Leadership in Healthcare

Question: Write an essay on "Leadership in Healthcare". Answer: Introduction With the continuous reforms in the industry of healthcare to drive a fierce pace of uncertainty and change, healthcare team leaders are adapting and evolving new sets of skills for successfully leading the healthcare organizations. Team leaders face challenges of the dizzying array that ranges from filling the vacant positions to meeting reforms. For successfully facing these challenges, the team leaders from the healthcare industry should possess a wide range of leadership skills (Mitchell et al., 2012). Apart from the reforms of the industry, the team leaders continue to battle various complicated issues demanding personality traits, leadership qualities and specific skills. They should have a very clear knowledge about the mission, vision and goals of the organization and should design a plan for overcoming the challenges for achieving them. Innate agility is the virtue a team leader should exhibit in times of changing conditions and uncertainty (Kilpatrick, 2014). They should be flexible enough for maximizing and recognizing the opportunities as the healthcare reforms are reshaping the traditional care models. Efficient team leaders accept the challenges of change as the opportunities for propelling forward with their vision (Lewis et al., 2014). The present report will analyze and discuss the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values required by an effective team leader and the potential consequences of poor leadership. A leadership analysis tool will be used for evaluating the leadership style of the team leader along with the other members of the healthcare team. The challenges and complexities of the present healthcare industry will be taken from the perspective of the present analysis and discussion. Knowledge, Skills, Attitude and Values of Team Leaders The team leader of a healthcare organization should possess the necessary knowledge, skills, attitudes and values of the current healthcare reforms for becoming an effective leader. Knowledge Leading a team of healthcare professionals requires the maintenance of the advanced and current knowledge of the healthcare systems and diseases. The leader must be able to support, recognize and encourage the team members to achieve the maximum level of performance by creating a positive environment of work (Hoch Kozlowski, 2014). The leader must be able to define the terms that are related to coding, billing and documentation and articulate why it is necessary for the team members to get familiar with these terms. For example, the terms like authorization, relative value units and compliance are important to know by the healthcare leaders to pass over the information to his team members. Skills Efficient team leaders must possess the important skills required for the treatment and care coordination of the critically ill patients in a safe and effective manner for both the transition and hospital phase of care. The leaders should develop the leadership skills for ensuring that the care is rendered in an interdisciplinary and collaborative manner. The leaders must possess the relevant diagnostic and procedure skills for providing mentorship. They should be able to effect the change of systems by the application of the various quality improvement tools (Yoder-Wise, 2014). For example, Failure mode effects analysis and Plan do study act are the quality improvement tools that the team leaders should be aware of and possess the required skills for implementing them to improve care. They should also possess time management skills. Attitude The attitude of the team leader should promote the perceptions of teamwork for improving the quality of care in the hospitals to a wide range of audience that will facilitate social change. They should demonstrate a consistent level of accountability, responsibility and commitment for rendering care to the patients (Kessel, Kratzer Schultz, 2012). They should maintain a professional behavior and respect the contribution and skills of the members of the team. Exhibit the development of leadership skills by providing training opportunities to the team members. Lack of the appropriate attitude of the team leader adverse the patient outcome (Weaver, Dy Rosen, 2014). For example, the conveying of the clinical information between the team members during the care of a critically ill patient in ICU needs the right attitude of the leader for the accountability, professional responsibility and clinical handover of the patient. Values The team leader should possess a clear set of values that they utilize to drive the direction of the care and services provided. They should understand and respect their roles of team working, autonomy and sharing of responsibilities. They must ensure that appropriate care procedures are followed for upholding the service vision (Huber, 2013). For example, the team leader should reduce the barriers to team-based healthcare for the patients in intensive care units and facilitate effective teamwork and quick recovery. Consequences of Poor Leadership Poor leadership has the most disastrous consequences on the team members. It is nothing but the lack of vision and is often misleading. The team members become aimless without a direction from their team leaders. They fail to realize the motive of their work and cannot trace the goals of the organization. They start working mechanically and cannot implement any