Change management and leadership – Term Paper

Leadership and change management

The leadership that the executives of health care institutions portray can have considerable influence on change adoption. Individual leadership styles would be effective while others might fail. Transformational leadership style serves as one of the most effective leadership styles that would contribute toward instituting change in a health care setting. As for leaders, in this case, their major role in care facilities is to lay emphasis on motivating staff members by sharing the mission and vision of the health care institutions they lead (Raza, 2011). These kinds of leaders have the charisma for communicating confidence and vision as well as act in ways that inspire other individuals. They respect the staff and let them understand that they are vital. They also serve as masters of assisting people in undertaking tasks they are not sure they can manage by encouraging and praising them (Al-Sawai, 2013). 

Democratic leaders also employ similar viewpoints by exercising open communicating and encouraging the staff to take part in the process of making decisions. The workers are accorded accountability, responsibility, and feedback based on their performance. Relationships are crucial to this kind of a leader who lays considerable emphasis on system and process improvement as opposed to the mistakes that the team members make (Delmatoff, 2014). Therefore, when instituting change within the health care setting, democratic, and transformational leaders would be useful regarding facilitating the execution process. They would welcome the insights from their employees and other stakeholders within the health care setting (Delmatoff, 2014). Here, they would manage to devise effective strategies for instituting change that all the parties in the care setting would be willing to implement. 

Collaborative leadership also serves as a leadership style that would play a vital role in supporting change institution in a health care setting. Collaboration serves as a cooperative and assertive process, which takes place whenever individuals work together toward realizing a shared goal. Collaborative leaders communicate information to their subordinates and related organizations (Suchman, et al., 2011). They do this to ensure that all individuals have the capacity of making informed decisions. The collaborative communication strategies that cooperative leaders portray play a critical role regarding enhancing care management. It supports discussions between numerous stakeholders, sharing experiences, and knowledge, and minimizes complexity levels in the health care setting.  When it comes to instituting change in health care, the individuals with distinct responsibility levels take active participation in communicating and validating the needs. They also identify any needs that might require addressing. All the persons in the care environment would work together toward implementing effective processes and practices. They would also boost understanding of distinct cultures and promote the integration as well as interdependency that the diverse stakeholders portray (AANAC, 2016). The reason for this is that the leaders manage to unify the individuals through shared values and visions to realize the anticipated change outcomes. 

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By contrast, authoritarian leadership style might not be useful when it comes to instituting change within a healthcare environment. The leadership style becomes apparent when leaders make different decisions without considering the input of the other employees. Punishment and negative reinforcement are the tools that enforce the rules. Since knowledge is perceived as power, the leaders might withhold certain information from the team members (Delmatoff, 2014). Whenever the mistakes emerge, the blames are directed to the subordinates. Although this practice is active in enforcing procedures and policies that safeguard the safety and health of patients, it does not support teamwork, communication, and trust when applied in daily operations. Also, the Laissez-faire style of leadership fails to offer sufficient supervision or direction (AANAC, 2016). Thus, in the case of the authoritarian or laissez-faire leadership styles, they are ineffective concerning enforcing change in health care settings. Only new leaders use them meaning they would not have any significant impact on change processes within health care facilities.

Changes in healthcare

In conclusion, irrespective of whether a change is supported in an organization, employees should lay emphasis on understanding the reasons as to why the change process is taking place and how it would affect them. Issues such as layoffs in line with other changes within an organization might result in confusion, paranoia, insecurities, and anger because of change auspices (Arbuckle, 2012). Here, it is worth noting that supporting change is both fatiguing and demanding. Instituting change demands that managers overcome the precedent, as well as requires them to exercise perseverance that would allow them to cope with prevailing behaviors. Instituting change is a lengthy process and demands managers to commit a considerable amount of time. Managers should be aware of the typical values and lay emphasis on altering them as opposed to reacting to different change invitations (Austin, et al., 2016). They should set clear boundaries that would define what is essential and establish responses in a proactive manner. 

Also, for those organizations that hire many professionals, their performance would deteriorate when they start exercising bureaucracy. Bureaucratic organizations, as well as those hierarchical in nature, are less open to change initiatives and have little chances of empowering their staff members. It is not possible for a company to realize overall value from its expert workers if it insists that they follow the set guidelines (Al-Sawai, 2013). As such, it is essential for leaders to ensure that they learn ways of managing change as opposed to allowing change to maintain them. In this case, they would be able to move forward in a favorable manner.  

The processes involved in change management are broad. Regarding public firms, for instance, they should introduce changes that match with their situation and requirements. Here, it is worth noting that change management keeps taking place. Furthermore, leaders should ensure that they have a notable understanding concerning the change process as well as the common issues to allow them to develop the capacity to lead as well as manage change in a way that improves the performance of their organization considerably (O’Riordan ; Elton, 2016). They should learn how to overcome the emerging obstacles as well as cope with the confusion that emerges naturally during the multifaceted change process. Additionally, organizational leaders should have the capacity of assisting employees in line with other stakeholders to build as well as structure active groups by instituting new structures (Austin, et al., 2016). They should also create a shared vision that lays emphasis on legitimate workers’ output. Such inspired, as well as informed leadership, plays an essential and critical role in driving organizations toward success.

Moreover, developing clear visions concerning the change direction serves as a vital element that assures successful change within an enterprise. Measuring, as well as monitoring change process outcomes, plays a significant role in realizing whether the process of change has attained its purpose (Murillo, 2017). Because change is an unending process while it is also associated with modifications that occur, it is crucial for the responsible parties to ensure that lay emphasis on the problems that emerge because of change. As such, they would manage to avoid the hindrances in future to make sure that the administration is capable of handling the change in an appropriate and efficient manner. 

Reference List 

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