Leadership: Theories, Traits, and Styles in Health and Social Care

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of leadership and management principles, focusing on the healthcare sector. It begins with a critical evaluation of various leadership theories, including path-goal and situational leadership, comparing and contrasting their strengths and weaknesses. The essay then identifies key traits and skills essential for effective leadership, emphasizing the importance of communication, problem-solving, and decision-making abilities. It also explores different leadership styles, such as directive, participative, and transformational leadership, and their applicability within health and social care settings. The discussion extends to the roles and responsibilities of nurse leaders, highlighting the need for specialized knowledge and skills. The essay underscores the significance of adapting leadership approaches to specific situations and the importance of continuous learning and development for leaders in the healthcare field. The essay concludes with a reflection on the author's own leadership style and how it aligns with the theories and practices discussed, aiming to provide insights into the practical application of leadership principles in a professional context.

Leadership and management

TABLE OF CONTENTS
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
1. Critical evaluation of leadership theories................................................................................3
2.Identification of the key traits and skills which are important for becoming an effective
leader............................................................................................................................................7
3.Identification of own leadership style ......................................................................................8
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Leadership can be defined as an ability of an individual to lead as well as influence other
people for making their valuable contribution in accomplishment of desired objectives.
Management can be referred to as administration of different business activities which is very
much essential for driving an enterprise towards success. It is the procedure which involves
planning, organizing, directing and controlling resources for accomplishing desired goals. An
effective leadership is very much essential for making employees feel motivative as well as
satisfied from their job. An effective leader has specialized knowledge, skills and competencies
which makes them different from other people at workplace.
The essay will include the critical evaluation of leadership theories. It will emphasize on
identification of key traits as well as skills that makes an individual an effective leader in context
of practices in health and social care. There will also focus on analyzing the way leadership can
be develop and improve.
MAIN BODY
1. Critical evaluation of leadership theories.
` Leadership can be defined as a procedure through which leader in an organization provides
guidance as well as instruction to their subordinates. School of thought in context of leadership
mainly emphasizes on the procedure through which an individual become leader. It also
emphasizes on identification of the reason because of which an individual become leader. School
of thought theory highlights the traits as well as behavior that could be adopted by an individual
for enhancing their leadership abilities. According to school of through leaders are born with
certain leadership qualities (Frankel and PGCMS, 2019.).
There are two major types of leadership theories which will be critically evaluated in
order to identify the differences between various types of leaderships. The two types of
leadership theories are as following –
1. Path goal theory of leadership
2. Situational leadership theory
Leadership style can be defined as attitude as well as behavior of leader while directing,
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inspiring, guiding and managing people within health and social care. It is a leader who can
positively influence people to improve their performance at workplace and can bring significant
improvement in an organization According to this. Lewins there are different types of leadership
styles these are Autocratic, Democratic, delegative, transformational and transactional leadership
style.
Path goal theory of leadership is based on the assumption that leaders complements his
subordinates as well as compensates for their shortcomings. It is the path goal goal theory
which provides leaders with ways to motivates as well as support their followers in
accomplishing desired targets. According to the path goal theory of leadership leaders in an
organization needs to emphasize on different types of leadership behavior.
As per the path goal theory, Direct leadership are those people who clearly
communicate their expectation to subordinates. They also provide clear instructions about the
way different business operations are to be performed. According to the path goal theory,
leaders with this type of leadership has knowledge about the activities to be performed for
achieving desired target. Leaders with Directive leadership style are generally commanding, and
they take high initiative to retain their control on the activities of subordinates. Directive leaders
make decisions on their own without seeking suggestions from other people in a group. It is a
type of leadership style which is best suitable for the circumstances where quick decision are
required to be made. An individual intends to adopt the Directive leadership style is required to
have depth knowledge about the business. Directive leadership style can be adopted in the deal
where the is great deal of pressure is involved. For instance, in case of NHS which is a health
and social care, medical professional might have to take the important decision in some
emergency situations when patient health is critical. In emergency situation medical professional
themselves have to take decision related to the treatment of patient and generally in such critical
cases medical professionals cannot waste time in making discussion about treatment with their
medical staff. Other case where medical professional can adopt Directiveleadership is during
time of surgery where effective supervision can be provided only through detailed orders as well
as instructions to the untrained workers.
