Impact of leadership behaviors in creating healthy work environments.
Leadership behaviors have the power to empower people to bring about change and help employees reach their potential. According to Suranto et al. (2018), leaders may improve employee happiness and impact the quality of the work-life balance through fostering teamwork, including employees in decision-making, rewarding exceptional performance, and fostering motivation. For instance, a transformational leader motivates followers to uphold allegiance and support the organization’s shared vision. Furthermore, to help staff members get through professional and personal obstacles, a transformational leader also offers counsel and uses deputies.
The likelihood of burnout, unhappiness, and the intention to leave a company is reduced by effective leadership practices. According to Mudallal et al. (2017), leadership styles that enable nurses to take charge of their work by using their abilities, behaviors, and knowledge can enhance job satisfaction, commitment to the company, and care quality. Leadership Theories in Practice Empowering activities, such as educating and demonstrating concern, reduces nurses’ emotions of depersonalization and emotional tiredness by encouraging trust in the organization and the leader. Leadership styles, especially transformational leadership styles, foster an environment where nurses are empowered and committed to their profession.
Describe a leader you have seen use such behaviors and skills or a situation where you have seen these behaviors and skills used in practice.
The situation where I have seen leadership behaviors and skills that create a healthy work environment used in practice is how a nurse manager of the critical care unit addressed the nurse’s concerns of frequent verbal abuse of staff by a patient’s family member.The nurse manager talked with the nurses and the family member and initiated a care conference where the family member’s concerns were openly aired. Feedback on her behavior towards staff was also brought up. During the care conference, the manager did not criticize the nurse or the family member but rather carefully listened to the reasons and thoughts to know her concerns and needs.
Assured the family member that all concerns were valid and that she respected her. But still, she had to inform her that her recent behavior was interfering with the staff morale and could negatively impact patient care and outcome. He emphasized that the nurses were there to care for the patient, and he had an open-door policy where she was free to come whenever she had a concern. The nurse leader then encouraged and supported the nurses for their commitment to the unit. He emphasized that abuse of any form would not be tolerated in the department.
After the care conference, the behavior then stopped. The family member improved her communication with staff and was able to achieve the goals for the patient. In this case, the nurse manager’s leadership abilities were quite successful in helping the family member see the effect of their behavior.The nurse leader’s skills promoted a workplace where the nurses felt safe and appreciated. In addition, the nurses were inspired and encouraged by the leader’s open communication and active listening abilities, which significantly impacted the change in her behavior.
References:
Marshall, E., & Broome, M. E. (Eds.). (2016). Transformational leadership in nursing (E. Marshall & M. E. Broome, Eds.). Springer Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1891/9780826193995
Mudallal, R., Othman, W., & Hassan, N. (2017). Nurses’ Burnout: The Influence of Leader Empowering Behaviors, Work Conditions, and Demographic Traits. INQUIRY: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing, 54(1), 1-10.
Sili, A., Fida, R., & Trezza, T et al. (2014). Nurse coordinator leadership and work environment conflicts: consequences for physical and work-related health of nursing staff. Med Lav, 105(4), 296-306.
Suratno, K., Kusrini, K., & Ariyanti, S. (2018). The Relationship between Transformational Leadership and Quality of Nursing Work Life in Hospital. International Journal of Caring Sciences, 11(3), 1416-1420
Leadership Theories in Practice
A walk through the Business section of any bookstore or a quick Internet search on the topic will reveal a seemingly endless supply of writings on leadership. Formal research literature is also teeming with volumes on the subject.
However, your own observation and experiences may suggest these theories are not always so easily found in practice. Not that the potential isn’t there; current evidence suggests that leadership factors such as emotional intelligence and transformational leadership behaviors, for example, can be highly effective for leading nurses and organizations.
Yet, how well are these theories put to practice? In this Discussion, you will examine formal leadership theories. You will compare these theories to behaviors you have observed firsthand and discuss their effectiveness in impacting your organization.
To Prepare:
Review the Resources and examine the leadership theories and behaviors introduced.
Identify two to three scholarly resources, in addition to this Module’s readings, that evaluate the impact of leadership behaviors in creating healthy work environments.
Reflect on the leadership behaviors presented in the three resources that you selected for review.
By Day 3 of Week 4
Post two key insights you had from the scholarly resources you selected. Describe a leader whom you have seen use such behaviors and skills, or a situation where you have seen these behaviors and skills used in practice. Be specific and provide examples. Then, explain to what extent these skills were effective and how their practice impacted the workplace.
By Day 6 of Week 4
Respond to at least two of your colleagues on two different days by explaining how the leadership skills they described may impact your organization or your personal leadership, or by identifying challenges you see in applying the skills described.
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS
Discussion Questions (DQ)
Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation
Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality
Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes
I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy
For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy
The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication
Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.
Leadership can make or break a healthcare organization. Effective leadership has critical implications for nurse well-being, retention, and the care they deliver to patients (Cummings et al., 2021). If leaders do not have the trust of and act within the best interest of those they serve, they are not competent (Marshall & Broome, 2021).
