutor
Submission Date

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Introduction
The registered nurses must use leadership styles so that the health care outcomes will be
meant. The clinical nurse leaders are responsible for guiding the departments in their health care
to have improved treatment to the patients. This means that the nurses who are in leadership
should v be equipped with better leadership skills so that they can correctly lead their staff. To
incorporate any leadership style in health care, it means that the health programs will be
coordinated effectively. The nurse leaders can lead the nurse procedures effectively and also
their administrative activities within their places (Kaiser, 2017). This means that the nurse
leaders should select the leadership skill which will bring positive health care outcome. It is good
for every nurse leader to understand all the leadership styles and choose the best which can be
incorporated in the health care he or she is leading. In the report, four leadership styles will be
discussed, showing how registered nurse leaders incorporate them in the health care setting. The
four leadership styles include authoritarian or autocratic leadership, Laissez leadership,
transactional leadership, and transformational leadership.
In autocratic leadership, a nurse leader gives direction in a dictatorship way. This means
that he or she doesn’t consult anyone for the advice. When nurse leaders incorporate this style,
they use the benevolent dictatorship, which means that the team members send their concerns
following the chain of command (Bernardes et al.,2016). This type of leadership style is
straightforward because members of the team fear the leader; hence, there is no time of
questioning concerning any issue. This means the autocratic leader must decide on his own
without consulting other team members. This type of leadership is applied in health care in many

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instances. For example, when the physicians give medical orders to the clients, he or she does
consult anyone for the directives.
This style is also applied when the nurse leader makes shift assignments to the nurses.
This means that he or she don’t ask them when there are free to be placed, but they use autocratic
leadership, and no one complains because they understand it's their responsibility. Moreover,
there is also a time when the nurse leaders make hard decisions on their own, and this is
commonly in time where the crisis unfolds in health care (Pullen, 2016). This type of leadership
is very good as there is no time for voting; this means that nurse leaders can make their decisions
easily, which are incorporated by the team members without complaining. In the time of
emergency and large scale disaster, this type of leadership style is required so that the team can
do their work effectively to save lives. For the nurses who incorporates autocratic leadership,
they ensure that quality care is delivered in the health care at all times (Sfantou et al., 2017).
This means nurse leaders make critical decisions so that they cannot pose a risk to the
patients who need their help. For this, they should be clear, concise, and direct when organizing
their team so that to ensure that every employ complies with the facilities standard procedures.
This type of leaders enables the nurses to follow strict rules, for example, in health care where
they have critical volumes of patients. In discharging and admitting patients, these type of
leadership is used so that to ensure that quality services are being offered to the patients. In that,
it means that the patients can’t complain when an autocratic nurse leader makes a decision.
Moreover, even clinical nurse is not supposed to make any decision upon the judgment of the
nurse leader (McCay, Lyles and Larkey, 2018).
The other leadership style is Laissez Faire. This types of leadership offer the employees
freedom hence allowing them to make decisions and work without any pressure. This type of

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leadership is very different from the autocratic type of leadership. In this, clinical nurse leaders
can trust their employees. Hence, they work with minimum supervision. This means. First, they
build up a team which has skills and is responsible enough to carry out their duties effectively at
all time (Fischer, 2016). This means this team can balance the responsibilities assigned to them
and also freedom being offered to them. In this leadership style, the nurse leader provides
educational opportunities to the staff hence making them have skills to solve health care-related
problems. Moreover, the nurse leader motivates its team by giving them more time to rest so that
there will be more exceptional patient’s outcomes in health care. This leadership style ensures
that the employees in health care are provided with resources that will help them add their
knowledge in health care.
This method is considered to be useful to the new clinical nurse leaders as it gives them
the chance to interact with the nurse leaders with experience. This type of leadership is beneficial
to the registered nurses and also the patients. This is because the nurses are given a chance by
their leader to work with freedom, and even patients can decide what they want but under
consideration with the health care officer. Moreover, this leadership style allows more nurses to
thrive in leadership hence having the ability to serve the patients, respectively. The main aim of
the leadership style in the health sector is to empower the team members so that they will
provide excellent care. It enables the team members to stay within the guidelines and the policies
proposed in health care. In this, the nurses make decisions without consulting their leader. They
also perform many operations without supervision like giving medical care to the patients with
an emergency, providing compassionate care to the patients, giving interventions culturally to the
patients and performing many activities in the health care(Tyczkowski et al., 2016).

