Introduction
Nursing is an integral part of the healthcare system, and the nursing staff is currently the largest category of health workers. The role, functions, and organizational forms of activities of the nursing unit – nurses are extensive.
In modern conditions, it is worth highlighting such features of nurses as the provision of primary health care and the prevention of diseases; hygiene education for the population; reduction in the length of hospital stay of patients; expanding home care; increase in the number of rehabilitation measures; the formation of departments with different intensities of treatment and care; palliative care, etc. The need for these types of activities is extremely high, especially at present, due to the deterioration of the health status of the population. Nursing also includes planning and assisting during illness and ensuring recovery from illness.
Nursing
Nursing provides targeted care for a person to treat him, alleviate suffering, and promote health. The essence is to help individuals, families, or groups to identify, achieve and develop their physical, mental, and social potential and maintain it at the appropriate level in the conditions in which they live and work. World practice shows that with the rational use of professional personnel, the quality of medical care is significantly improved, its accessibility and cost-effectiveness are increased, and resources in healthcare are effectively used. Studies conducted in different countries reveal the universal nature of nursing care and emphasize the uniformity of needs for it (Ortiz, 2015).
In nursing, diversity of activity, focus on an individual patient are inherent. Increasing the level of education of nurses creates real opportunities for observing the necessary medical technologies, ensuring guarantees of the quality of treatment, diagnosis, and care, accumulating and using knowledge about the needs of patients in nursing care.
Leadership
The human community, its nature, is closely connected with the process of organizing any group of people, its structuring, and the formation of its inherent institutions of power. The historically existing organized human groups differentiated into such components as the dominant minority and subordinate majority. This principle of differentiation, perhaps, was the basis for the development of the institution of domination in society. In its development, human civilization acquired various forms of intra-social domination. Power became the necessary organizing principle of social life, and it organized people, structured, and generated many types and styles of hierarchies (Ortiz, 2015).
Moreover, various aspects of human existence contributed to the development of a variety of types of power itself – economic, political, cultural, religious – and numerous methods and styles of influence. Power in society was carried out through its personification, in particular, thanks to the formation of the institution of leadership. In the context of power relations, administration implied a prolonged, rather than the sporadic, exercise of power, usually associated with the personality characteristics of a leader subject.
The image of a leader was the most attractive and visible object for imitation, criticism, reflection, and later for scientific research in various historical periods. The vast majority of researchers both before and now believe that leadership arose at the dawn of human civilization. This is an eternal, universal, and inevitable phenomenon of human existence, a general historical phenomenon. Leadership has been the subject of philosophical reflection and reasoning for many centuries, continuing to excite researchers so far. Philosophers talked about the importance of leadership in society, proposed the parameters of leadership actions, and created models of ideal leadership types.
It is very conditional and enlarged that several nursing leadership styles can be distinguished, that is, the method of behavior that the leader uses to influence the thoughts, feelings, motives, and actions of subordinates.
The nursing leader’s behavior is determined by two major indicators: the degree of directivity in leadership and the support that the leader provides to subordinates. The degree of directiveness shows how stringent measures the manager uses in determining and explaining the assignment and monitoring its implementation. The directive style involves providing subordinates with detailed instructions, and nursing leaders whose behavior is not rigid, do not give their subordinates specific instructions regarding the methods and means of completing the assignment, encourage the initiative of employees (Clarke & Berkland, 2019).
The second indicator characterizes the leader’s accessibility, his or her willingness to help subordinates. The degree of interaction between the leader and assistants in the process of completing a task depends on the psychological and emotional support from the nursing leader. This support should be targeted, since, for example, employees with a high level of motivation practically do not need psychological help. A good, experienced leader should be able to create a team from subordinates with the distribution of role functions within it.
Nurse Leaders
Studying the overall history of nursing shows highly impactful nurse leaders, such as Florence Nightingale. She is one of the very first individuals who proposed “Environmental Theory”, which focuses on the fact that optimizing the surrounding environment of a patient helps him or her to recover (Goh, Ang, & Della, 2018). Another example of a nurse leader is Ida Jean Orlando, who proposed the notion of reciprocity of communication.
When a patient and nurse exchange information, they both should be highly reciprocal in order to eliminate miscommunication occurrences. Currently, nurses, paramedics, obstetricians need modern knowledge in the field of philosophy and theory of nursing, pedagogy, psychology, and requirements for ensuring a safe hospital environment in a medical institution (Clarke & Berkland, 2019). They must skillfully perform manipulations in strict accordance with modern standards. In order to carry out the nursing process, a nurse must have theoretical foundations, practical skills, and be able to use patient care items.
Betty Neuman is an outstanding example of a nurse leader because she came up with a theory of needs. The given conceptual framework mainly focuses on that a person’s needs are vital factors assisting his or her recovery. She proposed that stress reduction and needs satisfaction play a significant role in adjusting one’s stability and balance. The successful development of any sphere of human activity is unthinkable in a modern society without management, that is, a systematic process of using resources to achieve specific goals (Ortiz, 2015). The art of management consists, first of all, in the ability to effectively organize staff activities.
Faye Abdellah is a nurse leader responsible for the shift of paradigm in the nursing profession from the disease-centered approach to a patient-centered one. The current state of nursing prioritizes a patient’s needs and wishes over strict disease treatment procedures (Goh et al., 2018). Professionalism in the activities of nurses – heads of all levels of the management hierarchy, starting from the older sister of the hospital department and the foremost specialist in nursing in healthcare, is the key to success not only in the work of nursing services but also in the entire health care system as a whole.
Conclusion
In conclusion, for the effectiveness of the management of nursing staff, a sufficient development of leadership qualities, organizational and communicative tendencies is necessary. The results showed that the optimal management style is formed in nurses of the middle age group with an extraverted personality type, a high level of education or qualification category, and experience in managerial work.
References
Clarke, P. N., & Berkland, D. (2019). Paradoxes in healthcare leadership: Being-nonbeing. Nursing Science Quarterly, 32(2), 116-119.
Goh, A. M. J., Ang, S. Y., & Della, P. R. (2018). Leadership style of nurse managers as perceived by registered nurses: A cross-sectional survey. Proceedings of Singapore Healthcare, 27(3), 205-210.
Ortiz, M. R. (2015). Developing leaders from “seeming opposites.” Nursing Science Quarterly, 28(4), 325-325.