Introduction
Every organization or group of people must have a leader, who supervises everything that takes place. A leader ought to be a transformational and influential person, who can persuade other people to do the right things and accomplish common tasks. A transformational leader is an inspirational person with a passion and vision of achieving great things that benefit every member of the group. Transformation leaders are dynamic, as they are ready to embrace changes that transform organizations positively.
People will always desire to work under a transformational leader, as they will have a wonderful experience of growing and developing their careers. Since transformation leaders employ passion and rightful energy, they ensure that their followers are the greatest beneficiaries of the program that they lead. After developing a selfless vision, most people will reasonably adhere to the vision that aims at empowering them in one way or another.
Once people are convinced to adopt the new vision, the transformational leader finds it easy to lead the change as they can motivate their followers. Nursing leaders have experienced various insights about transformational leadership. In many cases, nursing leaders have encountered challenges in their effort to inspire others to deliver their best in their workplace (Butts & Rich, 2013).
Declining reimbursement, inadequate staffing, regulatory requirements, and complex technological advancements are some of the challenges that nursing leaders encounter in their bid to become transformational leaders. Hence, this paper gives a critical analysis of transformational leadership as reflected in the nursing field.
Literature review
In the contemporary world, reforms are common everywhere, and more especially in the health care system. Technological development and the changes in the healthcare service and practice are infinite. Therefore, every healthcare facility aims to deliver the best services that satisfy their clients, as well as the employees. Although people expect so much from the nurses and other healthcare providers, leaders play very crucial roles in ensuring that everything runs smoothly in the healthcare facilities (Porter-O’Grady & Malloch, 2010).
In many cases, the leaders take the blame whenever their respective organizations perform poorly or whenever they fail to achieve a set target. Therefore, the leaders of healthcare facilities are obligated to have the ability to influence others to deliver their best. Essentially, there is a correlation between the leadership style and the general output of any healthcare facility. The rapid change of technology and requirements in the health care system obligates leaders to adhere to transformational leadership. Facilities that have practiced transformational leadership styles have often excelled in their practices.
Transformational leadership has four components:
- intellectual motivation,
- ideal power,
- inspirational drive, and
- selflessness.
Intellectual motivation is a trait that enables leaders to change the norm of the organization without creating tension. They encourage employees to employ creativity in everything that they do and support team participation whenever the organization is formulating decisions (Clavelle, Drenkard, Tullai-McGuinness, & Fitzpatrick, 2012). The selfless trait of transformational leadership enables leaders to attend to the individual needs of staff members.
Transformational leaders support the development of a climate, which offers the staff members an opportunity to grow professionally. Moreover, transformational leaders offer inspiration that motivates staff members through enthusiasm. The ideal power enables followers to develop an admiration and respect for their leaders. Whether in healthcare or non-healthcare setting, inspirational leaders ought to employ the wittiest approach in ensuring that people are satisfied with their leadership styles.
Whenever leaders portray their ideal power in inspiring people to undertake a certain path, they portray their transformational leadership trait. The most important thing in transformational leadership is the ability to lead impartially, as all regulations should portray fairness to all the involved people (Perry, 2014). Transformation leaders display charisma, and thus, people always respect and trust them.
Transformational leadership has a direct relationship with job satisfaction amongst the employees (Thompson, 2012). Whenever leaders engage the staff members in the process of developing a common mission, employees have the opportunity to air their views. They develop goals to achieve within a specific timeline, and in such a case, all employees are accountable if the organization fails to attain the mission.
Although some nursing leaders have tried to employ transformational leadership traits in their practices, it is evident that some leaders show low levels of transformational leadership. Some leaders attribute their low scores to the organizational cultures, while others blame the political and socio-economic environments in which their organizations operate. It is noteworthy that some organizational cultures find it absurd to respect low-ranked healthcare providers such as nurses (Tinkham, 2013). Therefore, nurses are overworked, under-represented in leadership, and oppressed in their daily practices.
Transformational Leadership
Leadership framework
Leaders have a very difficult role in ensuring that they impose a positive change that will inspire others to deliver their best. These leaders ought to be great planners, great organizers, and highly dynamic people, who can evaluate the performance of the organization and determine if their approaches to doing things meet the goals in the original plans.
