You recently accepted the nurse manager position of a busy emergency department (ED) in a new organization that had 100,000 ED visits last year. These visits represent a 10% increase over the previous year. To meet the needs for staffing required for this sudden growth, the prior nurse manager hired 10 new nursing graduates and 10 nurse travelers that arrived on the unit a few weeks before you came. The breakdown in level of tenure and experience in your staff is: 25% highly tenured in this ED and experienced in this specialty; 25% tenured within the organization and proficient in this specialty; and 30% less than 2 years in the ED/organization and competent in this specialty. The remaining 20% of your staff are the experienced ED nurse travelers and inexperienced new nurses, both groups that are new to the organization.
One of your first new responsibilities as the ED nurse manager is to provide unit-based leadership for the implementation of a new patient tracking system that offers more functionality than the previous tracking system used by this ED for the past 7 years. During the hiring process, you learned that the organization was going to implement this new patient tracking system, and you shared that you had experience in implementing the same system in your previous job. Leadership to Enable Staff Achievement Essay
To prepare:
Review the Resources.
Search the Walden Library or other reputable academic/professional sources on the Internet and locate a peer-reviewed article related to situational leadership.
Consider your own leadership style from the Clifton Strengths Signature Theme Report in relation to the needs of the staff in the scenario.
Assignment (5 pages – not including title page and reference page):
Write a paper in which you demonstrate how you, as the leader in the case example provided, would address the following:
Explain how you would provide leadership for the implementation of the new system. Include a description of the leadership behaviors that would be most effective to position your staff for success based on their experience and needs.
Explain how this implementation plan relates to your Clifton Strengths Signature Theme Report, including how this leadership situation aligns with or differs from your leadership profile.
Explain your rationale for your choices and appropriately reference literature that supports your thinking.
Explain how being able to successfully implement situational leadership better positions you to advocate for social change within your new organization on behalf of the patient population served.
5 Clifton Strengths Signature Theme to include:
Responsibility
EXECUTING
People who are especially talented in the Responsibility theme take psychological ownership of what they say they will do. They are committed to stable values such as honesty and loyalty.
Maximizer
INFLUENCING
People who are especially talented in the Maximizer theme focus on strengths as a way to stimulate personal and group excellence. They seek to transform something strong into something superb.
Relator
RELATIONSHIP BUILDING
People who are especially talented in the Relator theme enjoy close relationships with others. They find deep satisfaction in working hard with friends to achieve a goal. Leadership to Enable Staff Achievement Essay
Significance
INFLUENCING
People who are especially talented in the Significance theme want to be very important in the eyes of others. They are independent and want to be recognized.
Adaptability
RELATIONSHIP BUILDING
People who are especially talented in the Adaptability theme prefer to \”go with the flow.\” They tend to be \”now\” people who take things as they come and discover the future one day at a time.
Leadership to Enable Staff Achievement
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Introduction
Change management is very important during the implementation of new systems. Successful implementation of new systems requires preparing users, reducing resistance towards the system, and influencing users and staff members to accept and support the implementation of the system (Rangachari, 2018). The role of the leader is very important during the management of the change. Effective and competent leadership is necessary to effectively manage the situation. This assignment involves a scenario where an ED nurse manager is required to provide leadership during the implementation of a new patient tracking system. accordingly, the essay will discuss the leadership process during the implementation of the new system.
Transformational leadership traits will be used to articulate a vision for the implementation of the new system, provide a model for change implementation, and foster acceptance of the new system while providing individualized support (Asif et al., 2019). This will instill trust in the staff and therefore they will be motivated to support and work hard towards successful implementation of the new system.
Implementing the new system will require a team effort from all the involved departments. Therefore, it will be important to identify all the departments that will be affected by the new patient tracking system and create a structure that identifies several group leaders and their responsibilities from each department. According to Rosen et al (2018) during the implementation of new systems, teamwork is very important. In addition, the relevant staff will be involved in the whole cycle of implementing the new system in order to create a sense of ownership and ensure staff support throughout the implementation. This is likely to reduce resistance from the staff. There is a need to work strategically to overcome any resistance to the new system and ensure effective implementation process by ensuring user involvement.
