Good managers and leaders - Essay Example

Health and social care for leadership and management Introduction Definition of Leadership and Management Management and leadership are distinct entities with overlapping functions. According to Gopee & Galloway (2013), management refers to activities and competencies of a manager. They further define a manager as the person is appointed to plan, coordinate, organise, negotiate, supervise, evaluate, and integrate health and social care with the use of resources available to them. Management makes things happen. In health and social care, management ensures effective delivery of the services required by the community. The manager is the backbone of management. Armstrong (2013) defines leadership as the ability to persuade other people to act in a way that will result to greater good. A leader influences people and gets them to do their best to achieve the desired results. This study investigates the role played by the NHS and presents NHS as a good example of a transformational leader in the health and social care. This paper also aims at discussing the National Health Service (NHS) as the manager of health and social care in the United Kingdom. NHS oversees various management aspects such as ensuring high-quality care, management of change and innovation, management of resources, supporting strategies for care professionals, and management of learning in health and social care among others. Literature Review An extensive review of the literature on management and leadership of health and social care confirms that effective leadership and management is essential for health and social care provision. Both the management and leadership ensure higher quality, consistent safety, and streamlined efficiency. Effective leadership is essential for driving health and social care delivery. The care manager needs to have the ability to exercise the leadership skills that required in their job role for effective and efficient management of care. The health and social care provision success or failure depends upon the leaders. All care professionals are considered to play an important part in leading in some certain aspects of care. The National Health Services UK The UK National Health Services was established in 1948 in the aftermath of the Second World War. During this time, healthcare was a luxury, and not everyone could afford it. However, it was based on the principles that everyone was eligible for care. Since then, NHS has undergone a lot of changes and transformations. The National Health Service delivers healthcare to a total population of over 62 million people in the United Kingdom. According to Gopee & Galloway (2013), NHS’s total expenditure amounted to £106 billion out of the total public expenditure of approximately £700 billion for the UK. Therefore, the total expenditure on healthcare accounts for 16 percent of the total annual expenditure for the United Kingdom. NHS plays a key role in providing leadership in the health and social care in the United Kingdom. For the efficient provision of heath and social care, health care resources which include human resource have to be managed well. The requirements for health and social care leadership and management are laid down in the NHS Constitution. In the past few decades, many changes have been witnessed in both health and social care services, and in the people and professions that staff them. One of the key factors in the current structures within the health and social care environment relates directly to the transfer of powers. Health and social care organisations have undergone a significant change over the years. The factor that influenced these changes include social, economic, political, and technological developments. NHS places special emphasis on the potential for leaders to be present at all levels within an organisation. This form of leadership is termed transformational leadership. There have been several changes in government policies over the years that have led to an increasing commitment to this type of leadership. This type of leadership has strengths NHS and facilitates the successful provision of health and social care. With the service user becoming recognised as the expert in their condition and taking a more proactive role in managing their care, it has become increasingly important that health and social care leadership and management be present at all levels of an organisation. NHS appears to have a distributed type of leadership (Jones & Bennett, 2014). The NHS has established a leadership quality framework that sets the standard for outstanding leadership. According to Blaber (2014), NHS Leadership Quality Framework comprises three clusters that help in identifying 15 leadership qualities. This framework uses a 360-degree feedback tool to encourage participants to analyse their leadership qualities critically. The transformational type of NHS leadership motivates and energises health and social care staff to pursue mutual goals, share a vision, and create an empowering culture. Transformational Leadership Leadership has received increasing attention from both the policymakers and academics. According to Martin & Learmonth (2012), leadership is a key component of organisational