Report on Leadership in Healthcare

Question: Describe the skills required by a team leader for a team of healthcare professionals. Answer: Introduction The purpose of this report is to describe the skills required by a team leader for a team of health care professionals. I have been appointed as team leader to lead health care team. I will identify and analyze the knowledge, skills and values required to be an effective team leader. The report will also discuss the potential consequence of poor leadership and how it will have an adverse effect on health care staff, patients and the involved health care organization. To evaluate my own role in leadership, I will use leadership analysis tool. By using this analysis tool, I can judge my leadership style as well as the performance of other health care staff. Skills of an effective team leader Anyone is appointed as a team leader for his level of expertise in that department of work and the ability to manage a team. I have been given the responsibility of leading a team of health care professionals due to my experience and knowledge about health care field. An effective team leader should have a personality and characteristics that encourage team members to excel in their work. The quality of compassion and integrity is present naturally in a team leader, but leadership skill is attained through formal training and experience. An effective team leader is welcomed and trusted by all team members and it also boosts production within the workplace (Daft, 2014). A leader should have a clear direction and objectives for the team while supervising and supporting an interdisciplinary health care team. The leader should incorporate a set of values and portray it to each member clearly. This attitude of a team leader helps in achieving competency level to manage critical health case and different patients. The team leader has the take of checking all the work system is working well. He/she monitors and ensures that all health infrastructures are updated from time to time. The team leader in medical profession keeps a record of all documented outcomes for each patient. Their focus is on giving quality patient-centered care. They analyze feedback from service users to improve the performance of health care professional and maintain quality (Rowitz, 2013). A team leader should have appropriate communications skills to lead the team. It is paramount quality required in all team leaders working in any field. Verbal and written communication skills help in presenting work expectation to the team member. It will help team members to perform the task according to that expectation. A team leader also listens to valuable inputs of other health care teams. It empowers team members and boosts their confidence. It helps in building trust as team members feel that that leader respects their opinions (Piccolo Buengeler, 2013). For example during a critical surgery in intensive care unit, each health professional and nursing staff has a different responsibility in the operating room. The team leader explains this role to each of them and every activity flows in a systematic manner (Huber, 2013). A quality team leader should be very honest and fair while dealing with the team. The fair action includes giving recognition to the good performance of team by rewards and acknowledgment. They also take disciplinary action if team members are not meeting the organization expectation or if they are negligent. Integrity is also a crucial characteristic of team leader. Such leaders are liked and respected by all as they treat everyone equally (Nancarrow et al., 2013). They delegate the task to trustworthy team members. It helps team leader in health care organization in focusing on other activities such as improving hospitals function and extending the health care service. An effective leader should be a powerful facilitator too. As a facilitator team leader for health care profession explains the health care organization goal to each health care staff such as registered nurse, physicians, etc. In the case of handling any critical patient with a chronic disease or a burn patient, they make an appropriate plan with interdisciplinary health care team on how to start the treatment process and the role of each member in the process (Wheeler et al., 2013). Health care industry works at a rapid pace and there is some amount of uncertainty is always there. For example, a patient's health or condition can deteriorate abruptly, or some emergency cases can come suddenly. So a team leader needs to prepare for this. A health care leader should always evolve and adapt new skills to successfully lead the organization. A health care leader faces the variety of challenges in their work such as meeting health care reform mandate to maintaining different positions despite a shortage of experienced health care professional. An effective leader knows how to plan for improvement, communicate the vision to each employee and how to implement plans. They understand that they are accountable for each activity, so they measure the success of all plans before implementing it (Shrader et al., 2013). Good leaders do not get nervous by immediate pressure at work. They take each hurdle as an opportunity to learn new things and most of the time they are successful in overcoming the obstacles. They have an innate ability to adapt to changing conditions in health care organization. They should be flexible in their activity to seize all opportunities, but they take care not to lose sight of their vision. So they divert and change plans but within the requirements