Leadership Influences Nursing Practice

How Leadership Influences Nursing Practice

In today’s health care system, nursing performance is centered on quality of care, which is largely measured by patient outcomes and organizational goal achievement (Kramer et al 2007). Nursing performance is vital to quality patient outcomes therefore nursing managers and leaders should enhance their nurse’s performance by understanding the factors that affect their ability and motivation to perform (McLennan 2011).

The nurse’s professional regulatory bodies and health care organizations expect nurses to perform their roles and responsibilities as they have been designated to them, however, the health care organizations are responsible to provide the necessary means for the nurses to fulfil their

According to Edgar (2009) study, strong communication among nurses and their leaders is important in establishing trusting relationships which in turn lead to effective nurse performance. Open communication optimizes patient care as it encourages cooperation and collaboration among nurses and their

(2007) findings suggest that, nurse leaders should appropriately manage workplace resources to foster positive outcomes. Nurse leaders are responsible for creating a work environment where nurses have the resources to manage their workload. Nurses who have access to information and resources have increased perceived work effectiveness. The availability of resources combined with skills and knowledge allow the nurse to provide high quality patient care McLennan (2011).

Nurse characteristics are defined by personality traits of commitment to work and self, hardness and ambiguity as well as the ability to welcome and cope with new challenges Cummings (2010). Research findings indicate that, nurses can effectively deal with turbulent work environment because they perceive the environment as not threatening but challenging. These new challenges motivates the nurse to seek and provide quality care to patients.

According to McNeese (2007), leaders practices have a great influence on their staff members performance and thus the behaviors they utilize can make a difference in employee outcomes. Leaders are expected to have clear guiding principles through a modelling behavior that allows them to earn employee respect (Kramer et al 2007). Supportive manager behaviors are viewed by nurses as contributing factors to healthy productive work environment that enables them to perform better (Kramer et al