Question
Module 4 Assignment 1: Organizational Analysis – The Nurse Leader
The major assignment for this course is analysis of your organization. In this assignment, you will analyze your nurse leader’s characteristics and behaviors regarding others in managing, leading, and communicating. By respectfully, but critically, critiquing these attributes of the nurse leader you have been “shadowing,” you can identify the attributes that you consider most and least effective, and most and least similar to the way you see yourself managing, leading, and communicating.
Overview: Organizational Analysis – The Nurse Leader
Complete this document to record your analysis of your nurse leader.
Objectives
- Explain how organizations function.
- Compare and contrast characteristics of leadership and management.
- Apply trends, issues, theories, and evidence as guidelines for management decisions.
- Evaluate effectiveness of communication patterns using specific management situations
Sample paper
Organizational Analysis – The Nurse Leader
Nursing leadership contributes significantly towards the achievement of patient health outcomes. The type of leadership by nurse leaders depends on the specific leader characteristics as well as behaviors. These are key influences in decision making within the health care organization. Leadership style by the top management is also essential in determining how the organization is ran. Leadership style determines the manner in which the top management implements policies or procedures that lead to achievement of set objectives. This paper examines nurse leadership and communication at Blanchard Valley Hospital.
Nurse Manager
Nurse Managers have a formal role in the organization. Someone in a position of higher authority, usually the CEO, assigns a manager the role as well as the responsibilities. As such, the manager has a position that is officially recognized within the formal organization. The Nurse Manager at Blanchard Valley Hospital is Barbara Pasztor. The manger carries out specific roles and responsibilities assigned by the top executives. The manager is often involved in decision-making, controlling resources, and managing the flow of work within the organization. The nurse manager has skills in coordinating both human and financial resources in the organization. Another key role is to ensure health workers meet their various goals and objectives. The manager maintains control over all activities within Blanchard Valley Hospital. The manager is also involved in motivating employees through rewards and punishment. Punishment is given through disciplinary measures for nurses who o contrary to established nurse guidelines.
In order to qualify as a facilitator, an individual must pursue a Master of Science in Nursing Degree, either in leadership in health care systems, nursing administration, or management and organizational leadership. The Nurse Manager, Barbara Pasztor, has practiced as a registered nurse for over 30 years (Staff, 2011). She holds a MS in Nursing/Master of Health Administration degree and has practiced in a number of hospitals prior to her appointment at Blanchard Valley Hospital. The Nurse Manager typically reads professional journals such as “Journal of Professional Nursing”, “Nurses in Professional Development”, “American Nurses Association”, and “Journal of Nursing Care Quality”. The Nurse Manager also participates in a number of professional organizations such as “American Academy of Nursing”, “International Council of Nurses”, and “American Association of Nurse Anesthetists”.
Nurse Leader
The leadership style exuded by the Nurse Manager is transformational leadership. In transformational leadership, the Nurse Manager is responsible for developing relationships and motivating the staff members by developing a shared mission and vision. Transformational leaders are charismatic (Jones, 2007). This enables them to communicate or share the vision and mission of the organization with staff members. Transformational leaders exude confidence, which enables them to inspire staff members. Transformational leaders maintain a lot of respect towards their employees. This ensures that employees remain loyal to them. Transformational leaders encourage employees to take up challenging tasks that they would otherwise be afraid of undertaking on their own. The Nurse Manager at the facility exudes these characteristics of a transformational leader in different ways. For instance, the Nurse Manager is a source of inspiration to employees at the hospital. The Nurse Manager is also key to motivation of employees at the hospital.
The Nurse Manager handles responsibility through advocacy. This is because she acts as the patients’ advocate when they encounter problems in the hospital. At times, registered nurses are unable to solve problems encountered by patients. Such problems are escalated to the Nurse Manager. The Nurse Manager provides the way forward on solving issues such as inability of a patient to clear his/her medical bill. The Nurse Manager may sometimes help patients to review their insurance claims. As a patient advocate, the nurse manager performs responsibilities quite effectively. She helps in making of critical decisions when other staff members are unable to make decisions. Another way she handles responsibility is by ensuring there is high quality of care at the health facility. The Nurse Manager ensures that there is quality of care among frontline nurses (“Blanchard Valley Health System,” n.d).
One example of leadership skills in practice relates to managing the personnel. This is visible when there is lack of appropriate skills or knowledge among the staff members. In addition, it could also be the result of introduction of a new technology or way of doing things. At Blanchard Valley Hospital, there is what is known as training week devoted towards improving employee skills in various areas. There are also performance improvement events that go hand in hand with training. Training has been effective in helping staff members acquire new skills. Another example of leadership skills in practice is team-building skills. Team building is important especially in departments that carry out related tasks or those that depend on each other. However, team-building practice is not yet fully developed at the hospital, making the entire effort to be ineffective.
Communication
Communication in the hospital organization flows in different directions; upward, downward, and even peer communication. Upward communication flows from the subordinates to the top management (Kwateng, Osei, Abban, 2014). The forms of communications interactions that may flow from subordinates to the top management include performance reports, complaints/concerns by employees, suggestions for improvement, grievances and disputes, financial reports, and other information. Downward communication emanates from the top management and flows towards the bottom of the hierarchical chain (Kwateng, Osei, Abban, 2014). Downward communication often involves the Nurse Manager giving commands or direction concerning the flow of work. For instance, the Nurse Manager may offer support to subordinates through words of encouragement, provide just-in-time information, offer recognition, goal implementation, and provide direction during time of emergencies. Nurse Managers also provide feedback on performance to staff members, which also constitute downward information.
The other form of communication is peer communication, which entails communication between employees in the same hierarchical level. In peer communication, both sides can initiate or terminate the session. Peer communication occurs where staff holds discussions or where members of a team debate about a particular issue. The manager is quite effective in various roles such as communication, collaboration with all stakeholders, providing motivation to workers, supervisory roles, delegating duties, and in others. In order to be a more effective communicator, the manager should build trust through socialization. Building trust is one of the simple ways that the manager can ensure employees take her serious. When the manager develops a highly trusting relationship with employees, it is easy for them to listen and implement what the manager says. Another way of improving communication is through engaging employees. The manager can engage employees through questions and taking note of their responses. Employees feel happy when their feedback is valued. This can improve communication between the two groups.
References
Blanchard Valley Health System. (n.d). About. Retrieved from http://www.bvhealthsystem.org/
Jones, R. A. P. (2007). Nursing leadership and management: Theories, processes, and practice. Philadelphia, PA: F.A. Davis Co.
Kwateng, K. O., Osei, H. V., Abban, E. (2014). Organizational communication in public health institutions. International Journal of Business and Management, Vol. 9(11):179-190.
Staff, B. (2011). Blanchard valley names patient care executive. Retrieved from http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2011/01/21/Blanchard-Valley-names-patient-care- executive.html
