Transactional Leadership

Abstract

The health care sector has evolved drastically, a situation that has encouraged more practitioners to take up leadership roles in the sector. However, many people do not know that health sector leaders have unlimited functions and rules they must observe. Nonetheless, this study will cover a few of these issues related to leadership in the health care sector. First, the theory concepts of transformational and transactional leadership traits will be discussed. The discussion will elaborate on leaders’ core roles in ensuring that different team members within the healthcare sector maintain a cohesive relationship. Additionally, this research will define the various ethical tenets that every leader should be associated with. Notably, the discussion will evaluate the importance of embracing inclusion and diversity within this industry. In particular, an analysis will establish how the Capella University Scholar-Practitioner Model has helped develop leadership in the healthcare sector. Lastly, close attention will be given to Transactional leadership, its merits and demerits, and the characteristics that should be developed to improve this style of governance in the public service. 

Introduction

Leadership is a very crucial aspect in all fields, including the health care sector. Leadership is explained as the behavior portrayed by an individual during governance towards achieving shared goals. Moreover, leaders have the responsibility of influencing their followers’ activities and ensuring that they cope with the change initiated. Leaders are expected to govern using particular styles, ensure that all teams maintain healthy relationships, and abide by certain ethics. They are further expected to embrace diversity and inclusion and adopt practitioner-scholar models to help them develop into confident leaders. Therefore, this study will discuss different theories, ethics, roles of leadership, and the various ways through which health care leaders should adopt to improve their practice.

Leadership Theories

Throughout history approaches have been developed to help people understand the concepts accrued to leadership and the practice itself. Nonetheless, due to changes and dynamism, these theories have evolved too. The two most common approaches are transformational theory and transactional theory. The transformational theory uses an approach where leaders build relationships with their employees and motivate them through establishing a shared mission and vision for the organization (Huber, 2013). The merits here are that motivational leaders are built, have clear goals, highly productive, and are excellent at resolving conflicts. Nonetheless, there are some associated weaknesses where the leaders are blinded from the reality because they focus on the bigger picture. Moreover, they are often frustrated when an organization refuses to embrace the transformation.

 In transactional theory, the leaders and their followers establish a mutual relationship in a bid to maximize compelling experiences and diminish inadequate practices. Its merits are that each person understands their responsibilities and roles (Huber, 2013). Also, good performers thrive from the motivation they get from rewards and compensations. On the other hand, its weaknesses are high staff turnover and considered unethical and frightening, especially to the employees. In addition, it limits people from working hard to improve job satisfaction, particularly those working on knowledge based criteria. 

Leadership in Maintaining Multidisciplinary Relationships

The health care sector is diverse due to a large number of groups constituting it. Therefore, there is a need to have a leader whose primary role is to maintain the existing relationship between these multidisciplinary teams (Nancarrow et al., 2013). Establishing a clear leadership between multidisciplinary teams brings forth alignment. The reason for this merit is because team members begin to work with shared objectives since there are well laid down strategies on how to attain their goals. Also, alignment increases enthusiasm, excitement, confidence, and optimism. Therefore, all the contributions of team members are appreciated, while differences are resolved in a more constructive manner. Besides, coordination of activities is improved because the capabilities of each member are noticed. Moreover, real leadership provides a platform where objectives can be analyzed, and teams are encouraged to embrace collective learning to work together (Nancarrow et al., 2013). Leadership in a multidisciplinary health care setting also ensures to represent each team’s interest, protect its reputation, establish trust between all concerned stakeholders, and create an identity for them. 

