Discussion: Professional Communication & Leadership In Healthcare

Discussion: Professional Communication & Leadership In Healthcare
Discussion: Professional Communication & Leadership In Healthcare
PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION & LEADERSHIP IN HEALTHCARE 10
Reflect on your experience in the Leadership and Communication course by doing the following:
1. Provide a brief overview of your understanding of your Energy Graph from the Learning Report, including two personal strengths and two personal challenges that relate to your working style.
Note: Consider discussing your intensity level (Extreme, Effortless, Deliberate, Stress) in your main dynamics—Explore, Excite, Examine, and Execute—and how they relate to your strengths and challenges.
2. Describe your experience(s) of conversations as they relate to the laws of conversation and the four levels of the conversation meter.
3. Discuss your strategies for being a successful student, including how you will incorporate your strengths and address your challenges.
4. Reflect on your overall experience in the course and how it applies to two of the following: academic activities, professional career, or personal life.
B. Acknowledge sources, using in-text citations and references, for content that is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.
C. Demonstrate professional communication in the content and presentation of your submission.
2/8/19-Please consult with a Course Instructor before working further on this assessment. The paper does a nice job addressing strengths and weaknesses as it relates to the energy graph, noting that excite is a lower energy and explore is higher. The paper also notes the presence of communication in accuracy at the work place and that being disciplined and organized will help with continuing education. The paper insufficiently addresses the personal energy in the examine and execute dynamics and does not include a thoughtful and detailed connection to the laws of conversation. Additionally, it is not clear how personal strengths will be incorporated and personal weaknesses addressed to be a successful student.
The healthcare industry is always progressing.
In the last ten years, the healthcare industry has evolved into a societal superpower that offers crucial medical services to individuals while also serving as a community’s economic engine.
The healthcare business, on the other hand, is complex and multidimensional.
Changes in healthcare have made CEOs fatigued and dubious of their abilities to provide direction to their businesses due to the system’s complexity.
As a result, in order to operate efficiently and successfully, healthcare staff must be strong leaders.
The necessity for leadership is clear because today’s healthcare leaders face greater obstacles as the healthcare business becomes more complicated.
Hospitals operated largely to offer patient care twenty-five years ago, and hospital executives did not have to cope with different business lines.
The more complicated a system gets, the less efficient it is to operate, as the old saying goes. This is still true in today’s healthcare system.
Employee commitment and loyalty are at an all-time low, according to researchers.
Furthermore, today’s healthcare executives, physicians, and patients are “dissatisfied with the industry’s management” (Dye & Gasrman, 2006; p.7).
Leaders are critical to the success of any healthcare effort.
Patients seek advice and instruction from physicians, nurses, and hospital management.
“Healthcare today requires…a new style of leadership…strong leaders and a new cultural context in which they may lead,” Souba wrote (Souba, 2011; p.1).
Leadership is about discernment: the ability to see through the knot of doing what you believe is right and navigate through it.
Regardless of profession, understanding the value of good leadership styles and communication methods can help leaders grow their talents and skills.
Individuals must learn about successful leadership methods in order to thrive professionally, emotionally, and developmentally in all aspects of their lives.
Every job requires some kind of leadership.
Individuals with exceptional communication and leadership abilities are more likely to achieve success in their organizations at a faster rate than those with less natural communication and leadership skills.
First, consider the distinctions between management and leadership.
Understanding the Distinction Between Management and Leadership
When looking at leadership communication styles, it’s crucial to understand the difference between leading and managing.
Managers, according to Curtis, Vries, and Sheerin (2011), should administrate, maintain, control, have a short-term perspective, and initiate.
In order to “keep order, stabilize work, and organize resources,” according to Kotterman (2006), managers “plan and budget,” as well as focus on restricted objectives.
Furthermore, while they “create norms, consistency, predictability, and order,” managers frequently aim to “control and problem solve.”
“Sees management as dealing with processes, practices, and complexity, and leadership as dealing with change,” writes Kotter (1995) in Kotterman.
(Kotterman, p.16, 2006)
Curtis, Vries, and Sheerin (2011), on the other hand, recognized that leaders create, grow, inspire, question the status quo, and keep a long-term vision in mind.
