Leadership For Change Paper

Leadership For Change Paper

Effective leadership, change management, and the need for quality improvement in healthcare are intertwined concepts. In this sense, appropriate leadership strategies are the prerequisites for proper change management and sustainable quality improvement initiatives. Backhouse & Ogunlayi (2020) argue that quality improvement in healthcare entails applying systematic change methods and strategies to enhance patient experiences, improve outcomes, safeguard patient safety, and transform care delivery processes. The effectiveness of quality improvement initiatives relies massively upon leadership commitment and styles that empower all organizational levels to implement, evaluate, and sustain change programs (Sipes, 2020). As a result, transformational leadership emerges as a profound determinant of effective change management and quality improvement.

The Relationship Between Transformational Leadership for Change and the Need for Quality Improvement

Amidst the overarching need for improving healthcare quality through change management and quality improvement initiatives, it is essential to focus on the interactions between organizational leaders and their followers. Often, close, meaningful, and participative relationships between leaders and followers result in multiple benefits, including enhanced motivation, job satisfaction, effective communication, and high motivation for innovation (Albert, 2018). Consequently, these outcomes lead to consensus decision-making processes, team cohesion, and interdisciplinary collaboration in implementing quality improvement initiatives.

Transformational leadership anchors the tenets of satisfying the need of followers, developing meaningful relationships with all employees, and providing mutual support. According to Faupel & Süß (2018), this leadership style contains four profound principles: inspiration, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration, and idealized influence. Inspiration involves a scenario where leaders communicate and articulate the desired outcome or an objective and demonstrate ways to achieve the already communicated goals (Faupel & Süß, 2018). This principle facilitates change and quality improvement initiatives by creating a sense of urgency, obtaining employees’ buy-in, and empowering the organization to familiarize themselves with the change process.

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Secondly, intellectual stimulation supports creativity by encouraging followers to implement new and advanced ways of solving healthcare problems. Faupel & Süß (2018) argue that this component of transformational leadership allows employees to question and revise routines to foster organizational change and promote innovations. Thirdly, individualized consideration refers to the support provided by a transformational leader to followers, including through training, mentorship, proper task allocation, and coaching (Khan et al., 2020). Finally, idealized influence enables transformational leaders to model exemplary behaviors and motivate employees to demonstrate high compliance with institutional values and goals. Also, it entails the degree to which leaders demonstrate values, confidence, ethical orientation, and power (Lai et al., 2020). Notably, the four components of transformational leadership enable leaders to facilitate organizational change and quality improvement initiatives by inspiring employees, stimulating creativity, role modeling, and providing support to employees.

My Experience with Transformational Leadership

One encounter that signified the effective integration of transformational leadership into quality improvement initiatives was during the installation of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) and automated drug distribution systems to reduce medication administration errors. Our organizational leader collaborated with a team of experts to communicate the desired outcomes of these initiatives and obtain employees’ buy-in. The change implementation team conducted surveys to obtain employee feedback and opinions regarding the viability of these strategies for reducing medication errors. Further, the team leader involved every employee in all phases of the project and spearheaded employee training and education programs to enhance their knowledge and awareness of the technology’s usability.

During these training programs, the employees familiarize themselves with mechanisms for safeguarding patient data privacy, the functionality of CPOE and automated drug distribution systems, their integration with electronic health records, and potential ways of identifying and communicating system failures. Consequently, the tendency of involving, inspiring, and motivating employees to adopt these technologies translated to higher motivation and the desire to challenge the status quo. Therefore, it is valid to argue that our organization leader practiced transformational leadership to spearhead change and facilitate quality improvement initiatives.

Recommending Project Management Approaches to Support Transformational Leadership Practices in Promoting a Quality Improvement Initiative

Project management approaches are principles and a set of practices for organizing, implementing, and sustaining projects to ensure optimum performance and achieve desired outcomes. In my organization, I would propose a quality improvement for reducing readmissions; a tailored discharge model that involves patient education, follow-up activities, and telehealth. The short-term goal of this project is to reduce readmission rates of discharged patients with conductions like heart failure, pneumonia, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). In the same breath, its long-term goals are promoting self-care interventions, enhancing care coordination, and safeguarding patient safety.

Effective implementation of this quality improvement initiative depends on the interplay between transformational leadership and an advanced project management approach. In this sense, adopting the agile methodology can support transformation leadership because it focuses on people, results, interdisciplinary collaboration, and flexible response to change (Nordmark et al., 2022). Further, this project management methodology allows leaders and the implementation team to separate processes into small sprints to allow for flexible change during the testing phase. Nordmark et al. (2022) argue that collaboration and dialogue between system users, developers, and leaders are the primary components of the agile approach. As a result, this approach enables leaders to interact with followers, obtain feedback and opinions, and involve employees in all project management phases.

