Leadership Strategies for Nurse Managers

Paper Summary:

In this paper, the challenges facing nursing managers are outlined and possible solutions are presented. The author believes that nursing managers must adopt a more participative or transformational leadership style. These leadership strategies are defined and analyzed. The role of organizational culture is discussed in terms of a health care delivery system being similar to a business. The author concludes by endorsing the adoption of a more collaborative or transformational approach to leadership that encourages collaboration among members of the healthcare team and the community at large.

From the Paper:

"Nursing leaders of tomorrow must prepare to help make complex decisions within the community and help meet the goals and objectives of the health care organizations they work with (Campbell, et al. 1998). Common challenges facing tomorrow's nursing leaders include meeting the challenges of "higher level reasoning" associated with a leadership position and acquiring the critical thinking ability necessary to aid in complex decision making functions at the leadership level (Campbell et al. 1998). Nurses also face the challenge of overcoming obstacles including "dwindling and inadequate resources" that may result from changes in health care policy and tighter insurance policies, procedures and programs (Donahue, 482). Still other challenges nursing leaders face include providing multidimensional care to an increasingly diverse population of patients (Marquis & Huston, 2006). Today's patient is multi-faceted; for nursing leaders to provide adequate care they must understand the implications culture, ethnicity and beliefs have on patient care, as well as understand how access to care (influenced by managed care, socio-demographic variables and insurance) may affect an individuals health and patient outcomes (Marquis & Huston, 2006). "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Anson, B.R. (2000). "Taking charge of change in a volatile healthcare marketplace." Human Resource Planning, 23(4): 21.
• Berger, C.S. (2005). "A longitudinal look at social work leadership in hospitals: The impact of a changing healthcare system." Health and Social Work, 30(2): 155.
• Campbell, D., Cascio, R., Clark, M., Rains, A.P. & Sandor, K. (1998). "Evaluating critical thinking skills in a scenario based community health course." Journal of Community Health Nursing, 15(1): 21.
• Donahue, M.P. (1996). "Nursing, the finest art: An illustrated history." St. Louis: Mosby.
• Dubnicki, C. & McKean, K. (1999). "The link between management culture and organization performance." Healthcare Productivity Report, Hay Group.

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