The main strength of the directive leadership style is that it enables leaders to make quick
decision. Other strength of the Directiveleadership is that there is high chain of command.
Decrease in morale of workers is considered be as one of the biggest weakness of Directivel
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eadership style.
Participative leadership style which is considered to be as most effective. A person with
participative leadership style provides proper guidance to their subordinates. But at same time
they also participate with their subordinates and assist them in competition of the task.it is the
participate leadership style which enables leaders to develop the strong bond with their
followers. Leaders with participate leadership style enables their subordinates to participate in
the decision-making procedure but the final judgment is made by leader themselves. It is
considered to be as most effective leadership style for positively motivating followers for
facilitating innovation and enabling them to feel motivated (Bolden, Gulati and Edwards, 2019).
Leaders with participate leadership style makes their members feel valuable part of team which
proves to be beneficial in terms of ensuring the high level of team members commitment towards
objectives. The biggest weakness of participate leadership style is that it slows the decision-
making process.
As per the path goal theory, the one more style of leadership is Achievement oriented, An
individual with achievement oriented leadership style set challenging goals for their
subordinates. They have high level of expectations from their subordinates and trust the ability of
their followers.
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Illustration 1: Path goal theory
(Source :Path-Goal Theory of Leadership, 2019)

In addition to this, other types of leadership styles are :
Delegate leadership style, an individual with this type of leadership style provides little or
no guidance to their group members. In addition to this, leaders with delegate leadership style
delegate decision-making authority to their team members. It is the type of style which can be
proved to beneficial when all members working together in a team are highly knowledgeable as
well as skilled.
The biggest weakness of this leadership style is that delegate leadership style leads to
lack of motivation as well as poorly defined roles. In addition to this, lack of direction by leaders
can have negative effect on the performance of team. Major strength of delegate Leadership style
is that it leads to the increase in more as well as motivational level of workers. In addition to this
by delegating some of the responsibility manager or leaders in an enterprise can easily
concentrate on the core task. For instance, in context of NHS, the medical professional after
giving the primary treatment to the patient can delegate the authority of regularly examining the
patient to the nurse. The leadership style which can be applied in the health and social care
setting are transformational and transaction.
Transformational leadership style, it is a style where leader positively influence their
followers to facilitate innovation and for bringing the positive change at workplace. An
individual with transformational leadership style mainly focusses on providing the training to
their workers and preparing their followers for higher job position. For instance, manager or
leader in NHS by adopting the transformation leadership style can promote continuous learning
as well as development that could be helpful in context of improving the quality of care.
The biggest strength of transformational leadership is that it assists in reducing the high
employee turnover rate. Increase in morale of employees is considered to be as other biggest
strength of transformational leadership style (Nzinga, McGivern and English, 2018).
Major weakness of transformational leadership style is that there are high chances of
negative outcome. In addition to this, other limitation of transformational leadership style is that
it mainly emphasizes on fulfilling individual needs only.
Transactional leadership style, a person with this type of leadership style provide both reward
as well as punishment to their followers for both good and bad performance. By providing the
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rewards to their subordinate leaders positively influence people to make their significant
contributions towards accomplishment of desired objectives.
The major strength of transactional leadership style is that it promotes employee’s
motivation. It eliminates confusion. Major weakness of transactional leadership style is that It
does not provide much flexibility. For example, in context of NHS, leader in an organization by
implementing the strict regulations can encourage workers to improve performance.
on
1. Situational theory of leadership
It is the hypothesis which mainly focuses on analyzing the influence of situation as 3well
as environment on leadership. According to the situational leadership style, a leader cannot rely
on single leadership style for dealing with different types of situations. As per the situational
leadership style, leaders in NHs is required to adopt the leadership style considering the nature of
situation as well as demand of their subordinates. Hersey and Blanchard leadership style is
among one of the most popular leadership style (Günzel-Jensen, Jai and Kjeldsen, 2018.). As per
the Hersey and Blanchard leadership style there are basically four style of leadership these are
directing, coaching, supporting and delegating.
An individual with directing leadership style gives orders and expect the obedience from
their followers. Leaders with directing leadership style provides both guidance as well as support
to their subordinates.
Coaching leadership style where leaders give lot of orders as well as high level of support
to their followers.
Supporting style, leaders with this type of leadership style offers plenty of help, but very
little direction to employees. In context of the delegating leadership style, an Individual with
specific leadership style provide low support and help to their followers.
