Kmgt 633 Business Leadership: Role Assessment Answers

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Answer:

Introduction

Healthcare sector has been going through major reforms in the western world. The leaders and managers have been consistently looking for ways to develop an effective healthcare system that offers quality services to the patients at reduced cost. The stakeholders have worked hard to determine innovative ways to serve the patients at low cost (Mason, 2017). With the increasing chronic diseases the hospitals have been compelled to look for ways to make the patients at ease during the entire process of treatment (Budryk, 2017). The hospitals have evolved their services with the changing diseases and consumer lifestyle. The patients do not just look forward to receive treatment from the hospital, instead, he looks forward to receive warm welcome from the entire team. The patient is already traumatized by the affected disease and therefore, visits the hospital with the intention to receive emotional support from the doctor, consultant, technicians, nurses and rest of the hospital staff members (Deloitte, 2017). Thus, offering satisfactory and fulfilling services to the patients has become the need of the hour for hospitals. The leaders and managers have been consistently thriving to improving their existing processes to offer highest level of services to the patients.

Leadership and management play a crucial role to maintain the quality standards of hospitals. The leaders take in charge to direct the workforce towards a common goal by arousing the sense of purpose among them. The managers, on the other hand, are more involved into planning, budgeting and organizing to increase the productivity of the organization.

The report would thus, make an attempt to introspect the roles and responsibilities of leadership and management in healthcare sector so as to understand its impact on performance of the hospitals. The report would focus on effective skills required by managers and leaders and the factors that should be considered for recruitment and selection process.

Roles and Responsibilities of Leadership and Management

Management and leadership are the most crucial components of healthcare industry. Managers are responsible for setting SMART objectives for the employees. SMART objectives are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound goals that provide direction to the employees of the hospital. The main responsibility of the manager is to increase the productivity of the employees through continuous support and motivation. Thus, a manager thrives consistently to utilize the resources of the hospital in the most effective manner so as to reduce the cost of the organization. The managers play a key role in affecting the performance of employees through strategic decision making and appraisal system. Further, it is the duty of the manager to bring all the employees on a single platform to achieve common objective.

According to Moore, there are four management approaches that include traditional bureaucracy, new public management, clan model and professionalism (Baker, 2011). The traditional bureaucracy focuses on clear structure, chains of command and clear accountability for performance. The new public management focuses on performance management. Clan model involves motivation through sense of identity. The professionalism model believes that employees work best when they are empowered and their activities are not closely monitored.

Mintzberg classified manager role into three categories of informational, interpersonal and decisional. The informational role involves monitoring, communication of information to the external sources (Hodhetts, 2011). Interpersonal role involves management of social and legal duties and liaison with other corporations that would be beneficial for the hospital. The decisional role comprises of forming creative ideas to begin with new projects. The role also includes conflict management among the employees by solving the disputes or issues that have arisen among the employees.

Leadership has been a debatable concept among the various scholars. Leadership concept revolves around ideas, creativity and vision. True leaders give a direction to a team through their influential skills. They motivate the team by arousing a sense of common purpose. It has been recognized as one of the crucial component in healthcare industry as the stakeholders continue to improve services of hospitals through their innovative approaches. The major leadership styles recognized by scholars for hospital are transformational and charismatic. Transformational leadership style involves influencing the followers through string conviction and ideas whereas Charismatic leadership style is considered as a divine gift to the leader, who speaks to people through charismatic personality to persuade the followers (West et al, 2015). Transformational leadership style is the most commonly used leadership style in the hospital industry. Transformational leaders are highly influential personalities with strong conviction and visionary skills. The leaders have been defined to have inspirational maturation, intellectual stimulation, idealized influence and individualized consideration. In the changing business environment, leadership has become an essential phenomenon and the managers are not just expected to manage rather they are also entrusted with the responsibility to lead the team.

Thus, the major roles of manager could be encompassed within the following key factors:

Staff Supervision

The managers play a significant role in guiding and supervising the clinical staff including technicians, nurses, housekeeping, front desk and back end (Hodhetts, 2011). The managers layout instructions for the employees through policies and rules and regulations. This way employees are able to imbibe the culture of the organization to carry out their roles and responsibilities effectively. The staff in a hospital requires consistent supervision of their managers in order to handle critical situations. The managers closely monitors and assess the activities of the employees to guide them. The managers design the job descriptions and roles and responsibilities that have to be carried out by the employees.

