Description
INTRODUCTION
Nurses have been at the center of major improvements in the health. However these feet could not have been achieved without effective leadership. Leadership is required on every sector such education, military and health. Effective leadership tends to blend the thoughts reflection and images as well as influencing followership to achieve a desired goal (Zydziunaite, 2022).
The health industry has witnessed several challenges over the years with an estimated increase in chronic and communicable diseases in the coming years. Despite these catastrophic situations, the health workforce, especially nurses has been very committed and up to the task. These successes can be attributed to effective leadership and management (Asamani et al., 2023).
Leadership and management are required in every sector, such as health, education, and the military. According to Adatara et al. (2023), “Leadership involves a blend of thoughts, reflections, and images, as well as having power, influence followership, amongst others. Matlakala et al. (2020) also view leadership and management as the course of influencing others so as they can cheerfully and unreservedly work towards achieving organizational goals. According to Tingvoll et al (2023), leadership and management are required at any level in an organization and mostly involves management duties. Reay et al. (2023), view leadership “as a process which entails influence and occurs within a group setting or context, and involves achieving goals that reflect a common vision”.
Effective leadership tends to blend the thoughts reflection and images as well as influencing followership to achieve a desired goal. Nursing leadership has however been confronted with major challenges despite the major achievements by the health workforce.
Nursing Management provides practical, evidence-based information for the management of healthcare delivery across the care continuum. Nursing Management places special emphasis on the challenges you face and skills you need to succeed in today’s fast-paced nursing leadership environment. An independent platform for the expression of various opinions and views, the publication targets leadership concerns, including recruitment and retention, reimbursement issues, legal considerations, regulatory compliance, and professional development.
Leadership and management are exhibited using different approaches and styles. Matlakala et al. (2022) identified some approaches to leadership namely; the trait approach, the behaviour approach, the contingency approach, and the leader-member exchange approach. The trait approached deals with personal characters (such as communication style) which enhance effective leadership. The behavioural approach emphasizes their behaviours. The contingency approach indicates that leadership should be viewed from how a leader interacts, behaves in a situation. Also, they exchange deals with how leaders and their followers interact. On the other hand, Matlakala et al. (2022) termed these approaches as leadership styles and described them as a “structure” needed for the nursing leaders.
The nursing profession has been faced with major challenges hence the need for effective nursing leadership and management (Garner et al., 2023) as they play an important role in the realization of the vision and mission of the organization. Garner et al. (2023) recommend the transformational style of leadership and management for all nursing leaders. Effective nursing leaders and mangers see to it that there are adequate staff and resources which would help attain optimal patient outcomes they also provide direction for dealing with sophisticated issues affecting nursing and create structures, implement strategies to produce desirable results.
Garner et al. (2023) stress that leadership and nursing leadership are not the same due to their highlights on nurses taking up responsibilities to get the works done in their environment. Nursing leaders are expected to have “administrative competence, adequate education, business skills, clinical expertise and an understanding of leadership principles”. Furthermore, nurse leaders and managers must actively participate in the stewardship and transformation of health delivery, its resources’ and policy to meet the desired goals of the general public.
Leadership and management in nursing come with many challenges which tend to affect the outcomes. These challenges are mostly overlooked for the outcomes; hence a better understanding of the challenges of nursing leaders and managers is important to change the narrative in the health environments and the way forward is also important, which are the scope of this seminar.
Objectives of the study
The objectives of this seminar are:
- To explain the challenges facing nursing leadership and management.
- To explain the concept of effective nursing leadership and management and their roles.
- To highlight the innovative approaches of addressing effective nursing leadership.
- To explain theories and principles for effective leadership and management relevant to nursing.
