The Role of Leadership and Management for LPNs in Healthcare

This report examines the crucial leadership and management skills required for Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs) in healthcare settings. It emphasizes the importance of these skills in enhancing patient care and improving health outcomes. The report highlights the need for LPNs to possess strong communication skills to effectively interact with patients, colleagues, and other healthcare professionals. Additionally, it stresses the significance of shared decision-making, empathy, and social awareness in providing quality care. The report also discusses how management skills contribute to maintaining order and efficiency in the healthcare environment. Ultimately, the report underscores the interconnectedness of leadership and management skills, demonstrating how they enable LPNs to make informed decisions, prioritize actions, and deliver timely and effective care. References from Kruschke (2018) are included to support the findings.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
1
Professional Practice
Name
Institution

PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE 2
Leadership and Management Skills
An LPN is a very important person in nursing and patient care. LPNs interact with
patients directly daily and report to registered nurses and doctors. These health care
workers handle basic duties in any healthcare setting and the play a very vital role in
ensuring effective and quality care is provided to the patient. An LPN should possess
good leadership and management skills to ensure that their work in the provision of care
on the floor is effective. LPNs are in most cases expected to assume leadership roles
because the general perception is that they are licensed nurses and therefore they
possess all the educational qualifications and experience that are required in any
leadership role.
As earlier stated, an LPN interacts with patients almost every time. LPNs are therefore
the immediate caregivers of the patient. It is thus important for them to possess
leadership skills to aid in the delivery of care and improving patient outcomes. It is
important to know that quality health outcomes are achieved when a patient-centered
approach to care is applied. Good leadership skills will, therefore, enable the LPN to
integrate the principle of shared decision-making into their care plans for the patient
(Kruschke, 2018). This shared decision-making promotes accountability, mutual respect
between a nurse and a patient, cooperation, and patient satisfaction. As a result, care
delivery is improved thus improving patient outcomes. Additionally, leadership skills will
enable the LPN to manage relationships with the several individuals they interact with
ranging from patients to senior doctors. Successful care is delivered through
collaboration and team-work. It is therefore important that an LPN develops effective
communication skills that can ensure the interaction with patients is effective (Kruschke,

PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE 3
2018). Through the management of relationships, an LPN is also able to show empathy
towards the patient and their situation thus creating a trusting relationship. Further, an
LPN needs to be socially aware to understand the needs of the patient, respond to
these needs, and understand diverse situations from different cultures and groups.
Good leadership skills are therefore important in ensuring that an LPN is socially aware
to improve care delivery and promote patient outcomes.
An LPN nurse should also possess good management skills to ensure that care delivery
on the floor is effective. Because of the diverse groups of individuals, an LPN interacts
with, they need good communication skills (Kruschke, 2018). Good communication
skills will allow an LPN to effectively deal with people’s problem thus exhibiting
compassion and empathy. Additionally, management skills can help in ensuring that
there is order on the floor and patients are at the right place at the right time thus
making the delivery of care easier.
Management and leadership skills are closely related and they make the work of an
LPN and other health practitioners easier. Through leadership skills, an LPN will know
what interventions or actions should be taken first in the care of the patient even in the
absence of the registered nurse. However, through management, the LPN will ensure
that these actions are placed first and within the desired timeframe to avoid jeopardizing
the delivery of care.

PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE 4
References
Kruschke, C. (2018). Communication Skills for the LPN. In Leadership Skills for
Licensed Practical Nurses Working with the Aging Population (pp. 61-81).
Springer, Cham.
Kruschke, C. (2018). The Role of the LPN as a Leader and Manager in the Health-Care
Setting. In Leadership Skills for Licensed Practical Nurses Working with the
Aging Population (pp. 47-59). Springer, Cham.