As a nurse manager at a Certified Home Health Agency, the most important leadership competencies for my area of concentration include leadership, such as team management, and education, such as ethical principles. A report suggests that “decision making, relationship management, communication skills, listening, leadership, conflict management, ethical principles, collaboration, and team management skills were seen as the core competencies for nurse managers” (González García et al., 2020, p. 7). In other words, there are several critical competencies needed for a nurse manager, but the essential ones revolve around ensuring that nurses properly collaborate and adhere to the protocols of care provision. For example, nursing professionals require to operate as a team rather than as individuals because patients need quality care. The common resources must be shared and distributed appropriately in order to ensure fair care for patients.
Leadership competencies play a vital role in the decision-making process since they directly dictate what aspects of management are of higher priority over others. A person with leadership competencies in the domain of business aspects of healthcare might focus more on financial management, human resource management, and clinical practice knowledge. However, an individual with competencies in communication and human aspects might value decisions related to enhancing diversity, shared decision making, and worker satisfaction. It is stated that “business intelligence is a process of analyzing and displaying data in a way that helps leaders make better decisions” (Morse & Warshawsky, 2021, p. 68). In other words, such competence is dependent on being able to focus and prioritize specific interests by taking into consideration a wide range of factors.
A leadership theory that addresses the competencies is transformational leadership because it focuses on transforming and developing the followers through better communication and support. Since team management and ethical management are the most important nurse leader competencies, transformational leadership can be identified as highly relevant. In the case of ethical principles, transformational leadership “places a strong emphasis on the needs, morals and values of followers” (Jambawo, 2018, p. 999). Thus, ethical elements are not abandoned within the given framework because ethics and tightly connected to morals and values. The first and most important instrument of managerial influence on human resources is motivation, or the formation of a motivational spirit in the team. Motivation helps the leader to explain, convince and prove to employees the need for changes in the organization.
When it comes to team management, “transformational leadership indirectly influences objective team performance through the mediation role of team cohesion and that this indirect effect is more prominent when the level of previous performance is higher” (Mach et al., 2021, p. 662). Therefore, transformational leadership can have a positive effect on team management, which translates to better teamwork and performance. Transformational leadership is adopted in those organizations that operate in dynamic environments. Employees of such an organization are constant improvement of their knowledge, updating, and practical application, where the transformational leader supports the process of interactivity and corporatism in the organization. The efforts of a transformational leader are aimed at identifying the potential of employees, their ideas, and creative thinking, allowing them to be timely and effectively respond to changes in the market environment and make appropriate management decisions.
A fully appropriate leadership theory for my future role is transformational leadership. For example, an ethical leadership framework might have a higher degree of emphasis on ethical practice, but transformational leadership promotes similar values by focusing on teamwork and employee support (Jambawo, 2018). In other words, transformational leadership theory is highly applicable for nurse managers because it has a balance between all key domains, such as informatics, leadership, and education (Mach et al., 2021). For instance, transaction leadership might be effective at addressing various business aspects of healthcare, but it fails to consider human elements, such as employee retention, satisfaction, and communication (Jambawo, 2018). In an environment of high professional demands, multitasking, and stressful employees, the transformational leadership model focuses on meeting the needs and problems at the individual level of each member of the group, thereby emphasizing the creation and development of emotional bonds. Thus, it should be noted that adhering to the transformational leadership theory is the most appropriate and effective form of leading in nurse management.
References
González García, A., Pinto-Carral, A., Sanz Villorejo, J., & Marqués-Sánchez, P. (2020). Nurse manager core competencies: A proposal in the Spanish health system. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(9), 1-15.
Jambawo, S. (2018). Transformational leadership and ethical leadership: Their significance in the mental healthcare system. British Journal of Nursing, 27(17), 998–1001.
Mach, M., Ferreira, A. I., & Abrantes, A. C. M. (2021). Transformational leadership and team performance in sports teams: A conditional indirect model. Applied Psychology, 71(2), 662-694.
Morse, V., & Warshawsky, N. E. (2021). Nurse leader competencies. Nursing Administration Quarterly, 45(1), 65–70.