Transformational leaders are always ready to embrace change in case there is a need. Such leaders can cope with various challenges that may arise and motivate people to endure diverse challenges. Transformational leadership requires leaders to set examples and insist on goals that bring positive changes to the organization. The exemplary leaders become models, and willing followers are inspired to perform highly to develop their leadership skills.
Transformation leadership encourages leaders to involve others in assessing the work environment and identifying areas that need change. The leadership style aims at aspiring and motivating others to work hard to attain predetermined levels. In many cases, a transformational leader will engage others while developing the goals to attain within a certain period.
Whenever staff members propose a change, they carry on the burden of ensuring that they attain the proposed change that is beneficial to the entire hospital fraternity. Most importantly, transformational leaders lead by example and they become models that the other healthcare providers aspire to imitate. Therefore, transformational leadership encourages the development of behaviors that have superior outcomes for the patients and the healthcare providers.
Job satisfaction is impartial in any workplace in which leaders anticipate achieving higher outcomes. Transformation leadership builds a comfortable work environment, where employers have the freedom to negotiate matters with their supervisors. In cases where employees suffer in silence because of dictatorship from their leaders, their performance levels are somewhat retarded. Such employees will only work under maximum supervision, as they care less about the outcome of their actions.
Transformation leadership encourages managers to respect their employees, regardless of their ranks in the organization. The provision of small incentives would be a great way to recognize employees for their job well done. Essentially, the leadership style in any organization will determine the overall job satisfaction in any workplace (Leigh, 2014).
In many cases, nurses have shown some moderate job satisfaction levels in their roles. The nurses feel as if other healthcare providers fail to recognize and commend their hard work in the healthcare environment. The negative insights about the nursing role discourage the male students from pursuing a course in nursing. The female nurses with a medium-level monthly salary work as nurses because of the limited options that they have.
It is high time that the transformational leaders recognized the oppression that the helpless nurses are experiencing in their daily practices. Transformational leaders can influence the doctors and other highly ranked medical professionals to recognize the nursing role, which is highly important in any healthcare facility. They can influence other healthcare providers to learn to praise the nurses whenever they do commendable jobs, as that would raise their morale.
If leaders restated the supervisory and hospital policy regarding the nurses, the hospital administrators and the nurse managers would work towards creating a favorable work environment that would offer high job satisfaction levels for all the healthcare providers.
Employee retention
For an organization to be successful, it has to have the capability to retain its employees, as long as they are within the working-age bracket. However, only a satisfied employee can manage to remain in the same workplace for a long period (Gardner, 2010). Many nurses often complain of work stresses in the workplace. Some employees feel as if their employers do not compensate them adequately for their hard work and the prolonged working hours.
Healthcare facilities that oppress employees are likely to experience high turnover rates after several years of operation. The displeased employees do not hesitate to leave their places of work for other employers, which offer better terms as compared to the current employment terms. Transformational leadership ensures that the employees have the best working conditions to retain as many employees as possible.
Organizational commitment and inspired visions
Whenever possible, healthcare providers ought to have a special commitment towards the success of an organization. However, the power to influence healthcare providers to gain a special commitment towards the success of the organization lies in the hands of transformational leaders. Transformational leaders have an obligation of ensuring that they influence employees to have shared visions that work towards their advantage in the organization.
The leaders inspire their followers to identify the importance of their duties in enhancing the organization to success. In the case of a healthcare facility, for example, transformational leaders encourage the nurses to deliver their duties most responsively, as the nursing role is highly important in the health care system.
The role of caring for patients and monitoring their progress is as important as the role of treating them. Transformational leaders will encourage doctors to cooperate with the nurses to produce the optimum outcomes. The cooperation will motivate the healthcare providers and enhance their personal and professional growth (Wang, Chontawan, & Nantsupawat, 2012). The overwhelmed nurses feel a sense of self-worth, and their levels of job satisfaction levels increase considerably.
Workforce competencies
In any workplace, managers ought to delegate duties to their subordinates. They assign duties to subordinates according to their skills, competence levels, and experience. Poor delegation of skills leads to staffing problems and dissatisfactions in the workplace. Transformational leadership obligates the leaders to assign duties with strong consideration of the economic and patient demographic factors.
