Leadership and Nursing Care Management
Question a
Nurse Brown seems to exhibit transformational leadership style most of the time. Transformational leadership style focuses on creating valuable and positive change in employees to transform them into leaders (Huber, 2014). Nurse Lucille Brown, a manager for a 26-bed critical care unit for a teaching hospital located in New York, is very people and relationship-oriented. The manager promotes teamwork by encouraging group decision making and always provides necessary resources to the team. Nurse Brown also ensures that all the employees have a duty in the unit and contributes to decision making. If the transformation leadership style is used effectively, it improves employees’ morale and performance, just like the case of Nurse Brown.
Question b
Transformational leadership style can be useful in motivating employees and even in uplifting their morale. However, this leadership style is not applicable in all situations. The managers may not motivate employees who view their leaders as their equals because in many cases, the employees rely on their opinions and views to make essential decisions in the firm. Transformational leadership also encourage leaders to coach and mentor only selected group of employees. This way, employees can acquire leadership skills. However, these opportunities are given to a small group of people. It may be problematic because not all the needs of the team members are met. Transformational leadership has many advantages, and it has worked in many companies. However, it also has disadvantages that managers should consider.
Question c
I prefer my boss to use a democratic leadership style. Democratic leadership style encourages leaders to make decisions based on the input every team member (Huber, 2014). It is an effective leadership style because it enables lower-level employees to exercise the authority they will need in the future positions they will hold. Democratic leadership style prepares all employees in an organization for future leadership positions.