Leadership is essential in shaping work culture, practices, and quality measures – particularly in healthcare, where patient care can be life or death.
Interviewees described the need for leaders to demonstrate professional behaviors and be visible on the unit; some referred to this as leading by example.
Increased Patient Satisfaction
The effectiveness of leadership in a healthcare setting is directly related to the quality of patient and staff satisfaction. This is because influential leaders create a culture of safety culture of satisfaction that leads to leading outcomes for patients, employees, and the overall organization.
Behavioral health care is challenging and requires highly-qualified individuals to provide optimal services. Employee burnout is a common issue in this field, as the work is emotionally taxing and stressful. Fortunately, there are several ways to mitigate burnout among behavioral healthcare providers and their teams.
One way to do this is through transformational leadership. This leadership style prioritizes teamwork and collaboration. This allows clinicians to share information and coordinate their efforts, resulting in fewer errors. In addition, transformational leaders lead by example and show respect for their colleagues.
Increased Employee Satisfaction
Maintaining staff morale is vital for delivering top-quality care in a field where patient safety is always at risk. Leaders like Sam Lee Prospect Medical who can energize a team and engender loyalty are crucial to success.
Healthcare leaders who are innovative use methods that encourage employees to solve problems creatively. They may even examine old, entrenched issues with fresh eyes, such as rethinking how resources are used or using unexpected strategies for addressing the same challenges.
Good healthcare leadership requires leaders always to exhibit professional behaviors regardless of codes of conduct. This is especially important for leaders who work in hospitals because they serve as role models for their staff and may influence the overall professionalism of the entire workplace.
Increased Organizational Cohesiveness
Influential leaders know how to cultivate the unique strengths of each team member. They also encourage staff members to work together, creating a culture of collaboration and trust.
Using innovative methods to solve challenges is another hallmark of effective leadership. Healthcare executives who use this style challenge staff to think creatively about maximizing limited resources. They also examine old, perhaps entrenched problems with new eyes.
Lastly, influential leaders can inspire others by setting a good example. They do this by demonstrating the values and goals of their organization through their actions. They also show commitment and dedication to their roles and responsibilities. They never give up or get distracted by the pressure of the job. They put their own needs aside and act for the benefit of the greater good.
Increased Productivity
Few things are more critical in a healthcare setting than high productivity levels. High productivity is necessary to ensure patient safety, meet regulatory requirements and maintain quality healthcare results.
Innovative leaders encourage frontline staff to think creatively and use new approaches to solve complex problems. This can include developing methods for addressing limited or stressed resources or reexamining old, perhaps entrenched problems with fresh eyes.
A recent systematic review and meta-analysis showed that leadership interventions improved some healthcare outcomes, such as performance and guideline adherence. However, the results had significant heterogeneity, likely due to study methodology and selected outcomes. The authors recommended focusing future research on the role of leadership style and context. This would improve the validity and usefulness of future studies in any setting.
Increased Job Satisfaction
Several studies have found that nurses who work in hospitals with managers who utilize transformational leadership tend to experience higher job satisfaction. This is because transformational leadership promotes a positive working environment that supports professional nursing practice, leading to better patient outcomes.
In addition, transformational leadership behaviors have been linked to greater structural empowerment of employees. For example, one study found that nurses who rated their manager’s transformational leadership skills highly perceived their jobs as more rewarding and meaningful.
However, it is essential to note that most studies examining the relationship between leadership style and job satisfaction were cross-sectional in design. Given the well-known limitations of this type of research, longitudinal studies help improve the current understanding of how leadership styles influence job satisfaction in behavioral health hospital settings.