Leadership in Professional Nursing
Introduction
Every day, a set team of nurses and nursing managers set out to ensure the health and well-being of their patients. To achieve this goal, a nurse manager must adhere to a specific style of nursing leadership. There are many different styles of leadership in the healthcare field. Bass and Barnes (1985) stated that the two most common are transformational and transactional (as cited in Frankel, 2008, p.24). This paper will define leadership, the two different styles, how each are executed, as well as pros and cons of each.
Review of Professional Nursing Literature
Stogdill (1950) defines leadership as the process of influencing the activities of an organized group in its efforts
23). Based on this, the employees’ attraction is geared towards a more selfish transaction, rather than the common good of the group. Many employees find themselves working past this type of hierarchy to acquire the exchange they are seeking.
Application of Clinical Example Mark, the nurse manager of a fifty-two bed intensive care unit, was attending a budget meeting with the nurse managers from other departments, as well as other various administrators. Right now, many hospitals all over the nation are being forced to make budget cuts because of the economic recession the country is suffering from, and Mark’s hospital is no exception. In the meeting, in order to save money, the CEO forbids all of the managers to allow any overtime. Mark knows that times arise when his nurses simply are not able to clock out on time, but he must enforce the rules passed down to him. Mark quietly accepts the decision made by administration without any contest. Over the next couple of days, Mark holds several staff meetings to inform his employees that no overtime will be permitted and that anyone who either clocks in early or clocks out late must end their next shift early to adjust their time. Subsequently, any employee who has accumulated overtime at the end of the pay period will be suspended. The nurses of the ICU respond less than favorably, arguing that clocking out early from a shift would not only