The leadership communication styles of healthcare professionals will be discussed in this article.
As a result, distinct leadership styles will be identified, as well as how they are linked to specific healthcare professions.
The words transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and servant leadership will be defined, as well as how they can be applied directly to the medical, nursing, and hospital administration professions.
Leadership Styles Transformational Leadership
The 1978 book ‘Leadership’ by James McGregor Burns is regarded as a fundamental text in the field of leadership studies.
“Where one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers boost one another to higher levels of motivation and morality,” Burns defined transformational leadership.
Transformational leadership, according to Avolio and Yammarino, comprises of the following important factors: “One, charisma, instills faith, pride, and respect for the leader.”
The second factor, individual consideration, entails treating each employee as a respected individual with distinct requirements.
The third type of stimulation is intellectual stimulation, which pushes employees to think in new ways.”
(p.173 in Spears, 1998).
These leaders, according to Burke and Cooper (2006), have a strong bond with their subordinates and the organization’s mission.
Motivation is extremely important for transformational leaders, especially when it leads to success in their roles and a positive attitude on the organization.
Transformational leaders are also not stuck in their ways.
They are adaptable to change and value problem-solving and teamwork that is creative.
Leadership that is Transactional
When one individual takes the initiative in initiating contact with others for the goal of exchanging valuable items, this is known as transactional leadership.
The exchange could be financial, social, or emotional in nature, such as exchanging a product for money, exchanging ideas among businessmen, or even lending a sympathetic ear to those who are in need.
“Transactional leadership has two components,” according to Burke and Cooper: “the transactional leader trades rewards depending on the display of desirable behaviors and results, and intervenes when performance falls short” (Burke and Cooper, 2006 p.13).
Transactional leaders, according to Burke and Cooper, are fundamentally different from transformational leaders in that they work within the organization’s limits and established norms.
There are few risks taken, and the emphasis is on efficiency, control, stability, and predictability.
While transformational and transactional leaders are distinct, it is crucial to remember that they are complementary in nature and are not diametrically opposed.
Both methods may be linked to the accomplishment of targeted performance goals.
It is apparent that leaders may work together using both techniques and that they can often complement each other on the job.
Leadership as a Service
Robert Greenleaf originated the phrase “servant leadership” in his renowned 1970 article “The Servant as Leader.”
Greenleaf believes that these leaders prioritize service and have a natural desire to help others.
After achieving service, the individual aspires to lead as a result.
The greatest way to tell if someone is a servant leader, according to Greenleaf, is to see if they grow as people, get healthier, and are more likely to have an autonomous and unselfish desire to serve others.
Servant leadership is an approach to life and work that is long-term and transformative.
Listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, dedication to people’s progress, and developing community, according to Spears (1998), are important to the formation of servant-leaders.
These ten features, according to Spears, “help to communicate the power and promise that this concept provides individuals who are receptive to its invitation and challenge” (Spears, 1998; p.6).
The Doctor as a Leader
Physicians are known for their “achievement, taking chances, stamina, strong focus, fast decision making, and personal accountability” (Bujak, 2008; p.4).
Physicians, according to Bujak, are motivated by personal aspirations rather than broad organizational missions.
“Today’s medicine structure incents physicians and other leaders to focus on knowing, having (titles, authority), and doing (out-performing), to the point that personal gain is often placed over service to others,” Souba wrote.
Physicians are often self-centered and do not consider themselves to be team players.
Palmer, Cragg, Wall, and Wilkie (2008) discovered that physicians do not perceive themselves as “me” individuals, but rather as “coordinators,” “team workers,” and “business workers.”
From this remark, it is clear that there is a disconnect between how physicians work and how they see themselves.
Partnership is a challenging attribute to master after many years of functioning in one way. Physicians were trained to function under their own self-control.
The missions of the healthcare organization and the physician are usually at odds.
The most crucial step in building an efficient healthcare organization, according to Bujak, is to align individual physician practitioners’ ambitions with the actual demands of the healthcare setting.
A healthy working relationship might develop if physicians see a direct link between their achievement and the organization’s aims.