of the industry. A person leading an interdisciplinary health care team constantly reshapes traditional models of care. Any change should not compromise goals, but it should be a way to move the vision forward (Yukl, 2012). A health care leader also has to take a lot of risk in their profession, so they should be courageous enough to take a valid decision during emergency situations. But leaders should also know the difference between calculated risk and rubbish risk was taken. Having this knowledge will help professional leaders to identify what type of activity comes under calculated risk and what kind of risk will be a complete failure. This quality helps them to try new things courageously. Any risk associated with an activity is calculated only using careful study and disciplined plan of action. This calculation improves the chance of success (Swayne et al., 2012). A team leader not only just interacts with team members but they also deal with their people like organization owner, client and their families. So they should know how to influence people by his actions. An effective leader needs to be active, not passive. He should be one who is not afraid of coming to the forefront and dealing with different groups of people. They act as persistent advocates for the organization. This quality promotes sustenance of collective contribution, passion, and firm determination in achieving organization objectives (Fernandez, 2015). Healthcare industry is about building a health-related relationship with the client and different expert panels of a physician. A good health care leader is one who remains constantly involved at every level of the organization. They interact efficiently with the principal stakeholders like employees, physicians, patients, families, and the community. They know the skill how to integrate each relationship and unite all of them in particular health care service. Health care organization constantly redefines traditional practice structure and patient-centered model of care. Therefore having the above qualities will be helpful in managing these changes (Stoller, 2013). A team leader in health care organization is surrounded by experienced physicians with a distinct specialty as well as experienced nursing and other staff. The team leader can easily identify new talents by certain parameters. Based on those parameters, they consider the person useful for the organization and recruit that person. A team leader should be optimistic in all situations. They are very energetic and work with a passion for developing their organization. There are numerous examples of charismatic leaders like Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, etc. A new leader can take inspiration from them. These leaders have a contagious attitude and passion for work. They are confident of what they are doing, and their confidence drives them forward (Lavine, 2014). Any leader is not born with an in-born talent to lead. They also make a mistake and learn from them. They constantly hone their skills. They seek for opportunities to develop their abilities. They hone their skills by reading article and books on leadership and attending seminars (Weaver et al., 2014). Some also copy actions of other leaders or meet them to gain knowledge and get inspired them. They can learn ways of mentoring from them. Healthcare industry has advanced in developing cutting edge life-saving equipment, but they are lacking in quality mentoring. So leaders need to learn these skills. This skill will help leaders to learn many things early in their career. This kind of exposure in their career will help them to develop required competency in their field (Borkowski, 2015). Consequences of poor leadership and its affect on health care The mentioned facts are the qualities of a leader. This section discusses the potential consequence of poor leadership demonstrated by team leaders. Poor leadership is misleading, and this occurs only when leaders lack vision. A leader without direction and vision is aimless. When there is no specific goal, then the planning also gets hampered. It does not lead to systematic planning, and everything becomes haphazard in such work environment. Such leaders will be carrying the organization forward just mechanically, but they will not be able to give intellect input for the development of their service. It hampers the relation between a team member and they develop frustration as the leader decision is biased. It leads to employee dissatisfaction and creates a chaotic situation (Schyns Schilling, 2013). For example in health care, poor leadership has an impact on employee burnout and job satisfaction. This occurs because there is too much job demand but few resources. Apart from this, a weak leader further aggravates the problem. A weak leader cannot balance employees work, and when they develop burnout, performance is hampered. Leadership is about creating a good relationship with team members, but poor leadership damages the relationship too (Munir et al., 2012). A person with poor leadership skills cannot link their strategies and plans according to the vision of the organization. It creates a huge gap in planning strategies and their execution. If plans are not clear, the leader cannot integrate or present them to their work staff. It creates communication problem between different departments. Some leaders do not know the importance of building a good relationship with each member. They only like those people who think and act like them. This attitude creates cognitive gaps. So homogenous team setting can be harmful for the company