Leadership in Healthcare: Transformational and Caring Leadership Theory

Leadership in Healthcare
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Leadership in Healthcare
Nurse leaders have a responsibility as change agents in their organizations. According to Wagner (2018), nurse leaders fulfill this role by guiding and directing organizational change and acting as role models for their followers. They must effectively support change in healthcare organizations by influencing the actions of their followers. As such, they require effective leadership styles, strengths, and strategies to facilitate change, especially because employees are often uncomfortable with change and likely to resist. This paper discusses the leadership styles, strengths, and strategies that Sarah can employ to enhance employee morale and facilitate the positive transition of her nursing staff to another unit. Two key leadership theories that can help her and her team transition smoothly are transformational leadership theory and caring leadership theory.
Transformational Leadership Theory
This theory focuses on merging the goals of the organizations with those of individual employees. The purpose of transformational leadership is to ensure that employees are committed to the vision and mission of the organization (Gopee, 2022). This is particularly important when the organization is going through changes because employees can remain focused on the vision. They are inspired and motivated to promote successful change in the organization. The New Horizon Community Hospital's goal is to downsize and improve employee retention at the telemetry unit. Transformational leadership can ensure that Sarah's team is on board with the hospital's plan because both the organization's and the employee's goals are aligned.
Leadership Style
Sarah must adopt the transformational leadership style. Leaders who utilize this style focus on inspiring and motivating their followers by influencing their attitudes, behavior, values, and beliefs to pursue what is important for the organization (Giddens, 2018). To achieve this, the leader must engage in idealized influence, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation, and individual consideration. Each of these concepts allows the leader to build their followers' confidence, encourage followers to view old challenges with newness, share a clear organizational vision, and focus on the individual needs of followers. The core strengths of transformational leadership that will help Sarah navigate the current challenges in her unit include the ability to inspire and instill confidence in her staff. Also, transformational leaders can communicate appealingly and persuasively (Gopee, 2022), which is why they are able to convince their followers to align their goals with those of the organization.
In addition, transformational leadership is empowering. It not only empowers followers through teamwork and collaboration but also through recognition and celebrating accomplishments (Fitzpatrick & Alfes, 2023). Sarah can empower her followers by appreciating small milestones, recognizing them for exemplary work, and celebrating any achievements the followers make as a team. These aspects of transformational leadership are associated with improve...