success. The National Health Service in the United Kingdom is a good example of organisations that practice transformational leadership. The transformational approach to leadership challenges the autocratic unilateral leadership style of former years (Blaber, 2014). In their study, Hewison & Morrell (2014) examined the current approach to leadership development in the UK NHS and considered its implications for nursing. Their objective was to stimulate a debate about the nature of leadership development in health and social care environments. The authors concluded that good leadership is central to the provision of high-quality nursing care. Their study focused on leadership development of nurses and other health care staff. Currently, NHS was found to be fostering the growth of leadership development programmes funded on competency-based approaches. Hewison & Morrell (2014) found out that there has been a recurring theme in UK health policy in recent years. NHS has been found to be engaging in a series of initiatives designed to engage clinicians more directly in the management of the NHS. One of the latest NHS policy developments is the NHS Leadership Academy, which is aimed developing outstanding leadership that can help in improving people’s health and their experiences in NHS (NHS Leadership Academy, 2013). Hewison & Morrell (2014) suggested that NHS leadership is complex and that one cannot adequately convey this complexity unless he accesses alternative accounts. In order to deliver quality services in health and social care, there is a need for first class leaders at all levels of service. There is a need for transformational leadership in health and social care (Hewison & Morrell, 2014). According to the results of this exploratory study, transformational leadership can improve staff well-being and influence the retention of nursing staff. However, this type of leadership has been criticised. Hutchinson & Jackson question the validity of this type of leadership and have advanced an argument that it places too much emphasis on charisma and heroic leadership (Hutchinson & Jackson, 2013). These authors have also argued that it neglects the avoidant leader behaviour. In addition, it does not give sufficient attention to the importance of gender and culture. In their defence of this type of leadership, especially in the NHS, Hewison & Morrell (2014) extended this debate beyond the confines of the competency episteme. They suggested that emotional intelligent leaders bring a positive impact on staff, patient, and organisational outcomes. An emotional intelligent leader can motivate his followers and communicate effectively. Reforms from traditional to transformational leadership in NHS Martin & Learmonth (2012) interviewed 16 NHS hospital chief executives to investigate how NHS chief executives make sense of their professional world. The authors’ analytical focus was on administration, management, and leadership. The study found out that there have been striking changes in the representation of organisational roles in the NHS for decades. The interviewees did not draw a strong distinction between management and leadership. Some policy documents were found to pluralise the notion of leadership. The wider reforms in the NHS were found to give the frontline staff greater control regarding how they should offer health services in the replacement of the traditional top-down management approach. This evidence shows that there is a wider distribution of leadership in NHS. The NHS Improvement Plan provided more flexible roles to health and social care staff. For example, it gave nurses a leading role in improving the experience of patient both in the healthcare facilities and the community (Martin & Learmonth, 2012). This study concluded that the distributed type of leadership and management in the NHS is important because it will engage all the stakeholders in pushing reforms to achieve certain desirable ends. These desirable ends include “modernisation of health care, increased performance, and quality health and social care” (p. 286). The distributed type of leadership mitigates the tension between the policy visions of a decentralised NHS. In decentralised leadership and management, the frontline practitioners are empowered, and the empirical reality of an effective health and social care remains. The purpose served by leadership and management is to attempt to align the subjectivities of these peripheral agents with policy intentions. Even if the NHS is still centrally controlled, it never relies on the acquiescence of those beyond the centre for the achievement of policy aims (Martin & Learmonth, 2012). In conclusion, Martin & Learmonth (2012) suggest that the gap between everyday organisational realities and the pronouncements of policymakers has to narrow down. Otherwise, leadership may become a focus for dissent and resistance. In another exploratory study, Martin & Learmonth (2012) examined the rise of leadership and its significance in relation to the UK health service. The authors observe that leadership has been conferred to both the people who are in power as well as those on frontline clinicians, patients, and even the public. However, this study observes that such distribution of power is