Poor Healthcare Leadership
The study will concern itself with "the impact of poor leadership in the healthcare industry on workers' morale and patient care."
Bad leadership has many negative consequences. In addition to being unable to offer followers a clear direction, an ineffective leader is prone to issuing inconsistent instructions that in most cases end up confusing the recipients. The end result in such a case is poor execution of tasks. It is also important to note that those with poor leadership skills and abilities fail to give direction that could see members of their team improve for fear of loosing their jobs to the said team members once they gain the necessary competence. In this project, I will explore the impact of bad leadership most particularly in the healthcare industry. In particular, I will explore the effect poor leadership has on the morale of workers and consequently, patient care. In addition to helping identify the characteristics of poor leaders, a study of this nature will also be of great significance in the identification of the impact of poor leadership on not only the morale of workers but also on patient care. Findings in this case will help in the formulation of solutions to help minimize the impact poor leadership in the healthcare setting has on workers' morale. Depending on the relationship between poor leadership and the morale of workers, findings in this case could also help in the formulation of policies that could further enhance the delivery of quality patient care.
Context of the Problem
A few weeks ago, I was on the phone with a friend of mine (lets call her Sharon) who works for a well-known healthcare institution in New York and given her usual jovial self, I could tell that she was not in high spirits on this particular Sunday evening. Upon inquiring on whether everything was fine, she declared that she was rather withdrawn because it was almost Monday. Apparently, her immediate supervisor at the hospital...
Indeed, during the previous week, Sharon and the said supervisor had clashed over what Sharon termed "outright discrimination in the assignment of tasks." It is for this and other several other reasons that Sharon was not so enthusiastic about reporting to work on Monday.
In the words of McConnell (2007), "poor morale has been cited as the worst human resources problem in the hospital industry." Does leadership play any role in the enhancement or suppression of employee morale? Does staff morale have any impact on the delivery of quality patient care? Cunningham and Kittson are convinced that leadership, staff morale, and patient care are all interrelated in some way. In their own words, Cunningham and Kittson (as cited in McCormack and McCance, 2011) point out that there is a common acceptance "that in healthcare there is a
correlation between the quality of patient care, staff morale and effective nursing leadership." Others who are in agreement that these variables are in some way interrelated include but they are not limited to Herb Kelleher, Milton Moskowitz, and Robert Levering. Herb is the former CEO of
Southwest Airlines while both Milton and Robert are well-known authors. In one of their many articles on leadership, Milton and Robert point out that leadership does determine how enthusiastic
employees are about the tasks they perform (Manning and Curtis, 2003). One of the employees they
quote in this case points out that he loves going to work because the top leadership of the company he works for treats employees well and empowers them to come up with creative ideas for various problems (Manning and Curtis, 2003). As Manning and Curtis (2003) further point out, the
success of Southern Western airline can largely be attributed to the ability of Kelleher to enhance employee morale by amongst other things ensuring that employees believed in both themselves and the company.
It is however important to note that in the opinion of Spiers (2003), other causes of low employee morale do exist. Indeed, Spiers seems to introduce another twist in the relationship between low employee morale and poor leadership by pointing out that employees…
