A Case Study About Healthcare Leadership

A Case Study About Healthcare Leadership Effective leadership is essential in health care organisations as in other organisations. It is necessary for driving innovation, effective patient care, patient safety, improving working within clinical teams, sorting out issues within emergency context and other aspects necessary for effective and efficient running of healthcare organisations. Transformational leadership has often been prescribed as the ‘gold standard’ of healthcare leadership(Gopee and Galloway 2009).This essay sets out to: briefly discuss the concept of leadership; highlight why leadership is important in healthcare; make a distinction between the closely-related concepts of leadership and management; briefly highlight how power relates to leadership; describe some leadership approaches applicable within the context of healthcare organisations; describe leadership styles visible in healthcare; present a case study set in a teaching hospital practice setting in Africa ; critically assess the leadersh ip approaches operating within the setting and its effect on organisational performance ;and make recommendations on improving leadership practice within the specified setting. What is leadership? Leadership can be defined as â€Å"the ability of an individual to influence a group of people to achieve a goal(Bryman 1992).It is also noted that ‘leadership can have four possible meanings, namely: the activity of leading; the body of people who lead a group; the status of the leader; and the ability to lead'(Gopee and Galloway 2009). Kouzes and Posner (2007) suggest some characteristics of an effective leader namely to: be more effective in meeting job-related demands; be more successful in representing their units in upper management; create higher performing teams; foster renewed loyalty and commitment; increase motivational levels and willingness to work hard; and possess high degree of personal integrity. Why leadership in healthcare? Effective leadership and management has been found to contribute to efficiency of health care services, performance (McColl-Kennedy and Anderson 2002) and satisfaction of staff employed within them.(Bradley and Alimo-Metcalfe 2008) researched the causal relationship between leadership behaviours and the performance and productivity of staff and found that ‘engaging leadership’ improved employee engagement and performance. (Morrison, Jones et al. 1997) studied the relationship between leadership style, empowerment, and job satisfaction on nursing staff at a regional medical centre. They used Bass’s Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire to measure leadership style, items from Spreitzer’s Psychological Empowerment instrument to measure empowerment, and the Warr, Cook, and Wall’s job satisfaction questionnaire to measure job satisfaction. The authors found that both transformational and transactional leadership were positively associated with job satisfaction. Some other researchers reported t hat good leadership skills impacted on patient safety and quality of care (Corrigan, Lickey et al. 2000; Firth-Cozens and Mowbray 2001; Mohr, Abelson et al. 2002).Furthermore, leadership skills are essential in the world of public health policy and leadership is one of the core competencies required of public health trainees(Faculty of Public Health 2010). Leadership versus management Relevant to this discourse is making a distinction between leadership and management. They are two similar but distinct concepts. Management is seen as seeking order and maintaining stability while leadership is seen as seeking adaptive and constructive change. Leadership in the healthcare context aims to influence practitioners towards the achievement of the common goal of quality patient care. On the other hand, management as a process coordinates and directs the activities of an organisation to ensure it achieves its set objectives. Management ensures healthcare resources (human such as doctors, nur ses and clerical staff and non-human resources like medical devices and consumables) are utilised in an efficient way whilst delivering effective healthcare service(Gopee and Galloway 2009). However, leadership is known to be complementary to management (Kotter 1999; Zaleznik 2004).

Discovering Statistics Using SPSS Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Discovering Statistics Using SPSS - Assignment Example The data for this report was collected using a standardized questionnaire. The questionnaire contained three sets of questions. The first set comprised 21 separate questions concerning five dimensions of service quality. Sub-questions 1 through 6 focused on tangible elements of the service. Sub Questions 20 and 21 measured the empathy dimension, whilst 16 through 19 measured the assurance dimension. Questions 7, 10,11,12 focused on reliability with 8, 9, 13,14,15 measuring responsiveness. These questions followed a similar format to previous research in this field, such that measurement validity was maintained; a 5 point scale was used to allow respondents to rate the service performance. The second set of questions attempted to get the respondents to weight the importance they attached to each of the five dimensions of service quality. The third set of questions were ‘key independent variables’ which measured respondent characteristics. These allowed us to ascertain the demographics of the sample and facilitate analysis of variance later. The questionnaire was pre†tested for face validity with potential users of the sports center. There were no problems with face validity and the questionnaire was deemed to be reliable. The sampling method took the form of a probability sample of students at the University in question. The sampling frame was composed of the email addresses of all students. Using simple random sampling a sample size of 200 was deemed appropriate † with the potential sampling error of 9%. The research used a structured questionnaire which is characterized by a diverse scales; the questionnaire was divided into three categories. The first questionnaire was determined to assess the service quality of the sports center; the results obtained on a five-point Linkert scale. The second part of the questionnaire attempted to evaluate the most important sports’ services and facilities according to the views of the students; the importance was measured on a scale of one-hundred percent.

Love - Culture, Technology, and Entertainment Essay

Love - Culture, Technology, and Entertainment - Essay Example d, when a talk show, a movie or a song are not entertaining then they have little chance of influencing culture on the people who either watched or listened. Additionally, since entertainment involves showing what is popular with people this helps in defining culture. The interesting nature of any form of entertainment greatly defines the culture of people who come across this form of entertainment. It can be stated in a different argument that themes in any form of entertainment are cultural (Cheok, 2010). Technology is hugely beneficial not only to entertainment, but also the entertainment industry as a whole. For instance, through technology, it is possible to produce high quality movies or record high quality songs. The most employed form of technology in the entertainment industry is computer technology. Application of computers in the entertainment industry has made production and distribution of any form of entertainment effective and efficient. Taking production of movies into consideration, there are advanced computer software, which are used in the production process, known as the green screen. Through the green screen, movie producers can impose non-existing images or features in a movie. Technology is also beneficial to the music entertainment in the production process. Music producers use computer software to create instrumentals instead of the traditional way of playing musical instruments. Manipulation of vocals is also possible through computer software, which brings ab out voice clarity. The other area in which technology has highly become beneficial is in the distribution process. In this case, the internet has proved to be very useful. Whether the entertainment is in the form of audio of video, its distribution to customers through the internet is very efficient. The internet has made buying and selling of any form of entertainment faster, since customers can pay for a song or a movie online and thereafter download it on their personal computers.