Leadership Style for Healthcare Educators

Introduction

The governance and supervision of medical practitioners are crucial in advancing the quality and integration of health services. Leadership is the connection between the employees and employers or people who lead and those who decide to follow (Barr & Dowding, 2019). Leading is the act of directing and coordinating the endeavors of a team towards a collective objective. Efficient management is one of the essential elements that guide institutions to effective and successful performance. Failure in governance in any given organization results in inefficiency in work execution and productivity. Various scholars have established numerous associations between suitable leadership styles and increased rates of client contentment, staff productivity, and decline in adverse effects (Rinfret et al., 2020; Sfantou et al., 2017; Rahbi et al., 2017). The health care sector needs strategic quality management because it deals with human life, and mistakes can be catastrophic. This paper documents how healthcare educators utilize transformational leadership.

Transformational Leadership

This model was pioneered in 1978 by James MacGregor Burns. He argued that two or more persons engage with others in ways that the leader and their groups elevate each other to greater heights of inspiration and standards (Krepia et al., 2018). It is an administrative framework that encourages personnel to take control of their assigned duties and perform exceptionally. Thus this type of management teaches staff how to think critically instead of waiting to be told what to do (Krepia et al., 2018). Managers in this category are motivating and inspiring employees to innovate better methods of accomplishing work objectives. The executives can group employees into teams, encourage them, and create excellent rapport. Administrators here generate an atmosphere where staff has a more outstanding commitment to their enterprises and increased morale, job fulfillment, and work performance (Buchbinder et al., 2019). Medical facilities that employ transformational leadership will experience personnel satisfaction, which reduces the number of patient care inaccuracies.

Moreover, this leadership is one of the most preferred in improving, maintaining, and advancing healthcare services quality. Past researchers have tested this phenomenon and indicated its significance in medical care. Fischer (2017) argued that a teamwork culture that is one of the critical components of transformational management is essential in nurturing nurse students and new practitioners. Rinfret et al. (2020) stated that transformational leadership results in high emotional intelligence among employers and results in more excellent workers’ commitment, motivation, lower stress, and exhaustion. Transformational leadership styles are appropriate for health care educators for various reasons, as discussed below.

Integrity and Emotional Intelligence

Transformational healthcare educators must have high integrity and emotional intelligence. The leaders should equally model and teach the two stated aspects to their juniors and the teams they manage. The two features are important in delivering quality care and ensuring a healthy relationship between the employer and the employees (Krepia et al., 2018). Integrity is the act of honesty, fairness, and high moral standards. When practitioners are faced with difficulties and dilemmas, uprightness is what will set them apart. Patients expect their clinicians to treat them right and be on their best behavior all the time.

On the other hand, emotional intelligence is one’s ability to handle his/her emotions and other people’s feelings. Thus, this also means a person recognizes and is aware of his/her feelings and understands how those moods impact relationships with others. Working in hospitals can be emotionally draining, and clinicians need to know how to control themselves, not vent out their feelings to patients. Transformational administration provides’s opportunity for medical educators to practice and teach integrity and emotional intelligence. Instructors can also implement institutional therapy where the staff takes care of their psychological burdens.

Reduction of Patient Readmission

The transformational regime aims at providing the uttermost quality healthcare and reducing procedural errors. Healthcare educators in this category ensure that medical workers and other support staff are trained to execute their duties excellently. Equipping workers with knowledge guarantees quality patients care, client satisfaction, and the best services (Fischer, 2017). The above-stated factor results in fewer readmissions since patients receive appropriate medication and education on managing their conditions. Transformational management also ensures that clinicians monitor patients to assess whether services delivered helped their clients. Follow-ups ensure that patients take medicines as prescribes, and this reduces readmissions.

Employee Innovativeness

Transformational leadership encourages employee creativity and innovativeness and provides them with an opportunity to nurture and grow their talents. Health educators with the mentioned executive skills support workers who have new ideas and provide financial aid where necessary. Innovations are crucial for any industry and indicate growth in knowledge and experience. Firms that have and support personnel resourcefulness have a competitive advantage over their counterparts (Buchbinder et al., 2019). Individuals get fulfillment when their bosses support their talents and inventiveness and, in turn, strive to perform better on their duties.

Communication of New Ideas and Information

The world is dynamic, and every sector experiences change daily. The healthcare sector is diverse and faced with many changes in the development of diseases, viruses, pandemics that catch the world unaware, and medics are expected to respond positively and perform at their best. For instance, the Covid-19 pandemic is holding the globe at ransom, and it has threatened even the world’s largest health care sectors and economies. Transformational leadership skills equip health care educators with the ability to continuously provide workers with information (Barr & Dowding, 2019). Communication is critical when an institution is handling a new phenomenon, just like the novel coronavirus. Coordination of all the staff and resources is essential, ensuring each unit performs excellently to better the institution.

Employee Retention

Retaining employees is one of the main features of transformational management. Healthcare educators with this kind of governorship abilities will ensure that their staff is equipped with the right skills and information to handle their positions. The instructors will organize seminars, workshops, and employee supervision programs to instill knowledge among their followers (Barr & Dowding, 2019). The above-mentioned kind of supervisors will ensure that their practitioners are up to date with the information that might influence their work. Some organizations would even strive to provide study scholarships and leaves for their personnel. Keeping productive staff saves the company resources and time of hiring new employees. The leadership that does maintain employees also get value for their capital used in training workers.

Conclusion

The study has established that leadership in health care is an essential aspect that needs to be exceptional to evade errors that can impact diverse patients. Transformational executive style is one of the commonly applied approaches in providing eminence services. The paper has revealed that the model mentioned earlier is appropriate for health educators because it warrants integrity and emotional intelligence, reduces patient readmission, employee innovativeness, communication of new ideas and information, and employee retention. Administrators that apply the transformational approach in their firms are more likely to have more remarkable outcomes than their competitors, as has been proven by researchers documented in this work.

References

Barr, J., & Dowding, L. (2019). Leadership in health care. Sage.

Buchbinder, S. B., Shanks, N. H., & Kite, B. J. (2019). Introduction to health care management. Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Fischer, S. A. (2017). Transformational leadership in nursing education: Making the case. Nursing Science Quarterly, 30(2), 124-128. Web.

Krepia, V., Katsaragakis, S., Kaitelidou, D., & Prezerakos, P. (2018). Transformational leadership and its evolution in nursing. Progress in Health Sciences. Web.

Rahbi, D. A., Khalid, K., & Khan, M. (2017). The effects of leadership styles on team motivation. Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 16(3). Web.

Rinfret, N., Laplante, J., Lagacé, M. C., Deschamps, C., & Privé, C. (2020). Impacts of leadership styles in health and social services: A case from Quebec exploring relationships between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership. International Journal of Healthcare Management, 13(1), 329-339. Web.

Sfantou, D. F., Laliotis, A., Patelarou, A. E., Sifaki-Pistolla, D., Matalliotakis, M., & Patelarou, E. (2017). Importance of leadership style towards the quality of care measures in healthcare settings: A systematic review. Healthcare, 5(4), p. 73. Web.