intelligent direction for achieving the goal (Schyns Schilling, 2013). The part of patient care faces the maximum damage in a work environment that is ambiguous. Poor leadership brings about frustration among the team members as their ability of decision making either biased or crippled. Finally, this results in extreme employee dissatisfaction and consequent attrition. Poor leadership causes significant gap in the work process, strategy making, the capability for the execution of the strategies and interdepartmental communications. Cognitive gaps are created due to poor leadership as preference is given to the members of the team who are identical to the leaders from the perspectives of acting and thinking. This results in the formation of homogeneous settings in the team and significant gaps are created in the execution and making of the strategy (Johnson, 2013). Thus, the members who are not identical to the leaders become stressful and develop a lack of trust. The team members working in various departments of the hospital are not communicated properly and this results in lack of co-ordination in treatment. When the members approach the leader with an idea or issue, the poor leader either under deliver or over promise, thrust their self-agenda on the members or keeps on postponing their decision (Krasikova, Green LeBreton, 2013). Thus, executio n and communication gaps are the results of this attitude of the poor leaders. Poor leadership leads to the development of the mediocrity culture. It affects the improvement of the team members and they continue to stay with the similar performance unless the management for resolving the leadership issues acts upon it. The members are not assured of their growth due to the poor leadership skills of their leaders and they start emulating the business decisions and maneuvering styles (Skogstad et al., 2014). For example, a nurse working in the ward for a long time will be ignored by a poor leader and not be promoted to managing ICU patients unless the management recognizes the talent. This continues and over the time flows down the command chain to become an organizational culture, breeding mediocrity and contempt where the quality is low and the costs are high with an increased rate of customer dissatisfaction. Another serious consequence is that the good and talented team members will be leaving the organization and would migrate to another environment with gro wth opportunities. The team will be left behind with the undesired employees with poor performance profile (Alvesson Spicer, 2013). Soon the bottom line is exposed bringing about the attrition of all the deserving team members who were striving with a hope of changing procedures and processes. Eventually, the morale and performance of the team are degraded and all because of the poor leadership of the leader. Impact of Poor Leadership Skills Contemporary healthcare settings are often confronted with the challenges of the workforce, changing demands and expectations of the consumers and fiscal constraints. The prime issues faced by the healthcare teams are the challenges concerned with the safety and quality levels of healthcare and the mandate for improving the patient-centered care. All these issues and challenges can be effectively met by able leadership skills of the leader. However, the reverse can happen with poor leadership skills and it can have a wide impact on the staff members, patients and the organization (Northouse, 2014). Poor leaders are found to be toxic to an organization, as they tend to decrease the job satisfaction among the team members. They also affect the quality of patient care and client service, decrease the turnover, increase the attrition, and finally, decrease the patient satisfaction. Three characteristics can be attributed to a poor leader. A poor leader lacks the direction and a clear vision that makes the job stressful and makes the team members feel controlled, defensive and manipulative (Yeung et al., 2012). Poor leadership makes the progress of the organization limited and the existing clients start leaving. The bottom line of the organization starts to flounder and have a detrimental effect due to poor leadership. All these because a poor leader lacks the required skill, overall qualities and ability to effectively lead. If the team leader starts micromanaging the staff members at the lower level, they may get little opportunity to contribute towards the direction of the compan y and they do not feel invested in the long-term welfare of the organization (Nixon, Harrington Parker, 2012). If the team leader limits the advancement opportunities, the members start leaving the organization for furthering their careers. Poor leadership has a deep impact on the failure of the organization that includes the time wasted in correcting the mistakes, monetary loss for the unproductive performance, wastage of potential and talent due to mismatch of the right jobs with the right people. The bottom line of the organization gets damaged which in turn lowers the productivity, motivation and the morale of the team members (Fullan, 2014). They do not value the communication factor, neither with the employees not with the patients. This creates a big gap in understanding as well as care. Poor leaders tend to spend a considerable period away from his office or desk and ignore the messages and emails of the staff members. They give lower priority to the points raised by his team members cut short the