Nursing Leadership: Bringing caring back to the profession - Research Paper Example

The best way to address this delicate issue is by adopting a new and better nursing leadership. Transformational nursing leadership is a new system whereby a leader—possessing all other qualities of a motivator, time manager, dispute resolver, educator and supervisor—will harness all the good potentials of the nurses under him or her to produce an improved quality required by the modern nursing practice (Huber, 2006). Unlike transactional leadership, a transformational leader will combine both dictatorial and democratic methods to achieve the unique purpose of changing or transforming both the 2 organizational culture and the attitudes of the nurses in a particular clinic or hospital (Huber, 2006).

Empirical Evidence Concerning Malpractices in the Nursing Profession Below are some empirical evidences or legal cases that demonstrate that there are some influencing factors that affect the nursing practice which require operationalized leadership strategies. A patient that was involved in a motorcycle accident was discharged based on the negligence on the nurse’s part to identify pus in his injured leg. The patient later came back with his leg injury that almost led to his amputation (State of West Virginia, 2001).

A nurse’s efficiency may be deterred by the clinic’s or hospital’s cost-cutting policy (Gordon, 2006). A nurse undermined ethical consideration by not advising the patient to change physicians due to absolute loyalty when the appointed physician failed to communicate smoothly on the case (Holland & Hart Healthcare Law, 2005). A patient fell during ambulating—an occasion that could be regarded as a medical malpractice (Nurse Friendly, 2009). 3 A nurse may be barred from doing everything necessary to take care of a patient if the hospital’s policies hinder such a move in order to save costs and increase profitability (Masters, 2009).

Specific Examples of Proposed Leadership Strategies It is clear from the empirical evidences provided above that the major issue that comes up in each of the case study is the problem of leadership. In a transformational leadership environment, many of the medical or ethical problems highlighted above would have been eliminated. Hence, below are some strategies required to bring about some transformational leadership in any nursing practice. (i) Design and implementation of new working environment:-It is imperative that a new and improved working environment be established at the clinics or hospitals for productive cooperation between nurses and the physicians as shown in some of the empirical evidences above.

Through this newly designed system, it will be possible to smoothen the line of communication between the nurses and the physicians, and also between the nurses and their patients (Marshall & Coughlin, 2010). The caring for patients would come first. (ii) Modification of Work Ethics:- The main job of a transformational leader is to change the way things are done previously and establish a better way of carrying out nursing duties in a clinic or hospital. Transforming nursing work ethics 4 involving changing the nurses’ attitudes from negative to positive (Marshall & Cough