Adaptive leadership is defined as a practical framework of leadership that assists organizations or individuals in adapting to the ever changing work environment and how to effectively react to these reoccurring problems. This structure of leadership was expanded by Marty Linsky and Ron Heifetz (Barnard & Norman). Adaptive leaders deal with and identify systemic change through approaches that challenge the status quo and identify adaptive and technical challenges. Adaptive Leadership structure was expanded by Marty Linsky and Ron Heifetz. Working environments change all the time due to several factors. The changing situations might also come with various challenges. Adaptive leadership helps leaders and employees to respond to these changes and challenges by adapting (Barnard & Norman). In adaptive leadership, the leader first steps up to identify what is essential and what is expendable during a particular change. The employees are the helped to adapt to the essentials of a change to make their experience and working environment better (Anderson et al., 2015). This paper looks at adaptive leadership in healthcare; adaptive leadership is the most effective type of leadership to apply with new technology in healthcare.
Adaptive leadership and Healthcare
Disruptions and endless changes have become constant in healthcare over the last decade. The healthcare system is in need of visionary leaders that are equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to manage these disruptions and changes by promoting culture change, value-based care and resilience. In recent discussions, there is need for individuals to take personal responsibility for their healthcare, wellness and lifestyle choices. The current U.S healthcare system is unaffordable and unsustainable. The expectations placed on U.S healthcare are unrealistic. And the conversation needs to shift to transforming the healthcare system from illness or health care and more to wellness. Modern medicine attempts to solve problems by applying technical solutions to evolving or adaptive problems such as stress, obesity and relationships. Healthcare professionals need to be adaptive leaders who create safe environments, ask themselves and their patients the difficult questions and support patients in making adaptive lifestyle changes.
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Adaptive leadership uses strategies and set of practices to help organizations and individuals get through challenges and accomplish changes.
When introducing a change, a strategy is needed to overcome the problems that rise or make the change difficult. The strategy should aim at developing adaptability to the challenges and to the complex environments that they create (Nelson & Squires, 2017). It is possible to learn the adaptive leadership model. This explains why any organization team member can be an effective adaptive leader. The principles of adaptive leadership encourage leaders and employees to adapt to the present environment. These principles include; Purpose and vision of the organization, under this principle, the organization’s purpose has to be effectively comprehended, adaptive leaders should have an articulate vision of the organization and align employees to organizational values and goals. This creates a sense of purpose which motivates employees by instilling organizational vision and mission in them. Second, under adaptive leadership employee experience and skills will assist in the adaptation process and creates trust and commitment between the leader and the followers. The leader needs to involve employees in the decision making process and provide them with flexibility during the process. Third, an adaptive leader should be able to tolerate ambiguity and provide support, coaching, feedback and training to his subordinates. This allows for professional growth and the development of mastery, boost self-esteem and a sense of purpose in employees. Finally, an adaptive leader should provide his or her subordinates. Rewarding employees on their achievements and success gives them a sense of accomplishment and a sense of belonging within the organization.
Adaptive leadership recognizes two types of leadership challenges that need solutions
Organizations face two types of challenges when initiating change: technical and adaptive problems. Solutions to technical problems have been established, and the leaders only have to use expertise to get solve them. There are experts who have established procedures to solve technical problems that may arise (Meuser, Gardner, Dinh, Hu, Liden, & Lord, 2016). For example, when introducing the electronic health record technology, there are expertise solutions for any technical problem that might arise. Adaptive challenges have no established solutions, procedures, or experts. To solve these challenges, a leader will have to use adaptive skills to help the employees get used to the new environment (Anderson et al., 2015). Leaders will have to develop skills and traits that will enable them to make quick decisions when an adaptive problem occurs. The leader should be trusted by subordinates to make appropriate decision when these problems occur.
New Technology in Health Care
Advancement in technology is affecting all market sectors, the healthcare sector included (Meuser et al., 2016). Healthcare organizations strive to improve their services and patient outcome by implementing new technologies. New pieces of technology in health care sector include electronic healthcare records, smart inhalers, telehealth, precision medicine for cancer treatment, and blood flow restriction training among others (Meuser et al., 2016). Introducing these technologies will mean bringing a change to the working environment because the employees will need new procedures and techniques. It will need skills of adaptive leadership to adapt to the challenges.
Roles of New Technology in Healthcare
Technology reduces the cost of treatment and time taken.
The reason for introducing technology in nursing is to increase the speed of treatment while lowering the costs. High treatment costs make it difficult for low-income citizens to access quality healthcare. Time taken during treatment is among the factors that increase the costs (Gao, Li, & Luo, 2015). With new technology, it becomes easy to save time and make medical care affordable to all people. For example, implementation of electronic health records makes it easy to access and analyze patients’ data, thus, making it easy and faster to begin treatment (Weaver, Ball, Kim, & Kiel, 2016). Use of telehealth also ensures faster access to health care while reducing the costs of travelling.
Technology improves treatment outcome
Healthcare organizations use new technology to improve their patient outcomes and quality of treatment. Diseases keep changing all the time requiring healthcare leaders to continuously update their approach. The competition level in the field is also increasing. To remain competitive, organizations need to make good use of new technology to improve their procedures (Gao et al., 2015). Electronic health records help to eliminate manual record system errors like misplacement of patient files and data, thereby, improving patient outcomes. Telehealth improves treatment quality by ensuring patient progress is monitored regularly.
Behavioral leadership theory is useful in adapting to new technology in healthcare
Behavioral leadership theory is based on the belief that great leaders are made. Many people believe that successful leaders were born with the leadership traits and they just nurtured the skills to become great. However, behavioral theory maintains that it is possible to learn all the good leadership through teaching and observation (Thomson, Rawson, Slade, & Bledsoe, 2016). The theory focuses more on a leader’s actions than mental qualities. This means that everyone can be a leader as long as there is the ability to learn and apply the learned knowledge and skills in practice. Adaptive leadership measures the ability of a leader or an individual to find solutions to challenges that are associated with change. The challenging situations lack specific solutions, and the leader must be creative enough to come up with appropriate strategies. Behavioral theory is based on the leader’s actions and not internal states. Therefore, when finding solutions to problems caused by a change, using the behavioral theory of leadership will help the leader on how to adapt and make strategic procedures that will guide the employees (Thomson et al., 2016). Good behavioral skills will also make it easy for the leader. Applying new technology means that normal procedures of the organization will be disrupted. Staff members in the affected departments will have to learn and adapt to the new operating procedures. During this transition, many challenges will present, and it is upon the organization’s leaders to ensure that the staff members adapt smoothly to the changes. Behaviors of the leaders will determine the success of the new projects (Weaver et al., 2016). They have the responsibility of identifying the challenges and techniques to be used in solving these problems.
Conclusion
In the current technological society, it is constantly evolving and new problems arise with each and every revolution. This change in each and every sector of our society requires leaders that are equipped to handle these changes. Adaptive leadership is a trait that all leaders should strive to acquire. More so for leaders working in the health sector and have a duty to and work around human life and wellness. The leaders should be able to quickly adapt to problems and find even quicker solutions to these problems. Furthermore, using the behavioral leadership theory, leadership can create this leadership trait and even learn from other leaders that have acquired the trait of adaptive leadership.
References
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