The leader will also act as the project champion whereby the leader will strongly influence the change process. In this regard, the leader will apply transformational leadership style by inspiring, motivating and influencing the adoption of the new system (Sfantou et al., 2017). Applying transformational leadership style while acting as a champion of the new system will eliminate any political obstacles within the organization, reinforce the new implementation, and demonstrate to the staff the significance of the patient tracking system to the organization. As a result, this will ensure successful adoption of the change in the organization. Leadership to Enable Staff Achievement Essay
Effective communication at all organizational levels will be ensured throughout the system’s implementation. Effective communication is an important leadership skill. Therefore, communication channels will be kept open and ongoing among the management and the staff as well throughout the system’s implementation. This will foster understanding of the system’s vision. According to Sartoti et al., (2018) extensive understanding of the change by the end-users ensures that users have the ability and are more willing to support and use the new system. Finally, all the staff members will undergo training on how to use the system. Training will be ongoing and readily available in order to promote the acceptance and use of the new system within the organization.
The implementation plan comparatively relates to the Clifton Strengths Signature Theme Report. For example, during the implementation of the new system, I will use transformational leadership styles to influence the staff members to support, accept, and adopt the change. Similarly, the Clifton Strengths Signature Theme Report indicated that being maximizer is my strength and thus I tend to influence people by stimulating growth and excellence while focusing on transformation. The Clifton Strengths Signature Theme Report also indicated that relator I am a relator and therefore I focus on building relationships in order to achieve the set goals. Similarly, the implementation plan indicates that throughout the implementation of the new system, teamwork and involvement of all staff members and open communication will be prioritized. Accordingly, building relationships will be an important strength throughout the system’s implementation as it will promote acceptance of the change and also reduce resistance towards the new system.
The leadership situation clearly aligns with my leadership profile. For example, my leadership profile indicates that significance and recognition by others are very important to me. Leaders talented in the Significance theme tend to be very influencing because they want to be recognized. Similarly, during the implementation of the new system, idealized influence an important element of transformational leadership will be used. Through idealized influence, the leader will behave in an admirable manner in order to appeal to the staff members on an emotional level. A clear set of values for the new system will be set and in turn, the leader will act as a role model for the followers throughout the system’s implementation. Moreover, Clifton Strengths Signature Theme Report further indicated adaptability as a strength and the strength is manifested through relationship building. Relationship building with the staff members and all stakeholders involved will be prioritized in order to reduce resistance and promote support among the staff towards the implementation of the new system. Leadership to Enable Staff Achievement Essay
Successful implementation of the new patient tracking system will allow healthcare providers to monitor the progress of patients in the healthcare organization throughout care provision and during the entire hospital stay (Mishra et al., 2018). In addition, the patient tracking system is a component of the information system and therefore can interact with the electronic health records for patients. Therefore, the new tracking system will not only allow monitoring of patients but will also improve care provision. The successful implementation of the new tracking system is therefore expected to be beneficial in various ways. First, the new system will accelerate bed turn over in the healthcare organization and this will facilitate the efficient admission of more patients within the hospital (Mishra et al., 2018). This is because after patient discharge, the tracking tag will be removed and the housekeeping will be automatically notified to prepare the patient room for the next patients, without having to wait for manual notification. This will further reduce waiting time for patients at the triage, who may need to be admitted to the hospital and begin treatment. Moreover, this will also improve patient flow within the organization. More importantly, the new patient tracking system will ensure the prompt location of patients who might wander away from the hospital room and also allow the tracking of missing patients (Mishra et al., 2018).
The above-mentioned benefits of the new patient tracking system clearly indicate that its successful implementation will position the leader as an advocate for social change in the new organization. Patient advocate involves being the representative of the patient while defending their rights and protecting their interests. It also involves contributing to decisions that support the rights and interests of patients (Davoodvand et al., 2016). Successful implementation of the new system will, therefore, support the rights and interests of patients by ensuring the safety of patients for the patients who might wander and go missing. In addition, it will also promote better patient inflow and reduce waiting time for patients.
Conclusion
Implementation of the new system will be guided by the transformational leadership style in order to motivate and inspire staff members to support and adopt the system. the leader will act as the system’s champion by strongly influencing the change process using the transformational leadership style. Team effort will be ensured in order to facilitate support of the new system by all involved stakeholders. Communication channels will be kept open and ongoing among the management and the staff as well throughout the system’s implementation. Moreover, the staff members will be trained about the new system to equip them with the appropriate skills to use the system and further facilitate efficient implementation. The implementation plan comparatively relates to the Clifton Strengths Signature Theme Report and also the leadership situation clearly aligns with my leadership profile. The successful implementation of the new system will allow healthcare providers to monitor the progress of patients, among other benefits; therefore, successful implementation positions the leader as the advocate for social change and advocate in the organization.
Reference
Gallup.com. (n.d.). CliftonStrengths Assessment. Retrieved November 27, 2019, from https://www.gallupstrengthscenter.com/
Roussel, L., Thomas, P. L., & Harris, J. L. (2020). Management and leadership for nurse administrators (8th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Leadership to Enable Staff Achievement Essay