Leadership Roles in Nursing

Nursing in itself is always rapidly changing. We should always be preparing ourselves for change. Administration has a very big impact on how positive or negative the impact affects nursing. When health care facilities have a lot of changes in leadership roles, it causes a great amount of stress on the nursing team, family, and patients.

Rapid Changes Affecting Leadership
Nursing in itself is always rapidly changing. We should always be preparing ourselves for change. Administration has a very big impact on how positive or negative the impact affects nursing. When health care facilities have a lot of changes in leadership roles, it causes a great amount of stress on the nursing team, family, and patients. Our facilities are currently attempting to have an interim administrator run more than one building. These administrators are expected to take 3-4 buildings on and go between them. So this means that our administrator will spend a few days in our building and a few in the other buildings. He may no be in our building for a week or so. The biggest problem is when there is a major issue, like a state visit or something that may keep him away for a long period. During his absence the director of nursing is usually the acting admin or one in charge. Our staff is in total chaos due to the lack of leadership and the uncertainty of knowing when our administrator will return. A lot of problems have to stay unresolved for long periods of time while waiting for the return of the administrator. The staff does not have a lot of respect for each other or any authority figure while waiting for our facility to get visits from the administrator.

Unfortunately, the patients and families are feeling this stress and impact of change as well as staff. When family members or residents request to see the administrator get very upset when they are told that we are not sure when he will back in the building or we make excuses for him not being available. Who do they feel comfortable expressing their concerns to or having solved their issues? The administrator is supposed to be available for all situations and concerns. This really raises a lot of feelings of families and the patients feeling they would not like to stay in our facility and start looking for another place for their loved ones.

All staff and physicians are very distraught over all of these issues and feelings like their hands are tied and that their abilities are limited. Without a leader to keep the staff and everyone else under control and supervision, chaos begins. Leaders are very critical to the success of the facility and its achievements. When staff is left behind to try to make it on their own with out the resources to continue, the whole system begins to deteriorate. "Leaders are responsible through their visions creativity, ability to facilitate change and ability to manage and survive chaos." (Grossman & Valiga, 2005 p. 144). Nurses as leaders need to be able to use their knowledge and skills and handle these situations without so much intense stress and chaos. Without a full time administrator the director of nursing and the unit mangers and other department heads need to take more matters into their own hands and stop relying on just one person for all their guidance. The main leadership role arising here is expecting more people to be leaders within an organization and having more people making key decisions and allowing a lot more autonomy. Also improving the connections between colleagues will also help with the changes that this staff is faced with.

References

Gwyther, L.P., George, L.K (1986). Caregiver Well-Being: A Multidimensional Examination of Family.

Donelan, K., et al. (2002). Challenged To Care: Informal Caregivers in a Changing Health System. Health Affairs

Health & Health Care 2010: The Forecast, The Challenge