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Abstract
The phenomenon of organizational culture and leadership has continued to be a predominant topic in
healthcare and in businesses. Leadership and organizational culture is the driving force behind the
success or failure of an organization. This paper will examine leadership in a health care facility. The
paper will then present the relationship between leadership and structure, and culture of this
organization.
Introduction
Nursing literature has not fully covered the constructs of leadership and organizational culture as
compared to other field like in business. The available materials major on the role of leadership
especially of the chief nurse executive with little attention to nurse mangers and nursing leadership.
Every effective organization has leaders who demonstrate transformational behaviors of leadership.
The nursing managers have the role of creating and implementing a vision to be accomplished by the
staff members. They are in charge of empowering the staff members with a vision which will bring
positive changes to the health care organization through inside side and outside interaction.
complex and constantly changing system of health care. Such changes include change of technology
into more sophisticated ones, nursing shortage, time and cost constrained work environment,
challenge of achieving the desired patient outcomes and increased patients patient acuity (Mathena,
2002, p 136-142.).The role of leaders is to impalement strategies related to achieving the goal of the
health care system even with the limited resources. The roles of leaders in a health care organization
motivate staff members to go beyond self interest for the general good of the organization. The staff
members have to be molded into unit based and clinical leaders by the leaders. They also have to
elevate the staff performance (Ohman, 2000; Robbins & Davidhizar, 2007, p 46-54.).Despite that
challenges that organizational leaders face they have to develop strategies that will ensure there is high
quality of services the health center provides to the patients through cost effective patient care.
Therefore customer’s satisfaction should always be the ultimate goal of the leaders. The leaders have
the responsibility of utilizing transformational leadership styles that will assist the leading team to
address the challenges faced in the organization as it aims at achieving its goals (Tourangeau &
Leaders should ensure nursing job satisfaction, retention and healthy work environment. The nursing
unit should high levels of mission traits and adaptability. The leaders on the other hand have frequently
utilized leadership behaviors that will shape the culture of the nursing unit. This is through adaptive and
innovative measures of nursing care. This is with the aim of maintaining and achieving organizational
effectiveness in the systems of health care delivery. Leaders who practice transformational leadership
style enable the staff members to have a clear understanding of what is expected of them and the
external forces that affect their practice in nursing. The key role of organizational leaders is to inspire,
motivate, and individually consider that the challenges faced by the staff members. The leaders solve
problems faced by the nurses at an individual or organizational level. This will allow staff members to
have the spirit of self actualization in order to achieve their individual potential for the success of the
organization. Positive skills practiced by the leaders allow the nursing staff members to achieve extra
ordinary goals, through enabling and encouraging them to function beyond their self interest. This is
despite the various turbulent health dynamic changes experienced in health care provision systems.
The culture of an organization controls the performance of an organization and how effective it
will be (Denison, Haaland, & Goelzer, 2003). Leaders in a health care system play a major role in
determining how success the nursing unit will perform. Leadership is the pivot through which the staff
members will perform their duty of acute care in the hospital setting. The priority and strategy plan of
every health care organization is to ensure quality, patient safety, cost effective patient care, quality and
patient satisfaction. To accomplish this, the nursing unit has to be aligned with the hospital strategy
plans so as to achieve the objectives and goals of the hospital.This therefore shows that leadership and
organizational culture are two important elements in an organization that should operate as one in
influencing organizational performance. Nursing managers and leaders who have used transformational
leadership styles have witnessed positive impacts and outcomes of an organization (Robbins &
Davidhizar, 2007, p 234-239). These positive impacts include staff retention, and friendly work
environment.
An organizational structure that that encourages constructive organizational culture shows high level of
patient satisfaction while that which does not, has negative impacts to the quality of service offered at
the hospital. It also negatively affects the retention of nurses. This clearly shows that organizational
culture and leadership has an overall impact on the performance of the organization. Denison’s
Organizational Culture Model (DOCM) is a conceptual framework that describes the four traits of an
organizational culture. The characteristics of an organizational culture according to the model are
mission, adaptability, consistency and involvement (Denison, 2005; Denison et al., 2003) There is a
relationship between management style of leadership and the nursing unit organizational culture. The
way the leaders perceive the nursing unit in terms adoptability and mission will determine how an
organization will operate. Similarly, the way the nursing unit perceives the leaders in terms of
consistency and involvement also affect the performance of the organization. These are the variables in
Denison’s Organizational Culture Survey which describes the organizational culture of a health care
organization.
Conclusion
Leadership style in any organization is positively related to the organizational culture of any nursing
unit. Good skills of leadership have a positive impact on the culture of the nursing unit. Similarly,
negative leadership has a negative impact of the nursing culture. The two affect and determine how the
organization will perform. The leaders of the organization have both external and international roles to
perform in ensuring the customers are satisfied with the kind of health service offered. They have
duties to perform in ensuring the staff members are content through motivation, problem solving and
staffs retention. The governing body has to be aligned with the nursing unit in order for the health care
Reference
Denison, D.R., Janovics, J., & Young, J. (2005). Diagnosing organizational cultures: Validating a model and
http://www.denisonconsulting.com/dc/
Mathena, K.A. (2002). Nursing manager leadership skills. Journal of Nursing Administration, 32, p,136-
142.
Tourangeau, A.E., & McGilton, K. (2004). Measuring leadership practices of nurses using the leadership
Robbins, B., & Davidhizar, R. (2007). Transformational leadership in healthcare today. The Health Care