2.Identification of the key traits and skills which are important for becoming an effective leader.
Clinical nursing is a leader is an individual those who are direct engaged in providing
direct care to patients. Role of leader in health and social care is to positively influence other
people to improve their performance at workplace. In context of health and social care, manager
or leaders in an organization required specialized knowledge, skills and knowledge for
performing their roles as well as responsibilities in systematic manner (Ginter, Duncan and
Swayne, 2018) . In relation to the NHS , role of leader nurse is to act as role model for other
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people at workplace. In addition to this, it is the duty of leader nurse is to create the provision in
order to ensure delivery of quality care to patients. Role of nurse leader is to provide instruction,
training to their followers. They are required to provide useful information about treatments and
other type of assistance to their followers. According to the role as well as responsibilities, the
skills as well as knowledge which are needed to be possessed by leader nurse are an effective
communication and management skills. They should belong to the educational background in
finance as well as health economics. In addition to this, nurse leader should pose negotiation as
well as problem solving skills. They need t5o have high decision as well as influencing power.
Both an eff4ectivre communication skills and influencing power will assist nurse leader in
positively influencing people to make their significant contribution in accomplishment of desired
objectives (Byrne, Stratfor and Davidson, 2018.). Problem solving skill will help nurse leader in
solving the different issues faced by their team members as well as patients. The qualities which
are needed in order to become an effective nurse leader are collaboration, creativity, courage and
confidence. In addition to this, it is very much crucial for nurse leader to get them selves aware
about changes in external environment.
Trait theory of leadership highlights the characteristics of both successful as well as
unsuccessful leader. According to the trait theory of leadership an effective leader has high level
of ambition as well as energy. Other skills which are needed to be developed by an individual in
order to become effective nurse are honesty, integrity, high level of satisfaction, emotional
maturity. The major strength of trait theory of leadership is that it provides depth knowledge
about elements of leaders in leadership procedure. It also provides the way to judge whether an
individual person as a leader is effective or not. In addition to this, trait theory of leadership can
be applied at all level in an enterprise. In context of NHS, leader nurse in an organosilicon can
use the trait theory of leadership for assessing their position in a firm. It is the trait theory which
will enable nurse leader to develop the understanding about their strength and weakness. The
biggest limitation of trait theory is that it is very much complex (Figueroa Chauhan and Meyer,
2019.). Other disadvantage of the trait theory of leadership is that it involves subjective
judgement in context of determining the success as well as unsuccessful leader.
Power and influence theory of leadership, it ids the hypothesis which mainly emphasizes
on identification of the skills which distinguish leader from manager. According to the power
and influence theory of leadership it is the ability to positively influence other is the skills which
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made leader different from manager. The power and influence theory states that a successful
leader is those who can influence all employees working at different level of an organization and
can positive effect the behavioral outcomes by bringing positive change in attitude of people.
3.Identification of own leadership style
I have adopted the transformational leadership style to perform my role as a leader nurse in
health and social care organization. After developing the understanding about the trait theory and
high power and influence model, I have been able to access my strengths and weakness. I have
used the transformational leadership style in order to engage with people to bring positive as well
as drastic improvement at workplace. It is the leadership style which has assisted me in fulfilling
the requirements as well as helped me in meeting the expectation of my followers.
Transformational leadership style has proven to be helpful for me in order to positively influence
people to change their attitude, It is the transformational leadership style which has also helped
in fulfilling my own needs (Bolden, Patterson and Thompson, 2019). By using the
transformational leadership style, I have been able to inspire my followers to increase their
working efficiencies and improve productivity at workplace. In addition to this, the main
advantage which I have got is that it has assisted me to bring positive change within an
organization and also in quality of care that has been delivered to patients. I provide the
continues feedback to my followers which assists them in identification of performance gap and
through feedback they get an ease in bringing improvement in performance at workplace. In
addition to this, it is transformational leadership style, which has supported me in bossing the
morale of my subordinates. In addition to this, I adopted the transformation leadership style in
order to built strong relationship with my followers, as I perceive that it is very much essential
for driving an organization towards success.
