Leadership and Management in Health Care

This report examines the essential roles of leadership and management in health and social care, highlighting various theories and their implications for organizational performance. It discusses the similarities and differences between management and leadership, the importance of effective communication, and the impact of different leadership styles on achieving organizational goals. The report concludes that understanding employee needs and fostering a positive environment are crucial for success in health care management.

Leadership and management in health and social care

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
A. Management and leadership.....................................................................................................3
Role of management in Health care and social care........................................................................4
Management theories.......................................................................................................................5
Scientific management theory......................................................................................................6
Elton Mayo Theory......................................................................................................................6
Role of the leadership theory in Health and social care..................................................................8
Transactional leadership theory.................................................................................................10
Transformational leadership theory...........................................................................................10
B. Synthesize leadership and management theories....................................................................11
Management theories.................................................................................................................12
Leadership styles or theories......................................................................................................13
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................15
References......................................................................................................................................16
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Introduction
This report outlines the role of the management and leadership in the social and health care. Both
the terms are similar in some aspects and both the concepts are very important for the
performance of the organization. The management and the leadership are the most widely used
concept for the delivery of the social and healthcare services. The main motive of these concepts
is to influence the people and manage the people to achieve the goals of the organization. The
main purpose of this study is to reflect the role played by the management and leadership in the
social care and delivery of the health services and also portrays the different theories and models
associated with these concepts. However, there are many traits and theories are associated with
the process of the leadership and the most common attributes or traits used by the leaders are
determination, intelligence, self confidence, charisma and integrity. Therefore, the leadership and
management have a great impact on the organizational performance (WHO, 2010).
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A. Management and leadership
Both the concepts are same in some aspects and different in the case of skills, duties and the
behaviors. Both the concepts complement each other. It is the fact that a good managers are
good leaders and to become good leaders, a person must have the managerial skills.
Management ensures that the all the available resources in the organization are properly utilized
or not and apply all the managerial skills and management strategies to achieve the optimum
results. A good manager can be a leader to achieve the best output. Therefore, all day to day
activities are managed well by the managers in order to produce the desired results. The main
attributes that a manager should have are as follows:
 Perfect organizational skills
 Have the Clarity of the tasks and mission of the organization
 Must have the skills to Delegate the authority
 Must be able to communicate about the expected outcomes and tasks in an effective way.
 Negotiation of the regulatory processes (Dodson, 2017).
Leadership is the quality that a person has to influence others and motivate them to achieve the
organizational goals and objectives. A leader sets a vision what they can achieve and builds
strategies, how to achieve and also communicate this with the others to reach the goals. Coming
to the attributes that a good leader must have are:
 Creative in nature
 Flexible
 Ability to motivate and influence other people
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 Charismatic personality
 Skills of solving the problems and offering a positive environment for their followers.
Role of management in Health care and social care
In this report the role of the management and specific functions carried out by the health and
social care is going to be discussed. The main role of the management is to build and implement
the strategies and controlling the financial resources by properly utilizing the available resources
(Hinţea, et al., 2009). There are many roles and responsibilities that need to be managed by the
managers which involves the following roles :
 Delivery of the health and social care services
 Proper utilization of the resources that are available in the organization and these
resources are the staff, budgets, infrastructure and other information.
 Managing people, including the patients, staff nurses, partners and other people for the
delivery of the quality services.
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Creating a vision
Leadership
Getting things done
Managment

