Maccoby et al. (2013) identify health care needs to develop fresh leaders and improve practices. Health care leaders often are chosen by their seniority status within the organization rather than their potential to create learning. The status quo of services and climate of the institution remains unchanged. However, seniority is not a leading indicator of success as a leader. Leadership is a continuous learning process (Kerfoot, 2003). Leadership skills can be taught (Sherring, 2012; Maccoby et al., 2013). Leadership is about the business of serving the population of interest.
The organizational culture affects the leadership style. This is complex at many levels within health care organizations (Sherring, 2012). However, nursing must reach leadership positions and many nurses in entry-level leadership positions leave the organization before they reach their leadership potential (Swearingen, 2009). Some organizations are more successful in influencing leadership, such as Mayo Clinic (Upenieks, 2002).
The nursing shortage presents a need to retain employees who can commit to deliver quality patient care (Swearingen, 2009). Nurse turnover is in direct relation to leadership style rather than the institution itself (Swearingen, 2009). Formation of nursing leadership requires hard work but not necessarily cost because nurses already have the responsibility of quality patient care (Swearingen, …show more content…
Leaders must have the ability to question consistency of methods in health care systems. Kerfoot (2003) utilizes the Columbia Shuttle disaster to acknowledge leadership instincts that an underlying problem may need review to avoid loss of an unforeseen nature. Kerfoot (2003) calls the unforeseen, weak signals that can change the culture of a health care organization. These weak signals in health care need attention from leadership to prevent patient deaths, safety errors, and high nursing turnover rates and acknowledge changes need to occur. Health care organizations are moving from a failure to rescue people mentality to establishing improvement tools to create an environment of trust and safety (Kerfoot, 2003). The volume of changes in health care is overwhelming for a single individual to navigate and systems must develop to elevate patient care (Porter-O’Grady,