Nursing Theories and Other Disciplines

The notion that, “Nursing should not ‘borrow’ theories from other disciplines” is a misguided perspective. Among the most noticeable areas where nursing has borrowed heavily from other disciplines is on leadership. The leadership theory that is commonly adopted in nursing is the transformational leadership theory. The theory entails the adoption of leadership that creates a positive change among the followers and where the leaders and followers take care of each other’s interest. The concept was developed by James Macgregor Burns in 1978 following a research on political leaders. Transformational leadership has been described as a style that can enhance motivation, morals, and performance of followers through different mechanisms. The transformational leadership has four components namely; charisma or idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, personal and individual attention (Odumeru & Ogbonna, 2013).

It has been noted that traditionally, nurses had indicated that they had been over-managed and led inadequately despite facing unprecedented challenges and opportunities (Doody & Doody, 2012). Transformation leadership has been essential in assisting healthcare facilities tackle these challenges by offering an adaptive and flexible leadership. Leadership style has been noted to largely affect the performance of nurses directly with possible positive and negative effects. For instance, it has been associated with staff turnover. This leadership style adopted in the healthcare facility is noted to be a source of distress for nurses, which is noted to have an adverse influence on the quality of working life for nurses (Lin, MacLennan, Hunt, & Cox, 2015). Developing a transformational nursing leadership is considered to be an alternative organizational approach to enhance nurse performance and promote better patient care outcomes.

In my current area of practice, I have experienced the application of transformation leadership. In the healthcare facility, there was a change in nurses’ administration. The new nurse manager was determined to improve the workplace conditions. Before taking the job, the working environment was characterized by low job satisfaction and high turnover rates. A year after taking over the leadership position, the situation had changed and the nurses seemed motivated to carry out their duties and it is clear that the job turnover has reduced. The nurse manager adopted the transformational leadership theory, which influenced the quality of the working life of nurses. The nurse manager had managed to develop and maintain a harmonious relationship with the entire team of nurses.  

Importance of Increased Nursing Collaboration with Other Disciplines

Interprofessional collaboration takes place when two or more professions work together with an aim of achieving common goals especially in solving different problems and complex issues (Green & Johnson, 2015). Collaboration is essential in a different aspect of health such as patient advocacy and healthcare collaboration, collaborative learning, interprofessional collaboration in practice, and healthcare value collaborations. Collaboration in healthcare has been indicated to assist improve the patient outcomes such as minimizing the preventable adverse drug reactions, reduce morbidity and mortality rate, and optimize medication dosages (Bosch & Mansell, 2015).

Among the most effective collaboration is with the discipline of leadership. Effective leadership of healthcare professional is essential in strengthening quality and integration of care. Leadership styles have been noted to be strongly correlated with quality care. It has been indicated that leadership is an important element to attaining a well-coordinated and integrated provision of care for both patients and healthcare professionals (Sfantou, Laliotis, Patelarou, Sifaki, Matalliotakis, & Patelarou, 2017). It is clear that transformation is connected to better patient outcomes by promoting greater nursing expertise by achieving staff stability and reduced turnover.

References

Bosch, B., & Mansell, H. (2015). Interprofessional collaboration in health care: Lessons to be learned from competitive sports. Canadian Pharmacists Journal/Revue des Pharmaciens du Canada, 148(4), 176-179.

Doody, O., & Doody, C. M. (2012). Transformational leadership in nursing practice. British Journal of Nursing, 21(20), 1212-1218.

Green, B. N., & Johnson, C. D. (2015). Interprofessional collaboration in research, education, and clinical practice: working together for a better future. Journal of Chiropractic Education, 29(1), 1-10.

Lin, P. Y., MacLennan, S., Hunt, N., & Cox, T. (2015). The influences of nursing transformational leadership style on the quality of nurses’ working lives in Taiwan: a cross-sectional quantitative study. BMC Nursing, 14(1), 33.

Odumeru, J. A., & Ogbonna, I. G. (2013). Transformational vs. transactional leadership theories: Evidence in literature. International Review of Management and Business Research, 2(2), 355.

Sfantou, D. F., Laliotis, A., Patelarou, A. E., Sifaki-Pistolla, D., Matalliotakis, M., & Patelarou, E. (2017). Importance of Leadership Style towards Quality of Care Measures in Healthcare Settings: A Systematic Review. Healthcare, 5(4), 1-17.