Facilitators and barriers to achieving effective hospital-based clinical leadership

 

Clinical leadership, if it is to be evident and successful, requires broader clinician engagement and forms of citizenship behaviors within the clinical context that mediate the realization of this form of leadership. Much has been written in the organizational and health care literature about employee work engagement and the benefits derived through promoting work engagement.5,19 Similarly, organizational citizenship behavior is well rehearsed in the literature. Considerable evidence confirms positive associations between constructs such as job satisfaction, work performance, improved productivity, and engaged employees.5 Organizational citizenship behavior has been defined as work-related behaviors that are discretionary, not related to the formal reward systems, and which promote the effective functioning of the organization.Nursing Leadership Essay The types of behaviors commonly seen to form organizational citizenship behavior include altruism, courtesy, conscientiousness, and civic virtue,63 including acts such as helping those with a heavier workload, giving of one’s time to help others, not taking long lunch breaks, and completing tasks on time.64 The focus of attention on work engagement and citizenship behaviors, both within and outside of the health care literature, has largely been upon the general construct of work engagement or disengagement with attention to work roles and tasks.46 The turn toward clinical leadership requires attention to different facets of work engagement and citizenship behaviors, in particular the nature of clinical citizenship behavior as opposed to generic forms of these behaviors.Nursing Leadership Essay

Despite the widespread recognition of the importance of effective clinical leadership to patient outcomes, there are some quite considerable barriers to participation in clinical leadership. Such barriers are noted extensively in the literature and can include lack of incentives, lack of confidence, clinician cynicism, poor communication, poor preparation for leadership roles, curriculum deficiencies at undergraduate level in medicine and health professional courses, experience as participants in poorly constructed clinical leadership programs, inadequate resourcing of development programs, poor leadership, lack of vision and commitment at the higher levels, perceptions of leadership as “other” and not core to a clinical practice role, poor interdisciplinary relationships, role conflict, and at times rejection of the “leader” role as unacceptable impost, resistance to change, and poor team work.2,12,50,65–67,69–71 Nursing Leadership Essay

Edmonstone35 cautions that the emphasis upon competency-based leader development has done little to foster effective clinical leadership in the UK, despite its potential usefulness, and informative and summative evaluation of leader development. Although considerable discussion has occurred on the need for clinical leadership, and large scale pubic inquiries evidence the considerable patient harm that has occurred in the absence of such leadership,7,8 there continues to be a major disconnect between clinicians and managers, and clinical and bureaucratic imperatives. The debate over who is best positioned to lead service delivery and the place of clinicians in governance continues.Nursing Leadership Essay

Conclusion

Effective clinical leadership is associated with optimal hospital performance. It is allied to a wide range of hospital functions and is an integral component of the health care system. Developing clinical leadership skills among hospital nurses and other health professionals is of critical importance. However, despite the widespread recognition of the importance of effective clinical leadership to patient outcomes, there are some quite considerable barriers to participation in clinical leadership. Future strategies should aim to address these barriers so as to enhance the quality of clinical leadership in hospital care. As the focus on hospital performance intensifies, leadership to increase efficiencies and improve quality will be of increasing importance.Nursing Leadership Essay

Leadership is essential to the successful management in the field of nursing. However, nursing leaders and employees have different views on the type of leadership style to be adapted for best results. Owing to the challenges in the nursing leadership, re-evaluation of current managerial tactics is necessary. A nurse leader must master delegation because it constitutes a critical portion of the effective leadership and success in the patient care. Since we live in a multi-cultural nation; good leaders should consider all aspects of a person including cultural diversity. Time management skills, self-efficacy and assertive communication are the other significant qualities of nurse leaders. All the attributes of a nurse leader influence th

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