(Author)
Abstract
Motivation is a psychological feature that helps nurses in achieving their desired goals, and good leaders can help in motivating nurses. There are different types of leadership styles that can help in motivation such as transactional, transformational, and situational leadership. Understanding leadership styles can help in becoming better leaders and improving relationships with others in the field. According to the Department of Health, clinical leadership involves motivation, inspiration, empowerment, promotion of the values of National Health Services, and consistent focus on patients. Nurses are very important for patients and newborns in NICU, so it is very important to motivate nurses to have a good work and motivate people to join the nursing profession. In the field of nursing, workload and burnout can result in stress that can decrease the efficiency of nurses. In order to improve efficiency and productivity, they need motivation provided by clinical leaders. This paper describes some motivational factors and leadership concepts involved in nursing profession.
Introduction
Nursing leader is a person, who guides or motivates other people in the nursing profession, and related health-care fields, to accomplish their goal of proper health-care. Efficient leadership can help in achieving the unity of staff that is important for the success of every health-care project. Top-level leadership in any project can help in managing a shared vision (Ash, Stavri, & Kuperman, 2003). However, every organization has to know that only leaders are not able to bring positive changes in an organization; they usually require the help of other people and this can be achieved by motivating health-care professionals such as nurses.
Nursing motivation is not only helpful for leaders but it is also important for health-care profession, which is one of the most important professions for good life. Moreover, motivation is also important for organizations and their employees to survive and succeed.
Leadership concepts
Leadership, in general, can be defined as “a multifaceted process of identifying a goal, motivating other people to act, and providing support and motivation to achieve mutually negotiated goals” (Porter-O'Grady, 2003). In clinical practice, leadership can be defined as “direct involvement in clinical care while constantly influencing others to improve the care they provide” (Cook, 1999). According to the Department of Health, clinical leadership involves motivation, inspiration, empowerment, promotion of the values of National Health Services, and consistent focus on patients (Giltinane, 2013).
Transactional leadership is a concept in leadership style in which leaders offer rewards in return of good work for compliance. It can positively affect the performance and satisfaction of employees. However, this style of leadership is task-oriented and can result in the completion of tasks by nurses at any cost rather than proper care of patients. This leadership style can also result in the development of strict environment with huge pressure on nurses (Giltinane, 2013).
Transformational leadership is another concept in leadership style in which leaders work on the potential of personnel or followers and try to satisfy their higher needs such as self-esteem. This leadership helps followers to act beyond the task and involve them entirely. However, this leadership style can result in less control than transactional (Giltinane, 2013).
Although, best leadership style is not clear (Rolfe, 2011), but organizations can encourage situational leadership, i.e. change in leadership styles in different situations (Grimm, 2010). Understanding leadership styles can help in becoming better leaders and improving relationships with other professionals in the field (Giltinane, 2013).
Most effective leaders have a good level of emotional intelligence that is the ability of leaders to control the effect of emotions in relationship with others. Better emotional awareness can help leaders in understanding not only their own feelings but also the feelings and emotions of their followers (Giltinane, 2013). They are also helpful to others in visualizing the future. They can inspire their staff to become more dynamic and productive in their tasks.
Nursing leadership can help in achieving the goals of health-care. Usually, powers of leaders are acquired informally from other people in the group or community. Nurses with good leadership skills, personality traits, and excellent clinical expertise are thought to become good leaders. Most important personality traits include confidence, courage, purpose, ability to prioritize important things, and ethical fitness (Giltinane, 2013). Moreover, good leaders have good abilities of listening others’ complaints, and they are good in making decisions and coping strategies. People with these qualities are considered to influence the beliefs, thoughts, or characteristics of people.
Good leadership helps in motivating employees, and it is usually supported by good management. Efficient utilization of the overlapping roles of leadership and management can help in solving maximum issues of patients and staff (Jennings, Scalzi, Rodgers III, & Keane, 2007). Among the initial steps in implementation of good leadership is a good level of communication and maximum involvement of nursing and other health-care staff. Good communication can help in understanding each other and knowing different aspects of the organization. Moreover, good leadership can help in achieving most of the obstacles faced by the personnel and the organization.
Leaders can inspire people to join nursing profession by telling that nursing profession is not limited to some specialties such as theatre nursing, pediatric nursing, or management. Now, people can go for a number of other advanced options in nursing profession in which they can advance their career and add value to health-care services. As for example, patients of diabetes, asthma and cardiac problems need proper dosage schedules within a specialized care pathway. This needs proper servicing that is provided by nurses. Moreover, nursing profession is getting broader roles with time that is also expanding opportunities for the coming generation.
Motivation of Nurses
Motivation is a psychological feature that helps people in achieving their desired goals. Present world without nurses would be a very difficult place especially for patients and newborns in NICU, so it is very important to motivate nurses to have a good work and motivate people to join the nursing profession. Research has shown that most of the employees are motivated with the help of challenges at work. Moreover, linking rewards and appreciations to individual performances can also help in motivating employees (Lamb, 2003). Experiences of nurses and their professional development are not only affected by personal aspects but also by work-place environment. Support of colleagues in the nursing environment can also help in achieving a good level of efficiency and motivation (Kuokkanen et al., 2014). Among the other important strategies that can help in motivating employees are effective discipline, fair treatment with employees, restructuring of jobs, and setting of goals related to work. Secure workplace can also help nurses in their motivation (Accel, 2014).
Flexible policies are also important in motivating nurses to work at their best as, for example, flexible timing policies. Approximately 90% of nursing workforce is women (Wright, 2013), and flexible timing can help them a lot in working properly. Such policies show that organizations are considering their employees as humans or resources and not machines or objects. This thing also helps in reducing stress and results in increased loyalty towards organizations.
Nurse empowerment can improve motivational level. Researchers have found that potential of progress in work, job control, and organizational justice could help in nurse empowerment. Staff activity and its development in the field of nursing are significantly affected by organizational justice and the ability to use personal skills. They can help in empowerment and commitment. Nurses with good education have also a good level of feelings about their empowerment than their colleagues. So, experts are of opinion that continuing education in the field of nursing could help in empowering nurses and increasing their productivity. Age is not found to be related to increased empowerment of nursing. However, cultural variation may affect the empowerment. Nurses who are better able to apply their skills at work have more feelings of empowerment than other nurses. Nurses with longer working history are found to have good feelings of empowerment than those with short work histories (Kuokkanen et al., 2014).
In a study, it has been found that high salary and promotions are not able to produce required level of job satisfaction, so it is important to motivate employees in more positive ways to work effectively and productively (Lamb, 2003). Moreover, speaking ill of employees in front of other employees can result in the development of distrusting environment that can result in demotivating employees. Similarly, threats and insults are not helpful in motivating employees. Bullying is an important problem in the modern society and nursing profession. Workload and burnout can result in stress and increased stress can result in decreased productivity of nurses (INMO, 2014). So there must be a proper strategy to reduce these problems.
Concluding Remarks
Issues faced by nursing profession are almost same throughout the world. Moreover, health-care organizations have almost same goals to achieve (INMO, 2014). It is important to note that honor and encouragement of nurses can help in getting the best out of them rather than controlling and regulating them. Good leadership and motivation of nurses can help in solving those issues. They can take each other to higher levels of progresses by overcoming almost all kinds of obstacles. Experts are of opinion that organizational justice is one of the most important factors in maintaining the high level of motivation of nurses, and this can be achieved with good leadership. However, further studies are required in the field of organizational justice as there are few nursing research reports on this topic (Kuokkanen et al., 2014).
References
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