Importance of Transformational Leadership

The success and longevity of a healthcare organization depend majorly on the leadership style they adopt.  Leadership styles adopted by these organizations vary depending on the nature of the organization and the services it offers. They exist across the board and range from the laissez-faire to transformational leadership style. Transformational leadership involves inspiring followers to commit to shared goals and vision established by a healthcare facility, develop leadership capacity via mentoring, coaching, and provision of both support and challenge, and challenging the staff members to be innovative and offer creative solutions to the problems facing the organization (Smyth and McCabe, 2017). Healthcare organizations should adopt transformational leadership because it focuses on maintaining customer’s needs at the center of concern while providing an enabling environment for the frontline staff members. This paper discusses the importance of transformational leadership.

The transformational leadership style focuses on the needs of the staff members to deliver high-quality healthcare services. They invest in the nurses and other healthcare staff, provide necessary infrastructure such as technology to deliver high quality and efficient care, compensate competitively, and carry out continuous training of the staff members to ensure that their skills are up to date. Succinctly, the quality of the services in healthcare depends on the ability of the front line staff to deliver these services (Nibbelink and Brewer, 2018). Therefore, the leadership of the organization must focus on improving its workforce to offer high-quality services.

Transformational leadership defines the differentiation between leaders and managers. Leaders are people who coach, mentor, and support their juniors. Under the transformational leadership style, there are four components – individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation, and idealized influence. Adoption of the transformational leadership style facilitates the development and growth of the organization and staff members. Transformational leadership directs leaders to pay attention to individual staff members and recognize their needs to help them grow and achieve their targets. It opens a two-way communication between the staff members and the senior-level leaders in the organization rather than a one-way exchange – manager to healthcare staff (Lee, Abdullah, Subramanian, Bachmann and Ong, 2017). Transformational leadership recognizes and emphasizes the importance of the management by working around; this improves the efficiency in the organization. Leaders create a trustful relationship with their juniors and they do not need to be physically present for a particular task to be executed, which improves the communication of the staff members and leadership of the organization.

Transformational leadership creates passion among nurses. It creates motivation and excitement among the staff members. Excitement and motivation are catchy, and when they see others having a good time and happy they want to share in the experience (‌McKibben, 2017). When the staff members see that their leader is happy, motivated, and excited about a goal or vision of the healthcare organization, they get interested as well; this leads to better results. It leads to better team spirit, fewer turnovers of both clients and staff members, and a high level of productivity in the healthcare facility. Therefore, transformational leadership fosters motivation and passion among the nurses and other healthcare staff.

Transformational leaders can spot a gap and offer a solution. They can spot and gap and problem in vision and offer innovative changes or solutions to address the issue quickly. Transformational leaders can rally all the staff members towards solving problems arising in the healthcare facility (Smyth and McCabe, 2017). They are keen on collaboration as far as problem-solving is a concern. Collaboration promotes the creativity and innovativeness of a team when solving problems. It is a powerful tool that can be used to make tough decisions.

Transformational leadership improves patient care. Lee, Abdullah, Subramanian, Bachmann, and Ong (2017) pointed out that high-quality health care services require two things: effective communication and experienced healthcare professionals. Transformational leadership focuses on improving the way the staff members and leadership of the organization communicate with each other. Improving communication helps in reducing misunderstanding and ensures consistency across all shifts in a healthcare facility; this has improved the quality of patient care in the facility. It ensures that all patient care services are well coordinated.

Transformational leadership creates higher employee satisfaction and reduce turnover. When nursing and healthcare leader empower their team to make a decision and take charge, the staff members are often inspired and motivated. They feel that they are considered and valued by the organization. These staff members will believe that their input in the organization is highly regarded and they play an integral role in the healthcare organization. They feel that they are responsible for the organization and team successes (Nibbelink and Brewer, 2018). When the staff members are trusted and management demonstrates that they are valued in the organization through transformational leadership style, their overall job satisfaction improves. A happier and satisfied employee is less likely to leave their job. Nurses who have been in the organization for a long are more efficient in the performance of their duties because they have vast experience in the position and organization. Therefore, a reduction in the turnover will allow the transformational leaders to build a team that is experienced with the mission and unique protocols and committed to the overall success of the organization.