While effective leadership can manifest in many behaviors, idealized influence and individualized consideration are two worth noting. Idealized influence is a trait in transformational leaders that represents their need to do better and be better (Reinhardt et al., 2022). Leaders with this trait foster change by example. Individualized consideration is the ability of leaders to demonstrate emotional concern and consideration for followers (Lai et al., 2020). This can encompass listening, coaching, and recognizing the contributions of followers (Marshall & Broome, 2021).
In practice, I witnessed these behaviors by a former nurse manager for an intensive care unit. This manager would wear navy blue scrubs every day, the same color the floor nurses were required to wear. While this seems trivial, other managers were dressed in corporate garb, appearing entirely unprepared to step in and provide hands-on care if necessary. This manager always looked ready to help, and she would, frequently. This was significant because it instilled a sense of trust and support in the nurses. They felt they could count on her. Additionally, she came by and personally said good morning to each nurse on her unit and checked on them to ensure they didn’t have problems they were having difficulty solving. If they were having trouble reaching a physician and obtaining orders, she would step in so they could get back to patient care, or she would provide patient care while they worked on the solution. Moreover, at the end of the day, she would come around again and thank each nurse and tell them something specific they did that day that made a difference. She had invested time in reviewing charts to know what was going on with patients on her floor and spoke with staff which enabled her to provide specific feedback to staff which truly made staff feel appreciated and valued. This unit reflected such a positive climate that nurses from many floors were networking with nurses who worked on the floor and trying to get a good word put in so they could be recruited, which seldom happened because the current staff rarely left due to the high rate of satisfaction.
References
Cummings, G. G., Lee, S., Tate K., Penconek, T., Micaroni, S. P. M., Paananen, T., & Chatterjee, G. E. (2021). The essentials of nursing leadership: A systematic review of factors and educational interventions influencing nursing leadership. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 115(2021), Article e103842. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2020.103842
Lai, F. Y., Tang, H. C., Lu, S. C., Lee, Y. C., & Lin, C. C. (2020). Transformational leadership and job performance: The mediating role of work engagement. Sage Open, 10(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019899085
Marshall, E. S., & Broome, M. E. (2021). Frameworks for becoming a transformational leader. In M. E. Broome & E. S. Marshall (Eds.), Transformational leadership in nursing (3rd ed., pp. 2-19). Springer.
Reinhardt, A. C., Leon, T. G., & Summers, L. O. (2022). The transformational leader in nursing practice – an approach to retain nursing staff. Administrative Issues Journal, 12(1), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.5929/2022.12.1.1
Effective leaders take a personal interest in the long-term development of their employees or subordinates. Again, they use tact and other social as well as leadership attributes to encourage their followers to attain their best (Broome et al., 2022). These leaders are keen on tapping into the individual motivation in the interest of advancing overall good and development of their organizations. Based on two scholarly articles, leaders affect the perception of a healthy workplace based on the type of attributes that they demonstrate. Additionally, leaders develop a healthy workplace when they practice and follow transformational leadership style. According to Boamah (2022), transformational leaders focus on how their employees can attain the best for the organization through a new way of doing things. Transformational leadership attributes allow leaders to create and sustain a healthy workplace culture that encourages increased innovative approaches to developing solutions for all stakeholders (Vidman et al., 2020). Transformational leadership is authentic, interested in personal development of employees, and promotes a positive and inclusive workplace culture for nurses to deliver quality patient care.
These skills and behaviors are practiced in highly performing healthcare organizations that focus on quality care delivery. These entities have a strong employee-focused and patient-centered culture whose aim is to improve overall health outcomes. In this organization, these behaviors have been applied to help solve diverse staff issues and aspects that may impact the overall care delivery. These skills have been effective in ensuring that employees have a common approach to issues and prioritize patient care to improve overall outcomes (Bregenzer et al., 2020). The leaders in the organization are also ethical and value integrity and transparency when dealing with nurses and patients. The leadership style and skills have also led to the development of teamwork approach which implies that all work with one common vision and purpose.
References
Boamah, S. A. (2022). The impact of transformational leadership on nurse faculty satisfaction
and burnout during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A moderated mediated analysis. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 78(9), 2815-2826. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.15198
Bregenzer, A., Milfelner, B., Šarotar Žižek, S., & Jiménez, P. (2020). Health-promoting
leadership and leaders’ listening skills have an impact on the employees’ job satisfaction and turnover intention. International Journal of Business Communication, 2329488420963700.
Broome, M., & Marshall, E. S. (2021). Transformational leadership in nursing: From expert
clinician to influential leader (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Springer.
Vidman, Å., & Strömberg, A. (2020). Leadership for a healthy work environment–a question
about who, what and how. Leadership in Health Services, 34(1), 1-15.
DOI: 10.1108/LHS-06-2020-0041
