Sfantou, D. F., Laliotis, A., Patelarou, A. E., Sifaki-Pistolla, D., Matalliotakis, M., & Patelarou, E. (2017, December). Importance of leadership style towards the quality of care measures in healthcare settings: a systematic review. In Healthcare (Vol. 5, No. 4, p. 73). Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute.
To enhance the quality and integration of healthcare, efficient leadership is critical. It acts as a building block for the quality working environment, introducing new strategies, and strengthening a strained nursing workforce. Sfantou and colleagues, in their study, aimed at determining whether different leadership styles in a health facility had any impact on the quality of care offered. Various leaders adapt diverse leadership styles, which impact the quality of care in diverse ways. However, the most common in healthcare are transformational, transactional, autocratic, laissez-faire, task-oriented, and relationship-oriented leadership styles, as Sfantou et al. (2017) identified.
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Transformational leadership style can be analyzed using the Relational Approach, which evaluates the relationship between leaders and their followers (Northouse, 2019). This style ensures leaders have empowered their followers to be better and are fine-tuned to a given facility's objective and goals. That way, with or without supervision, they can provide quality care to their patients. Consequently, followers can guide others to align with the team's main objectives, hence nurturing them.
Leadership being a trait means it is highly dependent on the leader and their special gifts. Therefore, the diverse human characters impact leadership, which, in return, influence the quality of care offered in healthcare. The findings show that the transformational leadership style was the most effective as it lowered patient mortality and established patient safety culture. It is a leadership style that empowers the staff, increasing their loyalty and commitment to delivering quality care due to high job satisfaction levels. Moreover, transformational leadership ensures higher nursing retention, a safe working environment hence positive health results. As Sfantou et al. (2017) observed, a safe climate to work in translated to enhanced procedural quality, improved the organization's culture, and favorable patient results and the overall quality of care.
Goh, A. M. J., Ang, S. Y., & Della, P. R. (2018). Leadership style of nurse managers as perceived by registered nurses: A cross-sectional survey. Proceedings of Singapore Healthcare, 27(3), 205-210.
Leadership is challenging, rewarding, and comes with many responsibilities and obligations. Nurses ought to be fully equipped with efficient leadership skills. As a result, they will be aware of their leadership styles and their consequences on the people they lead. That way, one can either adopt a different style based on the impact or perfect the style if the results are positive. In their research, Goh, Ang, & Della analyzed the leadership styles utilized by nurse managers from their employees' point of view. They also examined the difference between leaders' self-ratings and how others grade their leadership based on organizational outcomes. While transformational leadership improved work satisfaction among the nursing workforce, relational leadership ensured patients were satisfied, reduced patient mortality, treatment errors, restraint use, and hospital-connected infections.
The researchers utilized the quantitative study method from questionnaires' findings. Perceiving leadership from the employee's perspective is a beneficial instrument that provides a method to evaluate a leader’s weaknesses and strengths. As Northouse (2019) identified, it also offers a chance to evaluate how their perceptions differ or are similar to those they lead. Though it confirms that how one perceives themselves is the same way they do, it is also significant in identifying when they view the leader differently. Therefore, a leader is able to examine and comprehend their assets and areas that need to be improved.
From the research, Gor et al. (2018) discovered that nurse leaders rated themselves higher than how others rate them. Such leaders are not very effective hence the need to include leadership self-awareness during leading training programs. Such training will help leaders learn how to establish a team that complements their strengths hence effective leadership. On the other hand, most nurses in the questionnaire recorded that their leaders demonstrate transformational and transactional leadership. To a less extent, some exhibited a laissez-faire leadership style. The study was thus critical as it provided an insight into the self-awareness of leaders in nursing and the perspective of the employees they lead.
Asamani, A., Naab, F., & Ofei, A. M. A. (2016). Leadership styles in nursing management: implications for staff outcomes. Journal of Health Sciences, 6(1).
With a shortage of the nursing workforce and increased workload, nurse managers play a critical role in staff retention and job satisfaction. Their leadership styles are significant determinants of their employee’s outcomes. Asamani, Naab, & Ofei used the Path-Goal Leadership theory to assess how leadership styles impact an employee's desire to stick to their current workplace. As they noted, leadership happens when a person tries to shape an individual's ideologies and actions or a group. Once a staff is recruited, a nurse manager has an obligation or retaining their nurse. The leadership styles that a leader will exhibit affects whether a nurse will stay, transfer, look for new employment, or abandon the nursing career altogether. It is because the style impacts job satisfaction, which also determines staff retention.
According to the path-goal leadership theory, a nursing manager should help their staff to overcome the obstacles which impede productivity (Northouse, 2019). Thus, they will settle on a leadership style that best suits an individual staff and the nature of their work. Therefore, such a leader will help the person define their goals and establish a clear path to follow to achieve these targets. Such is accomplished through guidance, directing, coaching, and training of the members along the way. Some of the obstacles resulting from reduced job satisfaction and productivity include unclear goals and directions, low motivation, complex tasks, simple tasks, low involvement, and lack of adequate challenges. Therefore, with the right leadership styles, nurse managers can retain their staff and keep them satisfied.
From their findings, Asamani et al. (2016) discovered that managers who used directive leadership resulted in decreased job satisfaction by 26.3%, with 51.7% intending to leave their present jobs while 20% were actively looking for better work opportunities. On the contrary, leaders who adapted the supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented styles recorded positive 46.2%, 40.2%, and 39.9% respectively of their workforce job satisfaction. The type of leadership that a manager settles for thus impacts the productivity and retention of staff. Adopting a transformational and a path-goal leadership style thus improves the quality of care and job satisfaction.
References
Asamani, A., Naab, F., & Ofei, A. M. A. (2016). Leadership styles in nursing management: implications for staff outcomes. Journal of Health Sciences, 6(1). DOI: 10.17532/jhsci.2016.266
Goh, A. M. J., Ang, S. Y., & Della, P. R. (2018). Leadership style of nurse managers as perceived by registered nurses: A cross-sectional survey. Proceedings of Singapore Healthcare, 27(3), 205-210. https://doi.org/10.1177/2010105817751742
Northouse, P. G. (2019). Introduction to leadership: Concepts and practice. SAGE Publications, Incorporated.
Sfantou, D. F., Laliotis, A., Patelarou, A. E., Sifaki-Pistolla, D., Matalliotakis, M., & Patelarou, E. (2017, December). Importance of leadership style towards quality-of-care measures in healthcare settings: a systematic review. In Healthcare (Vol. 5, No. 4, p. 73). Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute. doi: 10.3390/healthcare5040073