conversation. Staff opinions are not regarded and their inputs are ignored. New information is not passed over about the changed procedures and policies of the company and it negatively affects the performance of the p erformance of the staff members (Woodrow Guest, 2014). Poor leadership skills can hamper the patient care as well as frustrated employees fails to give their maximum devotion towards their services and therefore, the client satisfaction decreases. This is turn brings down the business of the organization. Therefore, the poor leaders should be identified and should not be offered the leadership position for the interest of the staff, patients and the organization. Leadership Analysis Tool A leadership analysis tool is used for critically evaluating the leadership style of a team leader and other members of the healthcare team. The tool is designed for identification of the areas of strength and the leader can include them in his personality development plan and for the evaluation of the leadership style, as per the autocratic, democratic and liberal styles of leadership (Santos, Caetano Tavares, 2015). The team leader can use the tool for assessing the leadership competencies of the team members and help them grow as future leaders. The tool can be used as a powerful means to facilitate the collection of information about the existing gaps and helps in developing the necessary skills for optimization of performance. The tool can be implemented for the healthcare leaders for a range of settings and roles and they define the field clearly. The critical evaluation of the leader and his team helps to improve the performance and it works by sharing the knowledge and commo n skills among the members that are complimentary (Ladegard Gjerde, 2014). The various parameters provided by the leadership analysis tool have been discussed below. Personal Characteristics Positive attitude and self-confidence are the two critical aspects of personal development and growth of a leader. Leaders who are self-confident are often found to be inspiring and an optimistic and positive leader makes the best of any situation for motivating the team members. Emotional Intelligence It includes communication and soft skills that a leader must possess. It helps to identify the feelings of the leader and his team members and manage those feelings and emotions for creating strong bonds of relationships. Transformational Leadership In this form of leadership, the leader tends to create a futuristic vision that is inspiring. This motivates the team members of the healthcare team to achieve the goal and helps to manage the successful implementation of the leadership skills for creating the future leaders among his members. Relationship and Communication Management The ability of the leader to communicate concisely and clearly for interacting with the external and internal clients and patients, maintain and establish relationships and facilitation of the constructive interactions with the groups and individuals (Western, 2013). The leadership criteria include communication skills, relationship management, negotiation and facilitation. Knowledge of the Environment of Healthcare The leader must have sound understanding and knowledge of the system of healthcare and its respective environment where the providers and managers of healthcare function. The leader should have the knowledge about the healthcare organizations and systems, the perspective of the patients, healthcare personnel and the healthcare community. Business Knowledge and Skills The healthcare leader should possess the general business knowledge and skills that include financial management, general management, governance and organizational dynamics, human resource management, information management, marketing and strategic planning, quality improvement and risk management (Renko et al., 2015). The healthcare leaders and the team members must demonstrate the competence in all the parameters of the leadership analysis tool of the critical evaluation of the leadership styles. The style should ensure that the healthcare team fulfills the objectives of the organization and achieve the self-realization and satisfaction as well. Therefore, the tool helps to identify the leadership styles of the leaders for required growth and success of the organization. Conclusion There is no definition for a successful leader in the healthcare industry. However, there are tendencies and practices that the leaders share to exhibit their personality. Successful and efficient team leaders have a strategy and vision for the future and they strive to become a role model for the team in terms of humility and confidence. They know the tactics to inspire performance of the team members and help them pursuit their goals. The primary mandate of the healthcare leaders is the improvement of the quality of patient care in their respective communities. Although the goals and visions vary according to the individuals, efficient team leaders tend to exhibit the core skills that are strikingly similar to building success. The personality, conduct and actions of the leader set the tone for the team and consequently, for the organization. Efficient and successful leaders create a culture of security and inclusion for the collection and interpretation of good ideas. The team mem bers tend to share good ideas only when they gain the confidence of safety and security from their leaders. 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