Leadership and Management in Nursing: Attributes and Functions

This essay delves into the critical aspects of leadership and management within the nursing profession. It defines nursing leadership as the ability to develop a vision, align teams with organizational goals, and foster excellence among healthcare professionals. The essay identifies key attributes of effective leadership, such as credibility and a visionary approach, highlighting the importance of anticipating and managing change. It explores the functions of leaders, including motivating team members and promoting patient satisfaction. Furthermore, the essay distinguishes between leadership and management, emphasizing that leaders set directions while managers focus on planning and stability. The discussion underscores the potential negative impacts of failing to differentiate these roles, leading to conflicts, confusion, and diminished clinical effectiveness, ultimately affecting patient care. The essay concludes by stressing the importance of careful consideration when appointing individuals to leadership positions in nursing, recognizing the direct impact on patient health and satisfaction. References include key research on nursing leadership and management styles.

Running head: LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT IN NURSING
LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT IN NURSING
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LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT IN NURSING
Leadership in nursing may be defined as the attribute of an individual who contributes in
developing a vision for the teams helping team members to align with the goals set by the
organization and successfully completing them. They are mainly responsible for setting a
direction to the healthcare professionals so that they can develop their skills and helping them to
achieve excellence. This essay would be mainly helping to identify the attributes and functions
of effective leadership in nursing and will point out the factors that will help in achieving
excellent leadership traits. Moreover, it will also establish the differences between management
and leadership and will state how this affects smooth flow at work.
Leaders are mostly responsible for aligning people with the organizational goals and
setting directions for achieving excellence in the individual or follower’s career. In the field of
nursing, leaders mainly motivate their team members to develop their skills and knowledge in
ways that help them to provide better care for patient and ensure patient satisfaction. Leaders are
mainly seen to inspire their followers in ways by which they can overcome their barriers and
achieve their goals effectively. Employing credibility and adopting a visionary position are
attributes that remain associated with effective leadership styles like transformational leadership.
Anticipating the change and helping the team members to understand the change and coping with
them are also important functions that leaders need to conduct (Fleiszer et al. 2016). Leaders in
healthcare ensure that they pursue their ‘passion of caring for patients’ and ‘helping healthcare
staffs to achieve their goals’ by committing to excellence. They set measurements for service,
quality, patients, growth of the skills of employees and finance in effective ways and thereby
develop a culture in the workplace, which encourages and motivates employees to work beyond
their capabilities. They help in infusing the sense of accountability among the followers so that
they can be responsible in their approach towards their duties towards humanity. They also

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LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT IN NURSING
ensure in aligning behaviors of the staffs with goals and values and communicate at all levels
ensuring that a coordinated output can be achieved.
The present generation is still noticing role overlap and confusion among the higher
authorities while distinguishing between the traits of leadership and management. Even in recent
days, senior nursing professionals with higher years of experience are often made managers. This
in turn results in failure of the objective of the higher authorities as not all experienced
professionals or nursing leaders can successfully show managerial skills (Dyess et al. 2016).
Unlike leaders who are mainly considered to be handling the changes in effective manner and
helping people to identify and align with the vision, managers try to maintain the stability of the
working styles and manages people to achieve their aims and objectives. While the leaders are
responsible for setting directions to achieve goals, managers are seen to help in planning the
details and setting the courses in ways by which members do not get off track. Motivation for
leaders helps to ensure excitement for work among the employees and unification of values
whereas managers motivate employees with money and other tangible rewards. In cases, where
the higher officials do not understand the differences, it leads to conflict, confusion as well as
challenges to a clinician’s values and beliefs. It also leads to ineffective leadership and
management that in turn lead to diminished clinic effectiveness. Even dysfunctional wards and
units as well as poor quality care are also seen (Stanley 2006).
From the above discussion, it becomes quite clear that roles of leaders and managers in
nursing are quite different. Therefore, the higher authorities should take care while promoting or
appointing individuals in such position as patient’s health and satisfaction remain associated with
it.

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References:
Dyess, M.S., Sherman, O.R., Pratt, B. and Chiang-Hanisko, L., 2016. Growing nurse leaders:
Their perspectives on nursing leadership and today’s practice environment. OJ Nurs.
Fleiszer, A.R., Semenic, S.E., Ritchie, J.A., Richer, M.C. and Denis, J.L., 2016. Nursing unit
leaders' influence on the long‐term sustainability of evidence‐based practice
improvements. Journal of nursing management, 24(3), pp.309-318.
Roe, K., 2017. Leadership: practice and perspectives. Oxford University Press. Chapters 8 and
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Stanley, D., 2006. Role conflict: leaders and managers: David Stanley reviews the literature, and
discusses his own research, on the difference between leadership and management. Nursing
Management, 13(5), pp.31-37.