Main Post Mastering adapting effective leadership within a nursing organization

Main Post Mastering adapting effective leadership within a nursing organization is key to building a team that rises to the increasingly demanding healthcare environment. Transformational leadership is shown to scientifically be the most successfully recognized leadership style in healthcare (Ystaas et al., 2023). In this approach, leaders collaborate with teams to identify areas where major changes are needed and work with the team to create a vision and achieve goals which make it a powerful way to boost employee satisfaction, engagement, and performance. Transformational leadership shines in fostering a culture of innovation and resilience within nursing teams. A key insight is that nurses, empowered by a supportive leader, are more likely to contribute fresh ideas and advocate for improved patient care (Collins et al., 2020). As a long-standing ER nurse myself, along with my team, would become increasingly frustrated with seeing the same repeat chronic condition patients who would return with the same ailments and we felt we weren’t effectively addressing the root causes. Our manager at the time, Sarah, was a transformational leader and acknowledged our complaints and frustrations. She facilitated brainstorming sessions with us, along with the hospital’s social work team and encouraged open discussions and honest answering. She was able to recognize our individual strengths and assigned us tasks to come up with numerous ways to help address the root causes of these patients’ return visits. Sarah worked with our team to create a triage form that was able to identify these high-risk patients that would tag targeted patient education on managing their chronic conditions and each week a charge nurse would be assigned to make phone calls to the patients’ primary physician to ensure they were aware of the numerous visits and treatment. Sarah was able to use transformational leadership to create nurse driven solutions which allowed the staff to feel valued and heard, the patients were receiving more comprehensive care and the ER itself became more collaborative and innovative in the care given. Transformational leaders excel at creating a psychologically safe space where nurses feel comfortable admitting mistakes and learning from them. According to Raso, (2021) transformational leaders set the tone and role model behaviors, when psychological safety is present, team effectiveness and performance are improved and often predicted. I spent my first few years in nursing under the supervision of Cinda, a transformational leader, but I was new and unaware of any leadership styles, just that we were encouraged to always speak up without any concern of mistrust or retaliation. During report one evening a nurse I was working with revealed administering an incorrect medication dosage but was so scared and nervous as she was new in our department and had worked in an extremely different environment prior. Even though I was new, I was able to explain how Cinda ran the department with such a foundation of trust and understanding of the human connection. I took her to Cinda and was able to watch how understanding she was towards this nurse, how she guided her through the incident reporting process as a mentor without judgement and even connected her with resources for improvement. Seeing this type of leadership at play in my early years was so formative in my career as a nurse leader and I strived to foster a trusting environment where nurses felt empowered to report safety concerns, which prevented so many future errors and built the staff up as a team. In conclusion, the ever-evolving healthcare landscape demands adaptable leadership that empowers and inspires. By fostering collaboration, innovation, and psychological safety, transformational leaders cultivate a thriving and resilient nursing team. As demonstrated by both Sarah’s and Cinda’s approaches, this leadership style empowers nurses to contribute fresh ideas, advocate for improved patient care, and ultimately deliver better outcomes. Investing in the development of transformational leadership within nursing organizations is not just beneficial, it’s essential for building a future-proof healthcare system. References Collins, E., Owen, P., Digan, J., & Dunn, F. (2020). Applying Transformational Leadership in Nursing Practice. Nursing Standard, 35(5), 59–66. https://doi.org/10.7748/ns.2019.e11408 ‌Raso, R. (2021). Psychological safety and leadership. Nursing Management, 52(11), 5–5. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.numa.0000795596.49076.1f ‌Ystaas, L. M. K., Nikitara, M., Ghobrial, S., Latzourakis, E., Polychronis, G., & Constantinou, C. S. (2023). The Impact of Transformational Leadership in the Nursing Work Environment and Patients’ Outcomes: A Systematic Review. Nursing Reports, 13(3), 1271–1290. https://doi.org/10.3390/nursrep13030108