Apart from continuous support, the managers are also involved in carrying out induction and training for the new employees. The induction and training program facilitate the employees to imbibe the culture of the organization. The managers make sure that the new employees understand the rules and regulations of hospitals. They are strictly trained to prioritize patients to deliver quality services.

Further, managers also play an important role in training & development of the employees. The managers assess the need and requirement of the training program after evaluating the skills of the employees and gaining an insight of industrial requirements. The managers conduct training for safety requirements of patients, patient handling and critical care management to ensure quality services. Further, in case of arrival of new technology, the employees are trained with the latest and advanced technology.

Decision Making

Decision making is the most crucial and important aspect of management. The managers are always involved in decision making to develop strategies for reducing operational cost and enhancing customer services. Their role is to analyze the satisfaction level of the patients through continuous feedback and survey so as to evaluate the service quality of hospital (Hodhetts, 2011). After assessing the customer feedback, the managers develop strategies to improve the quality standards.

Conflict Management

Conflicts are most likely to arise among the employees in an organization. The employees may have group conflicts due to competition or individual conflicts due to personal issues. It is the responsibility of the manager to resolve the conflicts among the employees. The manager may conduct meetings and discussion to resolve the group conflicts. One to one counseling session may be held in case an employee is going through depression due to family issues and challenges (Hodhetts, 2011). The manager may offer a hand of support to the employees so as to satisfy them emotionally.  

Motivation and Performance Management

Motivation plays a vital role to enhance the performance of employees. Critical incidents are most likely to arise in a hospital. Employees in a hospital may get distracted and depressed when they encounter critical incidents. Thus, they seek constant motivation from their managers to continue with their roles and responsibilities in an effective manner. The managers motivate them in order to increase their performance. Several motivational theories have been introduced by the scholars to construe an effective method of motivation. According to X and Y theory of McGregor, X theory states that when the employees are not motivated to carry out their roles and responsibilities, authoritarian style is the best management approach for the manager (Kopelman, Prottas and Davis, 2008). On the other hand, Y theory states that when employees are determined to carry out their roles and responsibilities and are committed towards their job, then transformational style is the most effective leadership style.

Thus, the managers must understand their employees’ attitude and behavior so as to devise a suitable leadership style for them that could enhance their performance.

Developing Efficient Recruitment And Selection Process 

Recruitment and selection process is one of the essential components of an organization. It helps to source the most competitive employees for the healthcare organization. Employees are the key assets of a hospital. The quality and level of service standard is determined by the efficiency and core competencies of the employees. An effective recruitment and selection process ensures that the right people with right blend of skills are selected for the organization that is essential to achieve the goals and objectives of the organization (Elsevier, 2008).

A job description designs the roles and responsibilities for the lab technicians, nursing staff, doctors, housekeeping staff, administration and accountants. A well documented job description would minimize the redundancy and eliminate ambiguity regarding the work profiles of the employees. The employees would be pre informed about their roles and responsibilities that they are suppose to carry out within the organization. Apart from day to day operational activities, job description also strategically aligns the hospitals staff with the goals and objectives of the organization. This facilitates the employees in decision making process during critical incidents so as to maintain the image of the organization.

Job contract is designed and developed by managers so as to create an agreement that is beneficial for both employees and organization. It determines the tenure of employees, their timings, instructions, policies (leave policy, exit policy) and other guidance necessary for the employees.

A manager effectively designs and creates recruitment and selection process, job description and contract in order maintain discipline in the hospital. The manager must consider the following factors while developing the process and contract:

1. Consider values and mission of the hospital

The manager must consider the goals and objectives of the hospital while recruiting the candidates. The candidates must be able to address the needs of patients and families on priority in a dignified manner. Thus, the candidate must have the skills and abilities that go along with the values and mission of the hospital as they are the face of hospital for the patients. They must be able to handle the critical care and emergency patients very well by calming and soothing the patients and their families. They should be able to take along the patients through the process of application, admission, diagnosis, treatment and delivering of the reports.

Further, the roles and responsibilities within the job description must also be designed in a manner such that the goals of the organization are met. The patient handling, quality of services and timely delivery services should be the agenda of the job description.

The job contract must also be developed by considering the benefits of employees and hospital (Gosfield, 2014).

1. Equal employment opportunity

Every employee has the right to live with dignity and enjoy equal employment opportunity in the organizations. This creates fairness and ethical practices in an organization and the employees become more dedicated towards their jobs. The manager of the hospital should take care of this by recruiting candidates from all walks of life independent of their caste, creed, religion, nationality, origin and race.

