Healthcare Staff Training on Leadership Skills

Background

Transformational leaders are influential, intellectual, humble, and have a vision. The influential leader is a role model who inspires trust. The intellectual leader is fearless and has the ability to take risks. Leaders have humility and problem-solve to ensure the mission of the organization is kept in mind. They also work to ensure their coworkers are valued. Transformational leaders focus on the shared vision of the organization and promote a shared culture to show unity within the team.

The leader who focuses on transforming the organization to find ways to ensure others’ work is recognized and appreciated. Leaders should know enough about the organizational processes to be able to be innovative with new processes to ensure the efficiencies of the nursing unit. Transformational leaders focus on being able to develop, innovate, inspire others, create trust, and look to the future.

Leaders and managers use these principles for the development of effective leaders use these principles.

Effective leaders must be able to have the support of those in the organization and have followers. These followers expect the leader to know the expectations and be innovative. According to Drucker (2017), effective leaders follow eight practices including:

Ask what needs to be done
Ask what’s right for the enterprise
Develop action plans
Take responsibility for decisions
Take responsibility for communicating
Focus on opportunities, not problems
Run productive meetings
Think and say “we” not “I” (pp. 1-2)

It is through effective leaders and managers that innovative changes are made and the organization is able to thrive. Nurse leaders and managers look at ways to improve the organization and develop their teams. A transformational leader, who has a vision, is influential, intellectual, and humble. The transformational leader can be a manager.

What are effective delegation, supervision, and prioritization?

The effective delegation, supervision, and prioritization are essential to improve outcomes in an organization. Nurse leaders and managers must understand the process to ensure they are following the state rules and regulations and improving client outcomes. The nurse leader and manager must clearly understand the supervision, prioritization, and delegation process used in the healthcare setting in order to improve client outcomes.

Delegation Process

According to the National Guidelines for Nursing Delegation from the National Council of State Board of Nursing (2015), the “delegation process is multifaceted” (para. 2). This process begins “with decisions made at the administrative level of the organization and extends to the staff responsible for delegating, overseeing the process, and performing the responsibilities” (para.2). Delegation includes communicating that empowers staff to make effective clinical judgments. The nurse manager or leader ensures the nurse or unlicensed assistive personnel (UAP) has the appropriate knowledge and skills. It is important to note that the nurse leader, nurse and delegate are all responsible for understanding the delegation process. As a nurse, you will need to identify the delegation process for the rules and regulations in the state where you work and understand the nurse practice act in your state.

As a nurse leader, you also need to understand the terms related to delegation.

Assignment means the nursing care activities and procedures that fall within the roles of the level of the nurse’s scope of practice.

A delegator is a nurse who delegates a nursing responsibility to another nurse and is responsible to know if the delegatee is within the scope of practice and competent to perform the assignment.

A delegate is a nurse who has accepted a nursing responsibility within the scope of practice and is competent to perform.

There are five “rights” to delegation. These include the following (NCSBN, 2016):

• Right task: The nurse must identify the right task assigned to the client.
• Right circumstance: The right circumstance includes the resources that are available in the appropriate client setting.
• Right person: The appropriate person is to perform the task on the correct client.
• Right directions and communication: For the right directions and communication, the delegator and delegatee must be able to communicate what is needed and provide expectations.
• Right supervision and evaluation: Finally, the right supervision requires the delegator to monitor the activity, and evaluate and intervene if needed during the activity. The delegator also provides feedback to the delegatee.

According to the NCSBN, these rights are an essential component of making delegation decisions. The nurse leader is responsible to understand the delegation process to ensure safely delegating nursing activities.

Supervision

Supervision is the process of ensuring that the nurse being delegated responsibility is able to perform the task. The delegator must ensure the delegatee is compliant with the standards of practice. The delegator and delegatee must know the scope of practice and ensure the nurse is able to complete the task. The delegator must watch the delegate perform the skill for the first time, and longer if needed to ensure the task was completed appropriately. It is the responsibility of both to ensure the tasks fall appropriately within the scope of the nurse being assigned the activity.

Prioritization

Prioritization requires understanding the priorities for safe effective client care. This priority setting requires the nursing professional to think about what they need to do first. Prioritizing nursing care requires the ability to categorize the urgency and importance of assignments to ensure safe care. The nurse needs to identify the priority nursing action, what the nurse should do first, and what is the best action for the nurse.

Prioritization of client care requires the nurse to identify the client who should be seen first out of your assigned clients. As a leader, you will be determining the nurses to assign the clients. Additionally, you will be identifying the acuity of the patients as best as possible, to ensure each nurse has an equal amount of patients that are not high level. Understanding how to prioritize client care and assignments is an essential skill for nurse leaders and managers.

Understanding the delegation, supervision, and prioritization process assist leaders with guiding a team to improve outcomes. The leadership and management implications of effective delegation require knowledge of guiding, mentoring, the nurses and advocating safe client care. Leaders and managers are responsible to help the organization be accountable for the delegation process, supervision of care, and prioritizing the care of clients.

Understanding the delegation, supervision, and prioritization process assist leaders with guiding a team to improve outcomes. The leadership and management implications of effective delegation require knowledge of guiding, mentoring, the nurses and advocating safe client care. Leaders and managers are responsible to help the organization be accountable for the delegation process, supervision of care, and prioritizing the care of clients.

“Many companies hire professional trainers to tackle employee learning and development, despite training being a core management responsibility. The problem with cutting managers out of the training process is twofold. Firstly, their insights about the employees on their team remain untapped. Secondly, managers can’t fully leverage training benefits when they don’t have input into which skills are developed, and how. Another reason to make managers a vital part of the process when you train employees is to empower them to support employees after the training program ends. Active post-training support is crucial to achieving real behavioral change and performance improvement” (Andriotis, 2018).

There are five methods to assure the staff’s involvement in the training.

Setting the example: Managers can set the example by demonstrating how the training helped them to achieve their goals. This way, the junior staff will be more encouraged in participating the training. For example, the nursing leader can share their own experience in the field and what skills they gained during the training session.

Offering a deeper insight: Nurse leaders are advised to provide relevant information to their employees regarding the requirements of the skills they will gain during the training. By evaluating the job market and future opportunities that will become available for the staff, employers encourage nurses to be involved in the training.

Highlighting the value of employee development: It is imperative for managers to explain that they value the development of their employees. Nurse leaders need to communicate with the junior staff and assist them when the latter have difficulties progressing their careers. Employees’ growth should be portrayed as a top priority so that the staff will fully participate in the training.

Creating opportunities for practice: Nurses need to have various opportunities to apply their new skills in the workplace. For example, this training aims to develop leadership skills; therefore, managers must provide workshops where the junior staff can demonstrate their level of understanding of delegation, supervision, and prioritization.

Setting goals: The management is responsible for setting adequate and achievable goals for the staff The training should be constructed as a tool for achieving these goals. Managers’ role is to help the employees identify the areas of development. Nurses need to understand that the goals after the training need to be higher. Moreover, their performance and advancement opportunities rely on their training activity.

Reference

Andriotis, Nikos. (2018). 5 reasons managers should improve employee engagement and training. eFront. Web.

Drucker, P. F. (2017). What Makes an Effective Executive (Harvard Business Review Classics). Harvard Business Review Press. Web.

National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN). (2016). National guidelines for nursing delegation. Journal of Nursing Regulation, 7(1), 5–14. Web.