Leadership within Healthcare Organizations
The leadership of healthcare organizations sets the course for whether the organization will survive or fail. This is a weighty responsibility, given the fact that health leaders "are challenged to lead constituents within the context of an ever-changing, highly politicized and volatile environment" (Daly, Jackson, & Nay, 2009, p. 470). The personality traits and type of leadership that healthcare leaders espouse is therefore extremely relevant to the success of healthcare organizations. Leaders that are arrogant, authoritarian, and strongly competitive make poorer healthcare leaders than those that are sociable, confident, and work well under stressful conditions, for example (Firth-Cozens & Mowbray, 2001, p. ii6). There are a variety of leadership approaches that are a good fit for healthcare leaders-transformational leadership, servant leadership, and collaborative leadership, among others. Background on leadership within healthcare will be provided, along with the strengths and weaknesses of these four models and their applicability to different types of healthcare organizations, and then an original leadership model will be proposed that is an amalgamation of several models.
Today's healthcare environment poses many challenges in terms of tight budgets, uninsured and underinsured patients, medical errors, nurse-to-nurse bullying, issues concerning diversity, and a range of political and legal problems that have plagued the industry. Leading staff means not only providing a clear and compelling vision but also equipping them to navigate the rough spots and walk the fine line between doing as they are asked and thinking outside the box. The healthcare workplace is one in which integrity is paramount, yet it is often sacrificed, and attention to detail is vital yet frequently ignored. The healthcare leader must galvanize the staff internally while addressing and...