Leadership style and organizational effectiveness

Nursing Leadership Styles

Analysis of Leadership Styles:

Assessment of RN Unit Manager Performance

The RN Unit Manager of the department I'm a member of blends autocratic and democratic styles, seeking to clearly define roles and tasks while also frequently working to get the entire department to take ownership of tasks. In evaluating her performance over the last few weeks, there have been more incidences of democratic leadership.

Analysis and Assessment of RN Unit Manager Performance

Empirical studies of nursing managers who see themselves as democratic leaders indicate that they are most influenced by their colleagues (82.4%), family (70.3%) and the opportunity to be a mentor to others (89%) (Sanders, Davidson, Price, 1996). This is the case with the RN Unit Manager who leads our team, as there is more of a focus on collaboration and open communication within and between department members, and she also makes a point of including other departments in meetings and information sharing sessions as well. She is also more focused on setting challenging goals and objectives, often rewarding those of our department who attain them with recognition and even financial rewards for exceptional performance.

In terms of leadership style, she is much more collaborative than the other RN Unit Managers in that she actively asks for insights and opinions from RNs who are most involved in a new procedure or process. Participative management styles are pervasive in nursing managers who have democratic leadership styles, as they tend to view influence as being more egalitarian in nature, not as hierarchical as authoritarian managers do (Lung, Braithwaite, 1992). This approach to leadership gives her the flexibility of providing recommendations and suggestions and gaining greater credibility over time. I have noticed however that subordinates take advantage of this approach to managing at times, ignoring suggestions for improvement.

Which Characteristics I Will Integrate Into My Own Leadership Style

The RN Unit Manager is exceptional in her command of situations and she has a strong sense of how best to approach each to get the highest performance possible from the team. In this regard, she has demonstrated superior emotional intelligence (EI), a key component of democratic and transformational leadership (Sanders, Davidson, Price, 1996). She also is compassionate and helps the nurses who need more guidance to understand advanced procedures and how to get tasks accomplished. In this regard she shows transformational leadership skills (Lung, Braithwaite, 1992). All of these qualities I plan on emulating. The qualities I don't plan on emulating include her tendency to give nurses too much latitude in the quality of their performance over time; she needs to force greater accountability over performance for these nurses to improve. While she is a great leader, at times it appears she is too flexible, not demanding high enough performance for nurses to improve.