Introduction
A culture of excellence is particularly important in healthcare settings as it enables patients to receive the highest level of care. A clear mission, vision, and values in the leadership of an organization are essential to achieving a culture of excellence (Lasrado & Kassem, 2021). Motivating employees and their well-coordinated work directly depends on how management communicates key values, mission, and vision (Zhang & Yang, 2021). This paper explores a culture of excellence, examines the importance of mission, vision, and values, uses the Mayo Clinic as an example, and defines leadership strategies most consistent with a culture of excellence.
Culture of Excellence
A culture of excellence is aligning organizational activities to achieve the organization’s desired results, in which motivated employees work collaboratively and effectively. According to Pathiranage et al. (2020), a clear and convincing organizational vision, competently communicated to employees, is necessary to achieve a culture of excellence. In a culture of excellence, all employees need to feel, know, and understand why the organization exists (Pathiranage et al., 2020). A culture of excellence is about teamwork and effective collaboration to achieve a common goal.
A company that maintains a culture of excellence communicates in practice the importance of the goals and mission of the organization through educational activities. Such organizations aim to help and support employees by identifying and addressing their needs (Pathiranage et al., 2020). These companies realize their social responsibility and give back to the community through charity, helping citizens, or raising awareness (Pathiranage et al., 2020). In nursing, a culture of excellence is especially important because it allows for the organization of well-coordinated work to benefit patients and society (Stavropoulou et al., 2022). The importance of a culture of excellence is justified by the special responsibility of the nursing profession to maintain general well-being.
Mission, Vision, Values
The Mayo Clinic, a non-profit hospital system in Minnesota, was taken to examine the relationship between mission, vision, and values. According to the Mayo Clinic’s website, the organization’s mission is to inspire hope and promote health through clinical practice, education, and research (About Us). The organization’s vision is to transform medicine to create a global authority in treating complex diseases (About us). The paramount value of the organization is: “The needs of the patient come first” (About us). The important values mentioned are respect, integrity, compassion, healing, innovation, teamwork, excellence, and stewardship (About us). The example of the Mayo Clinic makes it clear that mission, vision, and values are interconnected.
Since the mission is to promote hope, the vision reflects the transformation of medicine to meet the status of a hope giver. The values also reflect the mission of health promotion through adhering to an innovative, committed, and team approach to medical research and patient care. As the organization’s vision focuses on addressing complex disease cases, all of the above values become fundamental to helping any patient in any case (About us). The paramount value called patient needs is reinforced by the mission of health promotion and the vision of transforming medicine into the most authoritative resource based on evidence of effectiveness.
Mayo Clinic’s mission, vision, and values help the organization live up to its culture of excellence. This non-profit organization is dedicated to helping people and the community through health promotion (About Us). Teamwork is most encouraged to achieve excellence in treatment approaches (About us). The values of the organization are clear and understandable. They are familiar to employees and potential patients. An articulated mission, vision, and values are essential to achieving a culture of excellence, as they provide employees with a sense of the organization’s global purpose (Zhang & Yang, 2021). Through the transformation of medicine, Mayo Clinic gives people hope even in the most difficult cases, thereby contributing to the well-being of society.
Leading a Culture of Excellence
Leadership strategies that promote a culture of excellence in nursing are transformational and servant leadership. Transformational leadership involves stimulating the followers to change; in this model, the leader becomes an object of inspiration (Collins et al., 2020). Servant leadership implies a controversial approach in which the leader gives full attention to the personal growth of followers and the well-being of the common mission (Mahon, 2021). Transformational leadership aims to instigate change for teamwork and shared outcomes, consistent with a culture of excellence. Servant leadership aims to achieve maximum benefit for patients and employees, which correlates with a culture of excellence.
Transformational and servant leadership correlates with Chamberlain’s Care Model. The Chamberlain Model aims to help students succeed in nursing through early assessments, coaching teams, individual workshops, and live review sessions (Chamberlain Care). Servant leadership is similar to this approach in that the concern is to promote personal growth. Transformational leadership is consistent with the Chamberlain Model since it emphasizes motivation for achieving high results.
Conclusion
A culture of excellence is important in well-coordinated work aimed at achieving high results for the sake of a common goal. Transformational and servant leadership approaches most fully support a culture of excellence. With its mission, vision, and values, the Mayo Clinic fully reflects a culture of excellence. Health promotion, healthcare transformation, and putting the patient’s needs first contribute to the community. Learning about a culture of excellence has given me a new understanding of what values to strive for to obtain the most effective results in the organization of nursing practice. My future nursing leadership practice will be based on encouraging collaboration, motivating colleagues, and putting the patient’s needs first to achieve the best treatment outcomes.
References
About us. (n.d.). Mayo Clinic Value Statements. Web.
Chamberlain Care. (n.d.). Chamberlain University. Web.
Collins, E., Owen, P., Digan, J., & Dunn, F. (2020). Applying transformational leadership in nursing practice. Nursing Standard, 35(5), 59-66. Web.
Lasrado, F., & Kassem, R. (2021). Let’s get everyone involved! The effects of transformational leadership and organizational culture on organizational excellence. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 38(1), 169-194. Web.
Mahon, D. (2021). Trauma-informed servant leadership in health and social care settings. Mental Health and Social Inclusion, 25(3), 306-320. Web.
Pathiranage, Y. L., Jayatilake, L. V., & Abeysekera, R. (2020). A literature review on organizational culture towards corporate performance. International journal of management, accounting and economics, 7(9), 522-544. Web.
Stavropoulou, A., Rovithis, M., Kelesi, M., Vasilopoulos, G., Sigala, E., Papageorgiou, D., & Koukouli, S. (2022). What quality of care means? Exploring clinical nurses’ perceptions on the concept of quality care: A qualitative study. Clinics and Practice, 12(4), 468-481. Web.
Zhang, Y., & Yang, F. (2021). How and when spiritual leadership enhances employee innovative behavior. Personnel Review, 50(2), 596-609. Web.