If this activity does not occur, the vision will fail and self-interest will take precedence.
As a result, healthcare organizations that want to work with doctors create relationships based on agreements.
Bujak acknowledged that each of the four postures can be used to begin negotiations: competition, accommodation, compromise, and partnership.
In many situations, physicians use a transactional leadership style, which “correlates with the fact that their team prefers to accept and work inside the system as it is (primarily transactional), rather than make changes and shape the future (more transformational)” (Palmer et al., 2008).
Physicians are supposed to know everything, to bear ultimate legal responsibility, and to never make a mistake.
As a result, it’s not unexpected that doctors have a strong need to be able to predict and control their surroundings.
Nurse as a Leader
“Leadership in nursing is a goal, ambition, and expectation for all professional nurses in any kind of practice,” according to Dirschel (Dirschel & Klainberg, 2010; p.4).
All styles of nursing leadership must, in the end, result in good patient care and results.
The nurse leader has specialized leadership tasks and expectations in addition to standard nursing obligations.
“The nurse leader is the visionary and catalyst who gives power to nursing practice and creates an atmosphere in which nursing innovation and ideas can grow,” Dirschel believed.
Furthermore, the nurse leader should set an example by attempting to establish the greatest possible atmosphere for nurses to succeed, as well as communicating the importance of a caring workplace where patients come first.
“The nursing leader also energises the dynamics of the other personnel groups, as well as the vision, mission, structure, and resources of the broader institution,” Dirschel later acknowledged.
The nurse leader’s activities enable professionals from various healthcare disciplines to collaborate more effectively in support of the institution’s overarching goal and vision.
According to some experts, nurses have a transformative leadership style and frequently strive to build “a pleasant, safe, and supportive corporate culture and work climate.”
(Source: Souba, 2011).
Others say that nurses have a servant-like leadership style.
It’s crucial to remember, however, that no profession can be categorized as a specific type of leadership style; each person is unique in their own manner.
Regardless of the style these professionals exhibit, it is more vital for them to educate themselves about different leadership styles and participate in self-reflection on how they may grow and improve as leaders.
Discussion: Professional Communication & Leadership In Healthcare
As a leader, the hospital administrator
A hospital administrator can be expected to be exceedingly power-hungry, status-hungry, and so on.
A hospital administrator’s leadership development must begin early in life.
To become a hospital administrator, a person usually has to work their way up the corporate ladder.
As a hospital administrator, this career path could eventually be rooted in the servant leadership ideology: the desire to give back or contribute in an effort to serve others.
Longest identified several key department manager roles, including: • “Achieve internal agreement on the department’s purposes and priorities; • Build support for the department’s priorities among internal and external stakeholders; • Strike a workable balance between the economic, professional, and social interests of all those involved in the department; and • Negotiate effective relationships inside the organization that houses the department and, perhaps, with other departments.”
(Longest et al., 1997)
Discussion: Professional Communication & Leadership In Healthcare
Longest believes that the key to effective leadership in any hospital department is ensuring that staff are aware of and understand the organization’s vision and purpose, and that they are able to collaborate to guarantee that the vision and mission are communicated and implemented.
Hospital administrators must be able to communicate effectively with people from all walks of life.
These leaders must communicate in such a way that others are inspired and motivated to achieve in their jobs so that the organization as a whole benefits.
Most significantly, hospital administrators must be aware of their own capabilities.
They are better able to grasp their own individual strengths and shortcomings as a result of their own self-conceptualization.
Administrators will be able to play to their strengths while striving to improve organizational effectiveness if they succeed at this task.
Discussion: Professional Communication & Leadership In Healthcare
Conclusion
So, what kind of leadership style is optimal for each of these professions?
The answer isn’t that straightforward.
The beholder is always the judge of beauty.
Each person has their own personal “toolbox.”
Each person has an own personality, life experiences, opinions, and attitudes.
Leadership isn’t a one-size-fits-all formula.
The bottom line is that individuals must become more aware of diverse leadership styles and more attentive and reflective of their own communicative and leadership behaviors.
Individuals are able to effect positive transformation via knowledge and contemplation.