or organization. Employees also expect that their ideas and opinions will be considered by team leaders. Poor leaders either do not take their views, or they just thrust their own plan on them. Some leaders promise big things to their employees, but they under deliver or postpone their decision. This kind of attitude is harmful to every person in their organization and their service too (Johnson, 2013). Such problems are often seen in hospitals. In the absence of quality team leaders, services automatically get disrupted. Every physicians and nurse have the responsibility of explaining to patients about the correct routine for taking medicines and its side effects. But when the role of each member is not defined adequately by team leaders, problems arise. The nurse might think physician will explain the detail about side-effect whereas doctors expect the nurse to explain the side effects. It would lead to complication in those patients who do not follow medication instructions. A patient who is allergic may develop serious side effects. Healthcare also has a responsibility to communicate with the patient and understand their woes and health conditions. Many patients are too shy to ask anything when in doubt about the treatment process. So if leader explains to each staff member that they need to interact with patient regularly, any confusion from the patient side can be eliminated ( Harrison et al., 2015). Poor leadership has an impact on each area of service. It can create retention issues, decreased engagement among workers, low performance and lack of morale. The immediate impact is on employees. In the absence of clear goals, team members are unable to unite to a common organization goal. It lowers morality level, and a culture of mediocrity develops. Work integrity is also hampered as poor leadership leads to erosion of professional values and ethics. Good leader acts as a light directing the organization towards excellence, but poor leadership is like a shadow which darkens many areas of the organization. In health care, poor leadership results in medical errors and poor quality of care. It happens because health care leaders do not communicate patient-centered goals to each member (Ciulla, 2014). Evaluation of leadership skills by leadership assessment tools There are various leadership self-assessment tools now available to judge individual leadership skills. Several tools are also developed on healthcare leadership model. These exercises help leaders to identify their abilities and weakness and solve critical organization problems. These tools contribute to improving skills through assessment, learning, and practice. I will use this tool to understand my own behavior and identify strength and weakness. It helps me focus on those areas where I may be lagging in my work. The self-assessment tools are in the forms of questionnaires on our area of activity. It will help me realize which dimension of health care leadership model is critical for me. I will rate myself by comparing my activity with those dimensions of health care models. I will also use this tool to evaluate the role of other team members (Koh, 2013). The leadership assessment tool has an evaluation on several aspects like-cognitive style, ability to gain power and influence, using influencing strategies, identifying poor performance and inviting motivation, effective empowerment and team development behaviors. For example, cognitive exercise may give an individual situation and ask what response I will take in such situation. The questions may be like you are about to meet a patient undergoing surgery. The patient and the family are worried about it, and they want to avoid it at any cost. The answer to the question will help me realize how best I put efforts to convince the patient and family members to go through the treatment process. The questionnaires will have different options and a score for it. With the response to my answer and score I get, I can identify where I lack in leadership skills and what can I do to improve my weakness (Valentine et al., 2015). I will analyze team efficiency by scoring staff members by diagnosing poor performance and enhancing motivation exercise. The questions may be like when discipline is required have I given specific suggestion to each member and whether the team members have acted according to those instructions. The option for the questions may be like strongly agree, agree, slightly agree or disagree. Each option had the marking scale and based on the marks on this rating scale; I can judge my own skills as well as my team members (MacPhee et al., 2013). Conclusion Therefore, the report is a comprehensive detail on the values and competencies required by a team leader. It has highlighted the general skills required by a team leader working in any field. It has also explained the skills required for a team leader in health care industry. It has explained the consequences of poor leadership on the organization. Some examples have also been given related to the crisis in health care organization arising due to poor leadership. Finally, it has described assessment tool available for leadership assessment and how it can be helpful for individual and team members to develop their skills. Reference Borkowski, N. (2015).Organizational behavior in health care. Jones Bartlett Publishers. Ciulla, J. B. (Ed.). (2014).Ethics, the heart of leadership. ABC-CLIO. Daft, R. (2014).The leadership experience. Cengage Learning. Fernandez, C. S., Noble, C. C., Jensen, E., Steffen, D. (2015). 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