a contradiction of the picture drawn by academic works. The study findings suggest that leadership is important in health care because it aligns the subjectivities of health-service stakeholders with policy goals hence making their implementations everyone’s responsibility, as well as sense of self. Criticism of NHS Type of Leadership In another study, Maile & Blake (2013) proposed several lessons that the NHS can learn from the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games. These Games were widely regarded as one of the organisational successes in the history of the United Kingdom. According to Maile & Balke (2013), the Great Britain’s Olympic team worked together and developed a positive team culture based on shared values. The authors observe that NHS lacks a positive team culture that is based on shared values. The study establishes how the team, coaches, and leaders set their goals around fifteen values that aligned everyone’s effort. Their principles focused on five areas; “responsibility, unity, pride, respect, and passion towards performance” (p. 45). The leaders of the team ensured that these were grounded in the every day, making them accessible and comprehensible. Maile & Balke (2013) observe that, in health and social care, positive and supportive staff delivers high-quality health and social care to their patients. These authors feel that NHS largely lacks a positive culture and a positive leadership. In conclusion, this study suggested that NHS should foster sharing of knowledge and ideas between the managers and other staff such as the one in the London 2012 Olympic Games. In order to lead and manage health and social care effectively, it is important to invest in leadership development. Maura, Chang, Havaei & Chou (2014) observe that healthcare organisations have a rigid structure with hierarchial chains of command. The siloed role socialisation that separates health and social care disciplines from one another in training and practice further reinforces these commands. Collaboration in Transformational Leadership In their study, MacPhee, Chang, Lee & Spiri, (2013) place special emphasis on leadership development in health and social care. Leadership development makes the executive level shift the pervasive culture to a new collaborative way of thinking. The drivers of this collaboration are leaders and the managers of health and social care, and it ensures that the patients receive high-quality care (Maura, Chang, Havaei & Chou, 2014). In addition, there is need to develop collaboration between the unit managers and their staff (White, Jackson, Besner, & Norris, 2013). Conclusion The NHS Leadership Framework has shown that leadership and management are only needed in healthcare if it focuses on shared responsibility in offering the care. Leadership, especially in health and social care is not restricted to those who hold management positions. In summary, it is apparent that transformational leadership encourages both the leader and the follower to have the same purpose, and they raise one another to higher levels of performance. The NHS Leadership Framework has been used to show that transformational leadership involves all staff regardless of their profession or role. It also seems to make every staff a leader and a manager of his/her area of specialisation. References Armstrong, M. 2012. Armstrong's Handbook of Management and Leadership: Developing Effective People Skills for Better Leadership and Management. London: Kogan Page Publishers Blaber, A. (2014). Foundations for Paramedic Practice: A Theoretical Perspective. London: McGraw-Hill Education. Gopee, N. & Galloway, J. (2013). Leadership and Management in Healthcare. London: SAGE. Hewison, A. & Morrell, K. (2013). Leadership Development in the English National Health Service: A counter Narrative to Inform Policy. International Journal of Nursing Studies. Vol. 51(4), pp. 677-688. Hutchinson, M. & Jackson, D. (2013). Transformational leadership in nursing: towards a more critical interpretation. Nurs. Inq., Vol. 20 (11), pp. 11–22. Jones, L. & Bennett, C. (2014).Leadership in Health and Social Care: An Introduction for Emerging Leaders. London: Royal College of General Practitioners. MacPhee, M., Chang, L., Lee, D. & Spiri, W. (2013). Global Health Care Leadership Development: Trends to Consider. Journal of Healthcare Leadership. Vol. 5, pp. 21-29. Martin, G. & Learmonth, M. (2012). A Critical Account of the Rise and Spread of Leadership: The Case of UK Healthcare. Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 74, pp. 281-288. Maile, E. & Blake, A. (2013). Lessons from 2012: What the NHS Can Learn from Britain’s Olympic Success. Annals of Medicine and Surgery, Vol. 2(2), pp. 44-46. Maura, M., Chang, L., Havaei, F. & Chou, W. (2014). A Descriptive Account of an Inter-Professional Collaborative Leadership Project. Adm. Science. Vol. 4(3), pp. 373-399. NHS Leadership Academy (2013). We want to Develop Outstanding Leadership in Health. Retrieved from http://www.nhsgraduates.co.uk/about-the-nhs/nhs-leadership-academy.aspx White, D., Jackson, K., Besner, J. & Norris, J. (2013). The Examination of Nursing Work Through a Role Accountability Framework. Journal of Nursing Management. doi: 10.1111/jonm.12186. Read More