Nursing Leadership: A Case Study of Bluebird Home
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| Nursing Leadership: A Case Study of Bluebird Home Performance enhancement is a critical factor that inspires organisations to introduce change at various levels including culture change, leadership change, and services structure change. It is a fact that the introduction of change initiatives depends on effective leadership decisions and improved teaming working. The change process requires efforts from individuals and team players and both of these factors play a significant role in the development of particular organisational behaviour that helps to achieve organisational goals and aims (Holden, 2015). Bluebird Home is a care facility and the case study reveals that the organisation has been facing a lack of leadership role issues to manage its administrative tasks. The implementation of the new process has confused employees. This is strong enough to question the effectiveness of the leadership role in this context. This paper examines the nursing leadership role in the effective introduction of the change process to avoid management issues. |
Critical Analysis and Application of Relevant Leadership Principles
The significance of leadership role in nursing has increased in recent years especially since various healthcare and aged care organisations have adopted various models that are suitable to their working environment. However, the need to avoid uncertainty in nursing tasks requires the presence of certain people who have effective leadership skill to resolve any disruptions of organisational affairs to avoid management crisis (Boin et al., 2017). The primary principle to avoid any risk or issue is the identification of a risk that can bring barriers to the successful execution of nursing responsibilities. The successful continuity of medical operations and care facilities requires the presence of strong medical and care infrastructures with strong leadership (Hershkovich et al., 2016).The complexities of nursing affairs at Bluebird aged care center led its leadership to start a change process to make a centralised system to collect and access patients related information at a central system. However, this initiative caused further frustration and anger among staff members. Boin et al. (2017) believe that it is essential for a leader to understand the context of the problem before initiating the change process. The due process of change as Boin noted involves, "sense-making, decision making" and complete coordination among all the people working in the organisation, "meaning-making, accounting and learning" from the change process are essential to focus on (p. 15). However, the case study scenario indicates a complete absence of different aspects that can be categorised as preliminary requirements of a leadership role. McShane et al. (2018) noted that any change process requires the presence of strong leadership in the organisation with a responsibility of strong communication with all the stakeholders boosting their motivation to ensure a team working environment. These initiatives boost productivity level while bringing change to the organisation.
The Application of Lewin’s Change Theory
According to Lewin's change model bringing change means challenging the status-quo behaviour of people working for the organisation. Lewin's model presents a planned change mechanism to increase the effectiveness of the change process. Understanding the resistance is essential for the effective launch and management of the change process (Burnes, 2019). The three-stage model is based on the concepts of Unfreezing, Change Process, and Refreezing. This model is an emblem of different concepts that ensure a team working environment and close coordination between the leadership and employees. Unfreezing process is the start of the change process after the identification of changes that are essential to bringing into. This requires the sincere involvement of employees to minimise the resistance and to get their views on change (Hussain et al., 2018).Hubbard (2018) noted that bringing change means a complete understanding of organisational issues and their impact. McShane et al. (2018) noted bringing change means a complete shift from the present working environment to new rules and a new working environment. Change is a sign that the existing system is not working successfully; hence, the leadership of nursing homes requires strong planning and assessment initiatives. However, these initiatives were absent as Sam single-handedly managed the change process confusing other staff members. Close coordination among employees is essential to proceed to the next level of change.
The second aspect of Lewin’s model is the initiation of the Change Process which according to Hussain et al. (2918) demands complete involvement of employees from consultation to planning process to understand their minds, views, perception and fears. However, this process is completely absent in the case study scenario as nurses and medical professionals were unaware of the change process and faced difficulties accessing patients' data and other information.
MacKillop (2017) emphasised that after the identification of such issues the application of motivational theories during the Change Process can help an organisation to overcome resistance. The application of motivational theories can make the decision-making process effective and this will help to remove employees’ fears about the change process. Becoming a part of change means a successful start of the change process. However, the Change Process as Hussain et al. (2018) noted is crucial to managing because of two factors identified as ‘resistance to change and ‘openness to change. The negative and positive emotions of employees go side by side and this is evident from the case study scenario as some of the staff members ignored the complexities of work and went back home without completing their job tasks. There is a complete absence of taking the staff on board when the Change Process was initiated at Bluebird Care Facility. It is leaders responsibility (Hussain et al., 2018) to diagnose the problem or resistance and to manage it systematically.
Hussain et al. (2018) noted that the Change Process is known as the knowledge-sharing process because close interaction between the leadership and employees is essential for Refreezing process which is also known as the implementation process. The issue of bringing innovation as McShane et al. (2018) noted in organisational change is always full of constraints and timely mapping these constraints is a possible solution.
