Leadership is the foundation in which an organization achieves its goals, mission, and vision. Leadership one of the factors that make up the context in which groups of individuals work. Leadership is more than having managerial skills since it is more of influencing people in their attitude, emotions, and feelings to help them do their work in their highest potential. Leadership in nursing is the skill, and ability nurses have to influence others in getting improved and quality health care as they work and participate directly in clinical care. In this case, the nurses have to be motivated and empowered and work in an environment where there is a clear vision. Leadership and nursing have something in common as both portray caring and compassion. Therefore, it is essential for nurses to acquire leadership skills in their field of practice.
Personal Leadership Style
Leadership and management are different in that leadership requires compassion and emotions while management is formal and rational. Leadership is the art of influencing individuals or group of individuals to accomplish and achieve the set goals and objectives willingly. On the other hand, Management is the art of having stuffs done in a controlling manner according to the values and principles that have already been established. In this case, leaders have charisma and personalities that make people follow them willingly, and their followers are more loyal to them. However, managers are obeyed due to their formal authority; thus, loyalty from their followers is less compared to leaders.
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Leadership style is how leaders use to implement plans, motivate, and give directions and guidelines in an organization. Authoritarian leadership, democratic leadership, delegate governance are some of the governance styles leaders use to direct others. Democratic or participative governance is a form of leadership where participants or individuals in a group are allowed to participate in decision making. Researchers have found out that democratic leadership is the most efficient type of leadership as it leads to higher production, better contribution, and increased group morale. Leaders using this type of leadership allow discussion, free flow of ideas, and participation as they take control of the group giving out guidelines.
As healthcare becomes a more complicated day in day out, nurses are expected to be united, sharing ideas and contributing to the matters and problems in the health care faculty. In this case, I prefer democratic or participative leadership style since it allow nurses to discuss and contribute their ideas and suggestions as per their area of specialization (Sfantou et al., 2017). The nurse leaders in various healthcare setting are success-oriented and make the other staff feel involved as they like to work collaboratively.
In this case, nurse leaders need to have certain qualities that make them good democratic leaders. Intelligence, honesty, courage, competence, creativity and fairness are the qualities and traits nurse leaders portray as they take up the role of leadership. Democratic leaders inspire, respect and trust followers. Hence, followers tend to feel encouraged to make decisions and contribute to the group. An example where democratic leadership is portrayed is in the case of Mayo Clinic located at Florida. Employees and patients are allowed to contribute as they offer ideas and suggestions to improve the quality of services provided.
Leadership and Management Theories
In management, modern theories attempt to explain and assist interpret the rapidly changing landscape of organizational settings. Contingency theory asserts that every organization faces unique circumstances. As such, management tactics need to be chosen and implemented based on the prevailing conditions in an organization (McNamara, 2002). The theory agrees that any approach, be it scientific, quantitative or behavioral, can be applied in the management of staffs as long as it suits the organizational situation and assists leaders to run the organization effectively.
Based on the contingency theory, behavioral theories democratic leadership which emphasize on leaders’ behaviors. Democratic or participative leadership falls under the theory of transformational leadership which was first recognized by James MacGregor Burns, a leadership expert. Transformational leadership theory states that a relationship between a leader and followers is established motivating and inspiring each other in their highest potentials. This theory was later expounded by Benard M. Bass, who believes that for the approach to be complete and useful, leaders should have certain traits and personality with clear and robust vision (Xu, 2017). Bernard later outlined the major components a transformational leader should portray some being strong motivation, personal consideration, and intellectual stimulation. Transformational leadership theory focuses on change, and this has a significant impact on the individual in this case patients and the organization, which is the healthcare setting.
Work Environment and Key Behaviors
Democratic or participative leadership work best in creative environments. Considering that a group of individuals will be called into a meeting or gathered to solve a problem when it arises, it requires the members to be more creative. In this case, the members gathered are needed to come up with more than one solution to the problem according to the situation of the problem. Moreover, gathering strategy meetings to discuss arisen problem at that particular moment may be time-consuming. Thus, issues that require quick responses do not need the use of participative leadership.
As much as democratic leadership is recommended in most organizations, whether large or small, public or private, it has its disadvantages. In situations where time is of importance and roles are unclear democratic leadership style can result in communication letdowns as some projects fail to be completed (Amanchukwu, Stanley and Ololube, 2015). Mostly, when some ideas are ignored or their opinions are not taken into account, group members may feel discouraged and their morale, inspiration, motivation, and satisfactory will be lowered. In some instances, team members may not have the enough knowledge and information that will enable them to contribute in the decision-making process.
Conclusion
Moreover, in leadership, guidelines and principles are recognized whereas, in procedures, policies and management are implemented; thus, leadership brings change whereas management focuses on stability. Democratic leadership make employees feel motivated since democratic leaders do not discourage and silence those that provide a less critical standpoint. Transformational leadership theory and democratic or participative leadership is essential for health care practices. Although democratic leadership is recommended in most organizations, it has its disadvantages. Participative environment works best where there is no time pressure so that the members are given enough time to be creative and come up with different solutions to a problem.
References
Amanchukwu R. N., Stanley J. G., & Ololube N. P. (2015). A review of leadership theories, principles and styles and their relevance to educational management. Scientific and Academic Publishing , 5(1), 6-14.
McNamara, C. (2002). Brief Overview of Contemporary Theories in Management . Retrieved on 18 May 2019, from http://158.132.155.107/posh97/private/management-general/management-AcNamara.pdf
Sfantou D. F., Laliotis A., Patelarou A. E., Pistolla D. S., Matalliotakis M., & Patelarou E. Importance of leadership style towards quality of care measures in healthcare settings: A Systematic review. U.S National Library of Medicine , 5(4), 73
Xu J. (2017). Leadership theory in clinical practices. Chinese Nursing Research , 4(4), 155-157