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The other leadership style is transactional, which entails a nurse leader who values order
and structure in an organization. This means that regulations are required in this leadership style
so that everything in the organization will be in order. In this, it requires self-motivated people to
work in the health care setting so that they can manage it in an organized way. This means that in
this leadership style, there is no one to motivate the team workers, but it is their responsibility to
be structured and self-motivated. This means that this leadership style focuses on the results.
Transactional nurse leaders have formal authority positions in health care (Kodama, Fukahori,
Sato, and Nishida, 2016). This means that this leader must maintain the routine work by ensuring
that every employee is doing substantial work. The nurse leaders who lead in this type of style
are focused on short term goals which they make sure they are achieved at all time, they focus on
following rules and ensure that every activity in the health sector is done the right way, they are
opposed to any change and hence they stick to the policies directing the health care.
Transactional leadership allows cultural competency in the health care in that when
employing the workers; the human resource department makes sure that they have used the
workers who do not speak the same language. This type of leadership also motivates the
employees by rewarding them on accomplishing their daily tasks. In case any of the team
members in health care violates the regulation, the leadership style allows punishments for these
individuals. This means it usually focuses on specific tasks being completed and ensures that
they are done in the right way. Moreover, the transactional leaders in health care always focus on
the positive changes in the organization (Abdelhafiz, Alloubani, and Almatari, 2016). This
means that the work is to manage all the departments, respectively, so that to achieve positive
outcomes. They make sure that all the jobs are done correctly and ensure that there is no change
which can bring adverse outcomes. Some of the health care uses this type of leadership in

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nursing has been criticized because it prevents the long term goals and relationships, and hence,
these bring negative influence to the employers working as the nurses. When the problems arise,
the transactional leaders exercise active control so that the problem can’t cause any harm in
health care. This means when this leadership style is utilized in the health sectors, patient safety
is given the priority. This means that transactional clinical leader ensures that he or she is
delivering quality care so that to maximize clinical productivity. In this, the team member leader
is expected to set clear expectations, set high standards in their departments, and ensure that all
the team members have met the expected qualifications and requirements. These type of
leadership style ensures enhanced satisfaction to the team members, motivate the members to
generate extra effort when they are working and ensures increased performance in the health care
(Lu, Zhao, and While, 2019).
The fourth leadership style is transformational leadership. This type of leadership, the
leader, works with the team members having the aim to identify the needed change in the
organization or the health care and hence make the decision with the team members to evaluate
change. It is also focused to motivate the workers so that they can increase morale in how they
perform their duties in the organization. As a transformation leader, one is always the role model
of the team (Morsiani, Bagnasco and Sasso, 2017).. This means the leader is expected to
challenge his followers by his deeds so that they can follow what he or she is doing to enact
performance. The team members are challenged to take ownership of their work, and it’s their
role to understand the strengths and weakness in the organization so that they can inform their
leader so that they can develop change and solutions to the gaps (Yahaya and Ebrahim, 2016).
The transformational nurse leaders are concerned with the methods of improving health
care. In this, most of them develop the use of technology so that most of the health issues will be

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solved. This means that their main aim is to adopt change so that positive outcomes can be
reflected in the health sector (Vaismoradi et al., 2016). Moreover, a transformational nurse leader
teaches their employees on how to become substantial leaders in health care. This means the
leader allows them to participate in the decision-making process in health care so that they can
give realistic solutions and hence gaining experience. Moreover, every team member in health
care is challenged to bring out transformative ideas which are needed to improve the department
he or she is working. This means that a transformative leader doesn’t work alone to get the plans,
but he or she uses respective ideas from the members to evaluate change.
The nurse leaders adopting this style consults patients, the team members, and other
stakeholders so that they will identify what changes are needed to improve the quality of care in
health care. In this, the team members are challenged by the leader to come up with various ideas
so that care can be improved. Moreover, these leaders apply effective communication techniques
which are meant to inspire their team, and also this enables the employees to have respect for
their leader. The nurse leaders also adopt industry-driven changes. This means that one of the
technique is applying the technology to solve problems in health care. Involving the team
members in decision making helps them to collaborate with the stakeholders and hence, the
solutions re-implemented successfully (Boamah et al., 2018.
Conclusion
The clinical nurse leaders must systematically keep their departments. To achieve
successful care outcomes, the nurse leaders to choose which leadership style is the best. This
means that they should be equipped with leadership skills. Incorporating leadership skills helps
the nurse leaders to coordinate the health programs effectively, perform the nurse-led procedures
effectively, and effectively lead the team members. Some of the leadership styles help the team

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members to make decisions with their leader; the employers can communicate their vision, and
others help in solving the health care issue. This means that clinical nurses should evaluate which
leadership style to use so that to ensure positive health outcome in health care.

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