1. Confidentiality

Confidentiality is of utmost importance in recruitment and selection process. The manager must ensure that no information leaks outside the selection panel to ensure a fair process within the system.

A contract is an agreement between the hospital and the candidate selected by the organization. The contract is designed to bring the two parties on common terms and agreements that could include remuneration, tenure, conduct of employee and other details (Pract, 2006). It is the responsibility of the manager and employee both to maintain the confidentiality so as to not create any conflict among the other employees of the hospital.

1. Purpose and Scope

The recruitment process must have a defined purpose and scope. The manager must identify the requirement for the suitable position in the hospital so as to design the appropriate job description for the candidate. After the candidate has been selected, there must be an induction process to brief the candidate about the rules and regulations of the hospital. Each and every new employee should be inducted according to his expected performance and department.

5. Compensation and Benefits

The candidates are generally motivated by the remuneration and benefits of the organization. The manager must develop effective remuneration policies so as to hire the best pool of doctors, physicians, technicians, nurses. The benefit policy must include leave time, health insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, malpractice insurance, retirement plan, paid expenses and other allowances (Today’s Hospitalist, 2006).

Teamwork and Collaboration

Multidisciplinary and multi agencies play a significant role within a hospital. The consultants have their roles and responsibilities that could vary according to the healthcare environment (O’Leary et al, 2011). There should be an effective communication between the consultants and the hospitals so as to reduce ambiguity and redundancies (Nyberg, 2017). The doctors or physicians working in multidisciplinary and multi agencies must demonstrate their competency at work through their effective supervision and staff management. In case of arising any conflict, they must report to their authorities or the governing body to ensure good standard of care to the patients (General Medical Counsel, 2013). There must be established lines of accountability to ensure individual attention to the patients; line of management authority for employees and responsibility to ensure quality standards of the hospital.

Further, there must be collaboration and effective communication among the professionals of the hospital. A patient may interact with more than 50 employees of the hospital in his 4 day stay that could include physicians, nurses, doctors, lab technicians and others. Since there are numerous interfaces involved in patients delivery process and the patient could encounter different care practitioners during his hospital visit for the treatment. In order to maintain the quality standards of hospital services, the employees should be able to accurately communicate the critical information of patients (Hughes, 2008). If the professionals and other team members do not communicate effectively then patient’s life is put under great risk because of lack of critical information, miscommunication, unclear communication on phone and overlooked status.

Collaboration in healthcare ensures that the professionals and other team members work in collaboration by cooperating with each other where they share their responsibility through complementary roles. The manager must consider the following strategies in hospital to ensure teamwork and collaboration among the professionals:

1. Strict Policies and Instructions

The hospital must have appropriate policies that put their patients first at any cost and the service standard is not compromised. The professionals must know when to handle the situation and when to consult the senior authorities in case of a critical care incident in the hospital (General Pharmaceutical Council of Spain, 2015).

1. Defined Processes and Systems

When a patient enters the hospital, he must go through a series of process that could include application, admission, diagnosis and others. The processes would ensure data collection of the patient which would be further forwarded to the doctor, physicians, nurses or other staff members for diagnosis or treatment.

1. Effective Communication and Teamwork

The professionals must be able to communicate with each other through forms, files, records of patients and other protocols of the hospital to maintain the integrity of the hospital.

Conclusion

The report has successfully analyzed the roles and responsibilities of manager in a healthcare organization. A manager is involved into decision making, conflict handling, supervising, motivating and performance management to increase the productivity of the organization. He also has to consistently maintain the service standard of the organization through effective recruitment and corporate policies. Further, he has to consider several factors while developing recruitment & selection process, job description and contract for the candidates that include organizational vision & values, confidentiality, purpose & scope, equal employment opportunity and compensation & benefits.

The manager is also involved in developing strategies to ensure collaboration among multidisciplinary and multi agencies. Strict policies, defined processes and effective communication & teamwork ensures collaboration among the professionals.

References 

Baker, G.R. (2011). The roles of leaders in high-performing health care systems. The King’s Fund. Available at: https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/files/kf/Roles-of-leaders-high-performing-health-care-systems-G-Ross-Baker-Kings-Fund-May-2011.pdf [Accessed Online 12 April 2017].

Budryk, Z. (2017). The changing role of leadership in healthcare. Fierce Healthcare. Available at: https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/special-report/changing-role-leadership-healthcare [Accessed Online 13 April 2017].