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However, management in health and social care is the act of planning, organizing, controlling,
delegation of the authorities, monitoring and evaluation of the plans and the implementation of
the plans. The management in the health care delegates the various tasks to the employees and
train and support them in order to achieve the expected outcomes. Management in the health
care departments and social care, organized meetings with the employees. The main purpose of
these type meetings is to communicate about the proper messages to the staff about the
expectations of the company with them. Moreover, what is to be achieved and how it is to be
achieved is also the main part of the meetings in the healthcare (Wick, 2012).
Furthermore, a major task in the management is to review the important information and
available data with regard to the delivery of services in health and social care. The review of the
information and data is to be used to take the best decisions with regard to the improvement and
modifications of the services. Financial management is the most important part as to make the
best use of the available funds in order to produce the best possible results for the patients and
staff.
Management theories
There are many theories given by the different authors like Taylor, Maslow and Elton Mayo and
they share the different aspects in relation to managing the activities in the organizations with the
proper utilization of the resources. In this report three main theories are explained in context to
the social and health care services (Bartlett, 2010).
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Scientific management theory
This theory was introduced by the famous Frederick Taylor, who was an American inventor.
All the Scientific as well as the engineering knowledge has been applied by the Taylor for the
development of this theory. This theory is applicable in the health and social care as it involves
the following principles.
1. In the health care sector, the information and data related to staff, patients are collected,
analyze and convert into the mathematical form to complete the tasks.
2. Selection and training of the staff members can make use of the scientific approaches in
order to improve the efficiency of the health and social organization.
3. This theory is used or applied when both the science and workers come together in the
health and social care organizations to perform simple tasks.
4. Application of the scientific techniques by the management in order to divide the work
equally between the workers and managers and to check the tasks performed by them are
according to the plans or not (College, 2014).
Elton Mayo Theory
This theory is based on the building of the human relations by the introduction of the
fundamental concepts of the management. According to this theory, the human relations are the
best way to achieve the desired goals of the organizations. In the case of health and social care,
relations with the supervisor and relations with the patients are playing the effective role to
improve the performance of the organization as well as to achieve the expected results (NMIMS,
2012).
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Relations with supervisors/district team
Most of the health and social care organizations are linked with the national health system of the
district. However, all the activities in the health care sector are performed with the permission of
the district, which includes the procurement of drugs, human resource management activities,
technical support and infrastructure support. Therefore, in the healthcare sector, all the managers
must have the good level of communication and the ensure the optimal supervision. Therefore, it
is the responsibility of the district managers to communicate about the new policies and the tools
of the management to the local facility managers for the purpose of the compliance. However,
the relationship between the district managers and local managers is the key to improve the
efficiency and effectiveness of the health systems (Olum, 2004).
Management of the patient relations to achieve their satisfaction
According to the Elton Mayo theory, the building of the human relations is the most important
factors as the organizations have the main purpose is to gain the competitive advantage via client
satisfaction and similarly in the health system, the patient satisfaction is the main motive of the
management teams. This is the reason that all the staff members like nurses, doctors need proper
training to understand the rights and the needs of the patients.
According to the Maslow theory of the management, it is very important to understand the needs
of the people in order to manage all the actions accordingly. Therefore, in the health and social
care services, it is very important to understand the basic, physical and psychological needs of
the patients. The management team in the health and social care system can take the better
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decisions regarding the treatment options, behavior and their level of satisfaction to improve the
status of the health (Groth, 2013).
Therefore, all the management theories help the staff members understand the following roles
such as:
 Avoid participating in the risky and negative behavior
 To know healthy lifestyle
 Always ready to face the problems
 Motivation for the patients and make them happy with the positive working environment
Role of the leadership theory in Health and social care
Leadership is a very significant part of human personality. The main function of the leader is to
communicate with the other personalities and motivates them to improve their efficiencies.
Providing directions to the team is the main task of the good leaders and these directions of the
leader helps the team to achieve the future goals and objectives. Leadership is the quality that a
person has to influence others and motivate them to achieve the organizational goals and
objectives. A leader sets a vision what they can achieve and builds strategies, how to achieve and
also communicate this with the others to reach the goals. The good leaders always make
strategies to achieve the goals and manage the good relations with the people. As a leader, it is
very important to think out of the box and always choose the best option among the number of
the alternatives to make the right decisions. Being a leader, it is very important to have some
qualities in the personality to lead and inspire others (Lawrence & Steck, 1991).
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As in the above management theories, it has been analyzed that the more emphasis is given to the
employees and their needs as well as to provide them the informal environment. For all these
activities, an organization needs a good leader and communication approaches to understand the
needs of the employees for the improvement of the performance of the employees. Talking about
the leadership styles first, then there are many styles adopted by the leaders to control the
organizational activities and these styles are directive, participative, transformational and
autocratic, etc.
In the context to the health and social care, it is very important that the leaders understand the
nature of the organization and work accordingly with the coordination of nurses, administrators,
physicians and other members of the organizations. It is analyzed that for the smooth working of
the health and social organizations, there should be a proper and effective leadership. According
to the point of view of the Bass, leadership is defined as the interaction and relationship between
the two people where one person can follow the other for the successful achievement of the
desired goals. There are many healthcare and social organizations who are spending the large
amount of money on the infrastructure of the health care system to provide the quality services
and social services to the people of the country. It has been observed that the overall
performance of the organization is largely affected by the behavior of the leaders with its
followers. The negative role of the leaders in the health and social care organizations leads to the
downfall of the organization (Sharma & Jain, 2013). There are various leadership theories are
available, out of which the Transformational and Transactional theories gained the popularity in
the field of the health and social care organizations and these are going to be explained as below:
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Transactional leadership theory
This leadership theory is very popular in the health care organizations because this theory is
based on leading followers by the way of the management position in the hierarchy of the
organization. Moreover, this is also based on the motivational theory concepts as it involves the
exchange of the rewards and targets between the managers and the employees.
This theory basically identifies the needs of the followers and then try to motivate them thorough
the reward systems. In the health and social care organizations, it is also applicable because it
involves the giving attention to the health of the local population to achieve the goals of the
organization. As per the point of view of the Bass in the year 2006, this transactional theory is
helpful in the health and social care organization to main the equilibrium level by performing
their roles and the enhancing the employees performance by offering them the attractive
incentives and rewards. Therefore, the leaders set up the goals, use the directive leadership style
to guide the employees and offer them rewards to motivate them so that they can perform better
towards the achievement of the organizational goals (Bolden, et al., 2003).
Transformational leadership theory
This leadership theory focuses on the needs of the employees and the development of the
employee that may help to transform the organizational performances. This theory is very useful
for the healthcare organizations, because it transforms the performance of the employees in order
to achieve the goals of the health and social care organizations. Transformational leadership is
defined by the Burnes as a process where one person can engage the other person in such a way
that to influence that person for the better performance. According to this theory, leadership
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motivates the staff members by understanding their needs and making them aware about the
organizational expectations from them and about the mission of the company. This theory is
considered to be more beneficial in comparison to the transactional as it involves the overall
transformation of the employees without any rewards. This leadership style also promote the
creativity among the followers as they come up with the new ideas in the organization.
Moreover, this theory is beneficial in the improving the healthcare services and raise the
standards of care and treatment which is good for the healthcare organizations (Team, 2015).
There are six leadership processes involves in the transformation leadership and these are as
follows:
1. Development of the vision
2. Communication and inspire others
3. Importance to the values
4. Facing challenges
5. Development of the trust
6. Enabling
B. Synthesize leadership and management theories
Management ensures that the all the available resources in the organization are properly utilized
or not and apply all the managerial skills and management strategies to achieve the optimum
results. A good manager can be a leader to achieve the best output. Therefore, all day to day
activities are managed well by the managers in order to produce the desired results.
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