In layman’s terms, transformational leadership is the process of influencing the organization using non-coercive and persuasive approaches and perceiving change when needed. Transformational leadership allows the engagement of all the stakeholders in the decision making and other actions that require concerted efforts such as goal-achievement and goal-setting (‌McKibben, 2017). In transformational leadership, four factors promote collaboration and engagement of the staff members in performing beyond expectations. Firstly, transformational leaders have charisma and have trust, respect, and confidence in the staff members to perform different tasks and transmit a strong sense of mission and vision. The second factor is that transformational leaders can encourage and intellectually stimulate the employee to be creative and question the status quo. They can encourage them to examine their beliefs and assumptions. The third factor is that the transformational leaders give inspiration and motivation to the staff members. These leaders can communicate the mission, vision, and what is required of the employees as well as ensure that they are optimistic and confident about the future of the healthcare facility (Nibbelink and Brewer, 2018). The fourth factor is that transformational leaders consider the individual needs of the employees and give personalized attention to their needs and feelings. They value what each employee feels. Therefore, transformational leadership creates dynamic leaders who have the potential to adapt to different situations in the organization and rally the staff members towards a particular course of action.

The practices associated with transformational leadership are learnable and observable; this helps in fostering assumptions and attitude that helps in promoting the loyalty of the employees and the vision and mission of a healthcare organization. Transformational leadership is dynamic, open-minded, committed to planning, and future-oriented (Sanner-Stiehr and Reynolds Kueny, 2017). Leaders under transformational leadership serve as role models. They motivate and encourage staff members of the organization to think beyond themselves. Leaders encourage the staff members to contribute all their efforts towards the betterment of the organization as a whole. They rally the employees towards the same course of action. These leaders provide directions to the organization towards achieving the goals and objectives of the organization.

Transformational leadership is proactive. Leaders under transformational leadership in a healthcare organization are event-makers who can transcend their interests. They can prioritize the needs of the organization and can seek higher- needs. In the mental health unit, the leadership that is provided is the product of an ongoing process – a quest for self-actualization among the leaders in the unit – rather than a one-time achievement. This has been integral in driving the transformative agenda in the organization. The leaders have been able to adopt a transformational leadership style to promote the quest of each leader for self-actualization (Krishnan, 2018, p.75). This process requires continuous self-assessment of their behaviors and style by the staff members and leaders. These assessments help the leaders to change and adjust their actions for better chances in achieving the overall objective in the organization. Leaders in an organization are defined by the transformational model that they adopt and how this model resembles those people who visualize them. It is an ethical pursuit that requires and helps in fostering a moral climate in a healthcare setting. Principled leadership encourages and models principle conduct and behavior among leaders and their followers.

Transformational leaders can inspire confidence among followers. They can share with the staff members the vision of the organization and communicate authority boundaries and levels for empowerment. Transformational leadership ensures that the resources are available to execute the task and for personal and professional fulfillment (Joseph and Huber, 2015, p.74). By utilize and cultivate this model, their challenges and potentials of their staff members can develop natural tendencies, talents, and skills and improve the general performance of the organization. Inspiring leaders can move through the hierarchy of needs of their followers. They can create an ideal environment for the success of the organization and the achievement of the overall objectives. These leaders act as moral agents in the organization. Transformational leaders erect the necessary scaffolding for the growth and development of the adult mental health psychiatrists by providing support mechanisms and tools to succeed in the performance of their duties. They set clear expectations, establish human resource support systems, create a continuous quality improvement process, and set up an ethics committee to support the difficulty in ADHD unit ethical situations (Sanner-Stiehr and Reynolds Kueny, 2017). The ethics committee in the ADHD adult services ensures that the staff members respect the rights of the patients. This committee develops code of conduct for the staff members working in the ADHD adult services and ensures that they adhere to these standards. A transformational leader is concern about adherence to ethical standards in an organization. They play an integral role in operationalizing the ethics committees in the ADHD adult services unit. Also, transformational leaders are always available and visible as far as moral and ethical standards are a concern. They are keen on training and growth of the staff members.