The refreezing process highlights the results of change, the effectiveness of new policies, and the prospect of this change. However, the results of the change at Bluebird Care facility were the opposite. Employees who were not notified about the change process resisted leading the whole process to failure. The communication gap among staff members appears a major factor behind the failure of the change process resulting in complete chaos. The leadership role of leading from the front is completely absent in this case scenario. The absence of the visionary aspect of the leadership role in the nursing home forced employees to resist at all levels.
Principles of Leadership Role
Leadership role demands consideration of five general steps that ensure engagement process between employees and organisational leadership at all levels leading change initiatives to success. The development of teams is one of the crucial factors missing in the case study scenario. However, before the development of teams, it is essential to develop an emotional intelligence framework to identify and evaluate the emotions of employees (MacKillop, 2017).The concept of emotional intelligence though seems vague but understanding the cognitive aspect of employees can help leaders to identify their skills, knowledge, and awareness of attitudes to build a strong relationship with nursing staff members. Nursing leaders with emotional intelligence skills create a collaborative working environment that helps to develop teams for different working tasks to execute the change process successfully (Holden, 2015).
The absence of emotional intelligence can create long-term and short-term impacts on nursing staff members. Nursing leadership at Bluebird was responsible for understanding staff emotions by understanding their skills and by ensuring a self-management system. It is a fact that knowing others' emotions is essential in the nursing profession. This is one of the requirements to establish a positive working environment. The emotional dissonance among staff members at the nursing home as McShane et al. (2018) noted indicates a communication gap, frustration, and questions about belongingness to the workplace. The expectancy level among the staff members decreased. The lack of commitment on the leadership side further questioned the empowerment of team members.
In cross-examination of a Cuckoo Lane surgery case study in the United Kingdom, it is evident that the leadership of the organisation did excellent work by implementing emotional intelligence rules to develop teams to ensure positive working culture by motivating staff members to share their ideas and plans to bring innovation in the organisation. Effective communication is a major tool for understanding the emotions of employees to lead employees effectively (NHS, 2018; McShane et al., 2018).
One of the primary responsibilities of nursing leadership is nurturing a positive workplace culture based on trusting each other. A positive workplace culture ensures that all the people working in the nursing centre understand the concept of common values, goals traditions and help each other in times of need. Some of the positive work characteristics include trusting each other, making the teams work effectively, sharing plans, sharing suggestions, striving to achieve a shared goal, motivating employees and adopting can-do policies. Learning group dynamics can improve the overall working environment and this was absent in the case study example. Schein's Model is an example of developing a positive organisational culture to manage effective change (Sawan et al., 2018).
This model shows three levels of organisational culture. The first is artifacts & creations by creating positivity in the work environment. This environment is based on physical and social factors. Expoused values are certain behaviours that employee present through their actions and they speak for organisational culture. Basic underlying assumptions in the case study scenario are absent. This means the representation of culture or values that develop over time are hard to change (Braithwaite et al., 2016).
According to Harvard Business School (2012), employee empowerment is a major tool to ensure successful implementation of the change process. The concept of empowerment is based on the principle of giving freedom to employees to decide on their own and this is a major source to increase employees' engagement. The application of behavioural management as Bersin et al. (2017) theories can help leaders ensure employees' empowerment which will result in confidence in organisational leadership. Empowered employees seek responsibility and develop an attitude to taking risks to generate high results. This process helps to increase their creativity to think of new ideas. The absence of employees' empowerment resulted in system collapse at Bluebird Care Centre.
The application of motivational theories impacts the performance of employees and contributes to the development of a unique working culture. Empowering employees is a form of motivation. However, the application of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, expectancy theory and equity theory could have helped to develop a strong relationship between the leadership and employees (McShane et al., 2018). The unhappy attitude of employees is a negative sign for organisational growth and often leads different projects towards failure. According to Petri and Govern (2012), the failure of organisational tasks is because of employees’ negative emotions that develop over time due to poor leadership roles. Employees consider that their emotions and feelings have been hurt and this is the exact case in the Bluebird Care facility.
Conclusion
The leadership role is significant in the successful implementation of a change in the organisation. The need for bringing change in an organisation indicates the need for overall reforms in the working environment and culture of an organisation. Bluebird leaders' failure to implement the change process highlights the reasons and poor planning of the change process. Leadership role demands the presence and use of different characteristics that involve the use of emotional intelligence to understand employees’ emotions. Team development or bringing change in the working culture largely depends on empowering employees and using different motivational theories to boost employees' confidence in leadership. The Bluebird case study is an example that highlights the need for leadership role improvement in nursing case scenarios to avoid workplace conflicts and to ensure the successful delivery of services.References
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