When used to facilitate the implementation of a multifactorial system for preventing readmissions, this methodology would enable organizational leaders to collaborate with employees, foster effective communication and relationships, and inspire followers to achieve the desired outcomes of the quality improvement initiative. Therefore, it is valid to argue that this project management methodology can support the tenets of transformational leadership to facilitate change management and support quality improvement projects.

References

Albert N. M. (2018). Operationalizing a Nursing Innovation Center Within a Health Care System. Nursing Administration Quarterly, 42(1), 43–53. https://doi.org/10.1097/NAQ.0000000000000266

Backhouse, A., & Ogunlayi, F. (2020). Quality improvement into practice. BMJ, 368(1), m865. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m865

Faupel, S., & Süß, S. (2018). The effect of transformational leadership on employees during organizational change – an empirical analysis. Journal of Change Management, 19(3), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/14697017.2018.1447006

Khan, H., Rehmat, M., Butt, T. H., Farooqi, S., & Asim, J. (2020). Impact of transformational leadership on work performance, burnout and social loafing: A mediation model. Future Business Journal, 6(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s43093-020-00043-8

Lai, F.-Y., Tang, H.-C., Lu, S.-C., Lee, Y.-C., & Lin, C.-C. (2020). Transformational leadership and job performance: The mediating role of work engagement. SAGE Open, 10(1), 1–11. Sagepub. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019899085

Nordmark, S., Lindberg, I., & Zingmark, K. (2022). “It’s all about time and timing”: Nursing staff’s experiences with an agile development process, from its initial requirements to the deployment of its outcome of ICT solutions to support discharge planning. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12911-022-01932-4

Sipes, C. (2020). Project management for the advanced practice nurse (2nd ed.). Springer Publishing Company.

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WEEK 10 DISCUSSION
Discussion: Leadership for Change
What are the characteristics of a transformational leader?
As you have examined this week, a transformational leader is a leader who is able to inspire change and bring out the best in those around them. However, what characteristics does this leader have? Perhaps a transformational leader is trustworthy, inspiring, and charismatic? Perhaps this leader leads with integrity, respect, and empathy? Perhaps this leader is team-focused, encouraging, and positive?

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How would you define a transformational leader, and when might you have experienced this type of leadership?
For this Discussion, consider the role of transformational leadership for change. Explore the need for transformational leaders, and describe experiences you may have had with these leaders. Additionally, analyze how these leaders might enhance quality improvement in healthcare organizations and nursing practice.
To Prepare:
• Review the Learning Resources for this week, and reflect on potential leadership strategies for promoting change in healthcare organizations and nursing practice.
• Consider the potential impact of project management for supporting transformational leadership approaches for promoting change in organizations.
• Reflect on the relationship between transformational change, leadership strategies, and the need for quality improvement in your healthcare organization or nursing practice.
By Day 3 of Week 10
Post a brief explanation of the relationship between transformational leadership for change and the need for quality improvement. Share any experiences you may have of transformational leadership in your healthcare organization or nursing practice. Then, describe how you would recommend the application of project management approaches to support transformational leadership practices for the promotion of a quality improvement initiative in your healthcare organization or nursing practice. Be sure to include any short- and long-term milestones or goals associated with the quality improvement initiative described. Be specific and provide examples.

LEARNING RESOURCES FOR THIS WEEK:

PLEASE USE THE RESOURCES PROVIDED AS YOUR REFERENCES. The instructor takes off points if we do not utilize the resources provided to do our assignments. To add, I received a 90 on the last assignment. She deducted points for not using the resources provided. However, you did use a few of them. Furthermore, I understand that when writing, the resources provided often do not provide you what you need so you go elsewhere. You are an excellent writer and do very well with following the instruction thoroughly. Your writing style is very similar to mine. I thank you kindly for all of your help as I am taking 3 classes this semester and three more the next. It has been rough, but you have help to make it possible. Thanks again.
The resource links are provided below:

Sipes, C. (2020). Project management for the advanced practice nurse (2nd ed.). Springer Publishing Company.
• Chapter 1, “Basic Project Management for Advanced Practice Nurses and Healthcare Professionals” (pp. 3–16)
• Chapter 2, “Advanced Practice Nurse Role Descriptions and Application of Project Management Concepts” (pp. 17–46)

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