Healthcare Management: Leadership and Skills Report Analysis

This report analyzes a case study focusing on the leadership and management skills of an associate director in the healthcare industry, Laura, who faces challenges related to staff job satisfaction and retention. The analysis delves into the importance of effective communication, motivational skills, and financial management for an associate director. It discusses strategies to enhance staff confidence, such as making employees feel valued, obtaining insights into employees' strengths and weaknesses, and providing fair remuneration. The report suggests that Laura and her manager should enhance their leadership skills by identifying strengths and weaknesses and through training. Furthermore, the report recommends transformational leadership as the most appropriate style for the situation, aiming to improve staff motivation and engagement by directing employees toward shared goals. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for Laura to develop her leadership skills and implement the suggested strategies for improving the situation.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
The role of an associate director in any industry including the healthcare industry is to
plan, organize as well as directing the day to day activity of an organization. Laura being
the associate director of NSW Health is facing issues associated with staff’s job
satisfaction and retention. From the given case study, it can be understood that though
highly efficient, needs to work on her management and leadership skills so that she can
effectively manage the current situation and enhance the confidence and eventually, the
loyalty of the staffs, in this case study analysis, a detailed discussion on how Laura and
her manager can enhance their management and leadership skills and the apt
leadership style for them to enhance staff confidence has been discussed.
Discussion (800)
Leadership and Managerial skills
From the case study, it can be understood that Laura is facing two major difficulties to
manage the staffs. The first issue includes lack of effective communication and
motivational skills of Laura as a leader. According to majority of the employees,
the”glass half-empty” conversation style of Laura makes them dejected or demotivated.
According to Carter, (2016), an associate manager should have human resource skills,
more specifically communication skills. As the associate director, Laura needs to
understand that employees are already supporting the organization by working overtime
in order to deal with the huge turnover and lack of task. Stating facts that are
demotivating, not only discourages them but also reduce their urge to further extent
their capability for the organization. A leader should communicate with the employees
in a way that will motive them to work for the organization (Yuningsih & Mulyana, 2017).
Pointing out the positive side of the combined effort in meeting sessions along with
appreciating employees for their effort are some of the major communication techniques
that leaders with effective communication skills used. Laura as a leader, should also opt
for enhancing her communication skills.
When it comes to managerial skills, maintaining accurate financial statements along
with using the same in an appropriate way falls under basic managerial skills expected

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from an associate director. Considering the fact that Laura is facing difficulties to
complete the budget, she needs to develop the skills of gathering and maintain financial
records that will help her to develop an effective budget. According to McMullan, 2018),
an assistant director should have an effective understanding of financial allocation
needed in specific sectors of an organization.
Steps to be taken to build staff confidence
The first step that needs to be taken by Laura as an assistant director is make the
employees feel valued and appreciated to be a part of the organization. According to
Deshpande et al. (2018), it is highly crucial for leaders to ensure that each of the
employees consider themselves as a valuable asset for the organization. This can be
done through verbal encouragement, or through rewarding system. Making the
employees feel valued not only boost their confidence but also make them feel
empowered. All these in turn prevent attrition by enhancing the loyalty of the employees
towards the organization. Hence, the first step that needs to be taken by Laura is to
conduct a meeting for appreciating the employees for the support they are giving by
working over shift in order to deal with the high turnover. Along with verbal
encouragement, establishing a reward system like “employee of the month” will help
Laura to enhance the confidence of the employees. The second step that should be
taken by her is to communicate with her managers and obtain a draft about each of the
employee’s strengths and weaknesses (Boamah et al. 2018). Employees with similar
weaknesses will be given on job training sessions. This will further enhance the
confidence of the employees. The final step includes retaining the confidence as well as
the employees. For this, Laura needs to make a budget that will enable her to pay each
employee with a justified amount of remuneration for the amount of effort they are
investing for the company.
Suggestions for enhancing leadership skills
To improve her leadership skills, Laura should start working on identifying her strengths
as well as weaknesses. Self awareness is highly crucial for leaders since it helps him/
her to detect her weaknesses and eradicate the same (Olvera et al. 2017). Along with

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this, Laura needs to take online training sessions or read leadership related books in
order to enhance her communication skills.
Kelly as a manager needs to develop her critical thinking as a manager. Being a leader
it is highly crucial for her to analyze an issue in depth and evaluate solution based on
critical thinking. For Linda, in order to be an effective leader it is highly crucial to
understand the concept of staff capability. She needs to have an effective
understanding of the capability of each of her staffs and restrict providing
responsibilities on the employees as per their capability.
Leadership style
Conserving the fact that the organization is suffering from low staff motivation and high
turnover rate, it is highly crucial for the leader to direct the vision of the employees
towards a shared goal though motivation and engagement. Hence, transformational
leadership will be apt for this situation (Boamah et al., 2018). Transformational
leadership style will enable Laura and her managers to identify the required changes,
creating a vision to guide the change through inspiration and execute the change.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that Laura as a leader needs to
develop her communication and financial management skills in order to provide a better
leadership to the employees. Along with this effective steps should be taken by her to
enhance the confidence of the employees. Along with Laura, her managers also need
to work on enhancing their leadership skills. The transformational leadership style will
enable Laura and her managers to identify the required changes, creating a vision to
guide the change through inspiration and execute the change.

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References
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transformational leadership on job satisfaction and patient safety outcomes.
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Deshpande, S., Sahni, S., Karemore, T., Joshi, J., & Chahande, J. (2018). Evaluation of
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McMullan, R. (2018). An investigation into motivating employees in retail through
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