I just focus on completion of the task. After performing the self-assessment, I found that I
need to bring improvement in my leadership style. By analyzing the outcome of the assessment
test, I found that I sometime lose task-oriented focus that has adverse effect on my performance
at workplace. I believe that I need to mainly concentrate on understanding the value as well as
importance of task rather than just completing it. I also think that I should emphasize on
maintaining the quality of work rather than just completing it. For instance, in case of health and
social care setting, while delivering the services, I need to concentrate on quality of care being
delivered to patient. As transformational leaders I always tries to find new ways of achieving
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success in my field. I also sue humanistic approach to being change in the culture at workplace.
I give equal treatment to all patients and provides equal working opportunities to my followers
which has led to the high level of satisfaction among them. Equal treatment strategy adopted by
me as a transformational leader has assisted an enterprise in reducing the employees’ turnover
rate. I utilize charismatic approach for serving as a role model for my subordinates. I also use my
energy to demonstrate the way followers can achieve their desired target.
The main disadvantage of transformational leadership style which I perceive is that an
individual with specific leadership style can achieve success if they have high potential to
maintain open communication with their followers. In addition to this, leaders with
transformational leadership style needs to provide continuous feedback in order to maintain high
level of enthusiasm among their subordinates can be quite complex as well as challenging task
during the time of workload. The transformational leadership can be quite risky if a leader is
immoral (Peters, 2018). In addition to this, I have experience that if an individual is risk taker
like me and decision taken by person as a leader are not effective then an individual might have
to face high level o criticism from their subordinates. In addition to this., decision taken by
leader on the basis of emotion can have negative effect on the behavior as well as performance of
other people in a team. After self-assessment, I found that I make of majority of the decision
related to team members emotionally. I believe that in need to have control on my emotion while
making decision. I have also experienced that transformational leaders have to face many issues
as well as challenges when their team members are not at all supportive.
If the employees are made to work for long hours it might lead to the high level of
dissatisfaction. I believe that I need to find out the innovative ways to make most of the work
done by subordinates within working hours. I have decided that I will eliminate the policy of
giving money for doing extra time. I will motivate my team members to complete their work
within working hours by setting the short as well as long term target for them.
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CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from the above essay is that the leadership style adopted by leaders
varies according to the circumstances and demand of their followers. The other fact which has
been found is that it is the high influencing power which makes leaders different from the
manager within an organization. It has been concluded that both tractional as well as
transformational leadership style is considered to be as effective to perform role of leader in
health and social care organization. The other fact which has been discovered is that the skills
that make an individual an effective as well as successful leader are effective communication,
management and high influencing power. It has also been concluded that an individual who
wants to become an effective nurse leaders are required to have specialized knowledge and
expertise in particular field.
It has been suggested that leader nurse in health and social care institutions transformational
leadership style, as it will enable them to enhance their role at workplace.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals:
Frankel, A. and PGCMS, R., 2019. What leadership styles should senior nurses
develop?. Mental health. 12. pp.50.
Bolden, R., Gulati, A. and Edwards, G., 2019. Mobilizing change in public services: Insights
from a systems leadership development intervention. International Journal of Public
Administration. pp.1-11.
Barr, J. and Dowding, L., 2019. Leadership in health care. SAGE Publ
Nzinga, J., McGivern, G. and English, M., 2018. Examining clinical leadership in Kenyan
public hospitals through the distributed leadership lens. Health policy and
planning, 33(suppl_2), pp.ii27-ii34.
ications Limited.
Günzel-Jensen, F., Jain, A.K. and Kjeldsen, A.M., 2018. Distributed leadership in health care:
The role of formal leadership styles and organizational efficacy. Leadership.14(1). pp.110-
133.
Ginter, P.M., Duncan, W.J. and Swayne, L.E., 2018. The strategic management of health care
organizations. John Wiley & Sons.
Byrne, L., Stratford, A. and Davidson, L., 2018. The global need for lived experience
leadership. Psychiatric rehabilitation journal. 41(1). pp.76.
Figueroa, C.A., Chauhan, A. and Meyer, L., 2019. Priorities and challenges for health leadership
and workforce management globally: a rapid review. BMC health services
research. 19(1).pp.239.
Bolden, R., Patterson, M. and Thompson, E., 2019. Developing systems leadership in public
health: A scoping report.
Peters, S.C., 2018. Defining social work leadership: a theoretical and conceptual review and
analysis. Journal of Social Work Practice. 32(1). pp.31-44.
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