Transformational leaders are charismatic and often serve the best interest of the organization. They serve as the ideal and models for the other members of the staff of a healthcare organization in the performance of their duties. These leaders act with integrity. Succinctly, integrity lies at the heart of the leadership of every organization. Leaders who have integrity can inspire confidence and create a culture that values diversity among the staff members and encourage creativity and innovation among the employees. They are always concern about the needs of others and do not have any self-interest. These leaders emphasize moral and ethical conduct. When one examines a successful organization, their leader exhibit utmost integrity. Truth and honesty compliment and define the foundation of transformational leaders. Integrity is rooted in the spirituality of a leader (Krishnan, 2018, p.78). In the ADHD care unit, decision making requires leaders to exhibit honesty and truthfulness. They should not ignore and take advantage of patients because of their mental state. Patients in ADHD adult services unit are not able to make decision. The staff members should take a lead and help them makes informed decision. Leaders should nature staff members to help the patients and family members make informed decisions. These leaders should inculcate these virtues to other staff members. It requires leaders in the unit to integrate the concept and theory of integrity to inform their decisions and performance of their duties.

Transformational leadership emphasizes innovation. Innovation is critical in the long-term viability of the organization. The adult mental health psychiatrists in the healthcare organization bear the responsibility of developing a culture that is receptive to creativity, innovativeness, and accommodative to change (‌Nightingale, Spiby, Sheen and Slade, 2018, p.110). Transformation is open to experimenting and trying new methods of doing things; this fosters creativity and innovation in the organization. With the explosive technology growth in mental health care, the leaders in the organization should be able to adapt to the on-going changes. Transformational leaders shape the culture and values that facilitate and foster innovativeness among the employees in a healthcare organization. Shaping requires a leader to have traits of transformational leadership – intellectual stimulation, inspiration, charisma, motivation, and the ability of a leader to give the staff member’s individualized attention (Joseph and Huber, 2015, pp. 73-74). With increasing competition in the healthcare sector, the success and sustenance of the operations of the organizations depend on the level of their innovation. Organizations whose leadership is innovative can come up with products and services that address the dynamic health challenges that facing the populace – this enhances the competitive advantage of the organization. Therefore, transformational leadership promotes innovation in an organization.

Transformational leadership has a sense of social responsibility. A strong sense of responsibility in an organization helps improve performance and reputation. The mental health care unit has a strong sense of social responsibility. In an ADHD adult service, staff members should take full responsibility for their action. They should be able to show course for any action that they take.  All these should be on the best interest of the patient or an ADHD adult patient. This unit provides services to the members of the community seeking ADHD adult services. It requires a sense of social responsibility to ensure that it provides the quality of services that meet the needs of the public. The presence of an organization providing mental health services in the community may not be huge in the quantifiable terms; however, because the availability of these services in the organization reduces waits in other facility and reduce cost related to visiting facilities which might be far away, the community can benefit provision of these services in the facility. Transformational leadership always focuses on how they can provide services that serve the best interest of the community. The main reason for the existence of healthcare organizations is to provide services to members of the public. Therefore, transformational leadership helps these organizations to foster their sense of social responsibility.

References

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‌McKibben, L. (2017). Conflict management: importance and implications. British Journal of Nursing, 26(2), pp.100–103.

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Smyth, O., and McCabe, C. (2017). Think and think again! Clinical decision making by advanced nurse practitioners in the Emergency Department. International Emergency Nursing, 31, pp.72–74.

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