Ethical Tenets in Heath Care Leadership

In every organization, there are moral elements that each leader is expected to adhere to. These principles are used to measure an individual’s leadership capabilities. Leadership tenets in the health care sector are measured by quality, collaboration, tenure, succession planning, and communication (Butts & Rich, 2012). Ethical communication establishes that each leader should adhere to high standards. On the other hand, moral quality has determined that those in leadership should initiate and maintain quality delivery and customer service and product throughout the organization. A leader with ethical collaboration ensures that every section within the body works together to reduce risks, provide the best practice, resolve all the issues within the health sector accordingly. It is also ethical to provide a succession plan. Therefore, those in leadership should nurture others into becoming leaders thus giving them a chance to acquire and exercise their skills (Butts & Rich, 2012). Leaders are also expected to have an ethical tenure in office, which is determined more by their trustworthiness and commitment to the institution than their skills and talents.

Diversity and Inclusion in Health Care Leadership

There is a growing need for diversity and inclusion in the health care sector today. The main reason is that a diverse health care environment has myriads of benefits to the organization because it is a concept that adds value (Salisbury & Byrd, 2006). On the other hand, embracing inclusion helps ensure that every individual, despite their race, becomes fully engaged in attaining the organization’s vision, mission, and values. Moreover, the world is experiencing a changed patient base. Therefore, health care systems are expected to provide their patients with service providers who can respond positively to their values, beliefs, and perspectives. On the other hand, workforce changes are also being experienced because the minority groups have ceased from being minor to being the major populations in America today. Also, the health sector that embraces inclusion and diversity has exhibited productivity and innovation traits (Salisbury & Byrd, 2006). Besides, embracing heterogeneity and integration is a legal requirement every institution must exercise.

The Capella University Scholar-Practitioner Model

The Scholar-Practitioner Model framework is used by students advancing their studies in health care leadership. This model core aspect is to build influential and inspirational leaders (Stevens-Long et al., 2012). Moreover, it focuses on developing scholar-leaders who can enrich the world, even at the community level. Importantly, this framework is being used to positively influence leaders in their academic, personal, and professional lives.

Using Transactional Leadership in Public Service Sector

Within the healthcare sector, it is important for each leader to understand their style of leadership. Transactional leadership is one of the most preferable in this area. Some of the palpable strengths of this approach are that short term goals are achieved quickly, especially in the public service sector that requires such attributes. Therefore, in such a complex industry, it is easy to establish an unambiguous structure because it is characterized by repetitive tasks (Huber, 2013). However, this approach has weaknesses, especially in the public service sector. The method limits creativity because the core aims and objectives are already outlined. Moreover, people with personal initiatives are never rewarded, de-motivating them (Huber, 2013). Therefore, the transactional leaders in the public service sector must develop character traits to ensure a smooth flow in this industry. For instance, it is time transactional leaders embraced inspirational motivation characteristics. Under those premises, employees will stop feeling de-motivated and instead commit to attaining the mission and vision of the entire organization. In addition, transactional leaders should embrace intellectual stimulation trait. With this trait, they will be able to support their employees to become innovative and creative, a new approach meant to challenge them out of their comfort zones.

Conclusion

In essence, leadership in the health care sector is a crucial aspect. Moreover, it is important to understand different transactional and transformational leadership theories. In addition, it has been pointed out that having a clearly defined authority is important to maintain healthy relationships and embrace both inclusion and diversity. Further, this discussion has also provided the ethical expectations attributed to health care leaders. More importantly, it is evident that this department is not stagnant because various frameworks are being used to make decisive leaders.

 

References

Butts, J. B., & Rich, K. L. (2012). Nursing ethics. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

Huber, D. (2013). Leadership and nursing care management. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Nancarrow, S. A., Booth, A., Ariss, S., Smith, T., Enderby, P., & Roots, A. (2013). Ten principles of good interdisciplinary team work. Hum Resour Health, 11(1), 19.

Salisbury, J., & Byrd, S. (2006). Why diversity matters in health care. California Society of Anesthesiologists (CSA) Bulletin, 90-93.

Stevens-Long, J., Schapiro, S. A., & McClintock, C. (2012). Passionate scholars: Transformative learning in doctoral education. Adult Education Quarterly, 62(2), 180-198.