It is upon the leaders to identify the need for training, depending on the performance of the employees in the duties assigned. Leaders should have the rightful knowledge of the training, that employees require for them to attain a certain level of competence. Transformational leaders will always challenge the budget planners to address pertinent issues in the workplace. Training needs, staffing needs, and needs to plan for motivational programs influence the workforce competencies.
While the budgeting committee only struggles to address the financial needs of the organization, transformational leaders always emphasize the needs of the employees. Understaffing is a common occurrence in the nursing field, and it is upon the transformational leader to alert the budgeting committee that there is a need to recruit additional nurses (Sandström, Borglin, Nilsson, & Willman, 2011). Transformational leadership can indeed improve workforce competencies if employed rightfully.
Improved performance
It is evident that satisfied employees tend to deliver their best in everything in their duties. When leaders employ transformational leadership skills to delegate tasks successfully, they cultivate trust and a sense of satisfaction. Lowly ranked employees feel a sense of appreciation if managers are aware of their training requirements. They would strive to deliver the best if managers recognize their efforts in one way or another.
Transformational leaders would even set aside part of their time to assist their subordinates with a view of experiencing the problems that they encounter in their daily chores. Moreover, such sessions would play a greater role in strengthening the relationship between managers and subordinates, and in enabling the subordinates to learn new things. The leaders can also assess the workers and identify their weak areas that need some training during the interactive sessions.
Transformational leaders will provide workers with an opportunity to contribute through open forums. The entire exercise proves that transformational leaders can control the psyche of the employees. Motivated employees always deliver their best and enhance the general performance of the organization.
The Leadership Challenge
As much as nurse leaders ought to display their transformational leadership traits, various obstacles hinder their practices (Castledine, 2011). The declining reimbursement in most workplaces and inadequate staffing are some of the challenges that leaders encounter in their daily operations. In some cases, it becomes difficult for the leaders to address such matters, as they ought to involve many stakeholders. However, failure to address the matters would mean that they are not portraying the transformational leadership trait.
The second challenge that leaders encounter is the complex technology that evolves from one time to another. In some cases, leaders find it challenging to ensure that all subordinates are informed about the newest technology. Essentially, the world evolves fast such that before healthcare providers have enough experience to use new technology, another enhanced technology is already in the market. Leaders encounter the challenge of keeping abreast with new technology in the market and maintaining a competitive advantage.
The enormous urgent issues associated with transformational leadership do not give the leaders adequate time to evaluate their leadership styles. Occasionally, some leaders reach a point of confusion, as they do not know exactly what contributed to their failures or successes.
Conquering the Challenges
The ability to conquer challenges that arise in the course of working differentiates the capability of various leaders. Transformational leaders do not blame technology for their failures, but instead, they keep abreast with the trends of the contemporary world. They embrace the newest technology and search for opportunities that the technology opens for the organizations that they lead (Luzinski, 2012).
Transformational leaders have a unique way of dealing with the staffing and reimbursement requirement that proves to be a challenge in most cases. Shrewd leaders find the necessary tools to measure the workload of every worker to ensure there is equality. In healthcare facilities, transformational leaders find ways to measure the needs of a task, required time for completion, and the skills required to accomplish a certain task. With the limited human resources, the leaders determine the required nurse-to-patient ratio and delegate duties without prejudice (Schwartz, Spencer, Wilson, & Wood, 2011).
Moreover, transformational leaders ensure that the staffing and reimbursement budget is a continuous process that is open for negotiations. Nurses, who feel overwhelmed while delivering their duties, have a chance to air their views and request additional staff. Transformational leaders can even drop the ineffective functional nursing care and adopt an appropriate approach of modular care.
Conclusion
As evident from the discussions, people expect so much from transformational leaders. The entire scenario makes transformational leadership complex, and hence, makes people shy away from undertaking the challenging role in the field of nursing. However, transformation leaders always work towards overcoming diverse challenges.
Competent leaders embrace the components of transformational leadership, as the components provide them with an opportunity to share roles with the other employees. The leaders can model the way, inspire people to focus on a shared vision, and motivate employees to work towards attaining a set vision. The daily deeds of transformational leaders encourage employees. Leaders from various organizations are encouraged to embrace transformational leadership, as it is the only sure way of enhancing job satisfaction and productivity among employees.
References
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