Healthcare experts on many occasions face sophisticated ethical predicaments in the workplace. While some choose to brazen out ethical issues directly, others opt to turn away. Moral courage aids persons to address ethical concerns and take the plunge when doing the right thing is exigent. Moral courage is an extremely esteemed character exhibited by people willing to take hold of, and adequately maintain, ethical responsibilities vital to professional values. When a health administrator upholds moral courage, it leads to both the workers and the patients benefit. For instance, they can act with moral courage to oppose unfair conditions such as staff layoff and poor health service provision. They are also in a position to develop a working environment that adheres to ethics, and all the workers uphold moral courage. As a leader, supporting moral courage challenges the revolution of the line of work and the workplace. They can challenge any unethical behavior of the workers (Dinndorf-Hogenson, 2015, p.12). For example, the health administrator will be able to question why a patient has been discharged without recovering, why patients with limited resources are treated unjustly among other things.
According to Murray (2010), moral courage is important in a healthcare administrator because it helps them to not only survive but also thrive in evolving times. It helps them to respond adequately to situations that provoke fear and anxiety without necessarily knowing the outcome of the response is not certain but still they have faith that their response is morally right. When a healthcare administrator is morally courageous, it is easier to understand the moral courage acts of the staff members without questioning them. A healthcare administrator who is morally courageous is in a better position to create an organization culture that recognizes the benefits of moral courage (Murray, 2010). When a health administrator possesses moral courage, all the parties in the healthcare industry- patients, family members, government- in most of the cases are satisfied by the decisions made by the management and the workers.
An organization that supports moral courage ensures good ethics, which in return, avoids wrongful acts and the sensitivity of unethical behaviors that would affect the policies and regulations laid by management. A healthcare administrator will transform the organizational culture to one that supports the foundation of success and support daily ethics-rooted operations. However, building an organization culture rooted in ethics is a challenging job and requires a leader who is strong and morally courageous. This kind of an organization always has the support it needs from its key stakeholders and the society as a whole. An organization that does not encourage moral courage towards unethical issues makes it staff to shy away from doing the right thing. The workers are willing to compromise their personal expertise standards fearing the risks of displaying moral courage. The staff members prefer to define unethical behaviors as acceptable. Groupthink among workers facilitates unethical practices in which they think the unethical behavior is acceptable and ignores independent thinking (Nelson, Taylor & Walsh, 2014, p.160). In this kind of an organization, there are several complaints and a lot of dissatisfaction with the decision made by the institutions.
In conclusion, moral courage requires self-regulation and self-discipline. However, as a leader, one should strive to set an example for the colleagues and subordinates hence creating an organization culture that endorses moral courage.
References
Dinndorf-Hogenson, G. A. (2015). Moral Courage in Practice: Implications for Patient Safety. Journal of Nursing Regulation, 6(2), 10-16.
Murray, J. S. (2010). Moral courage in healthcare: Acting ethically even in the presence of risk. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 15(3).
Nelson, W. A., Taylor, E., & Walsh, T. (2014). Building an Ethical Organizational Culture. The Health Care Manager, 33(2), 158-164. doi:10.1097/hcm.0000000000000008
