Leadership in Modern Healthcare 1

LEADERSHIP IN MODERN HEALTHCARE

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 Leadership in Modern Healthcare 2

Leadership in Modern Healthcare

Introduction

The success of organizational systems relies primarily on the direction style. As such, the

headship of an organization remains a vital factor in attaining success. Leadership is a skill that

influences the followers in an organization to work enthusiastically towards the anticipated goals

(Neubert, Hunter, & Tolentino 2016). The chief role of great leaders entails creating a vision for

the organization, communicating it to their followers, developing a shared vision, and devising

the means of attaining it. The Servant leadership model was conceptualized by Robert Greenleaf

in 1970 to leverage organizational profits and enhance employee satisfaction (Fields, Thompson,

& Hawkins 2015). The leadership model focuses on offering service to subordinates. He

introduced servant leadership in response to the growing concern that corporate leaders are

increasingly becoming selfish. This paper explores how implementing servant leadership can

leverage organizational profitability and employee motivation in a hospital context.

Robert Greenleaf conceptualized the servant leadership style in 1970 (Molero, Moriano,

& Shaver 2013). Since its development, it has called the attention of numerous scholars and

popular press. Leading organizational management authors have vastly debated on the impacts of

the servant leadership model on corporate profitability and employee satisfaction. For instance,

different authors give it different constructive descriptions. Notably, servant leadership is an art,

a principle-centered leadership, stewardship, choosing service over self-interest, and leadership

in an uncertain time (Neubert, Hunter, & Tolentino 2016). Robert Greenleaf introduced the

concept where he believed that the leader must have the natural feeling to serve others.

Gunnarsdottir (2014) posits that servant leaders concern themselves more with mutual

trust and the willingness to shun self-interest for service. Many scholars have maintained that
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servant leaders must accept the influence by others as well as welcome new challenges and

experiences. Additionally, they perceive change as an opportunity for growth, rather than a threat

to the hierarchical relationship. To establish strategic relationships with their followers, a servant

leader ought to sustain them and maintain honest and transparent communication (Gunnarsdottir

2014). Servant leadership encourages open feedback between the leader and followers.

According to Robert Greenleaf, Servant Leadership is distinguished by two unique features.

First, Servant leaders serve the needs of their members to empower them in realizing their

capabilities. Second, servant leaders endow their followers to aspire and mature into leading

others.

According to Fields, Thompson, and Hawkins (2015), servant leadership involves

universal ethical standards such as trustworthiness, compassion, persuasion, community, and

service. They must build their strengths while addressing weaknesses. This leadership model

takes service first while leading comes second. Sharing responsibility and taking accountability

are the fundamental purposes of a servant leader. Greenleaf emphasizes that servant leaders must

put people first, especially in organizations that have become large, complex, powerful, and

sometimes impersonal (Molero, Moriano, & Shaver 2013).

Servant leadership in the modern healthcare settings provides an avenue for assessing

leadership behaviors as well as the relationship of employee satisfaction against that of patients

(Morteza et al. 2013). A growing body of literature reveals that servant leadership correlates

directly with employees’ satisfaction in today’s healthcare. Researchers assert that leaders in

modern healthcare organizations talk care of multiple patients’ needs. As such, adopting an

effective servant leadership model can leverage their efforts in attaining the vision and the goals.

Applying the concept in a community hospital in the U.S, this section shows how servant
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leadership can impact the hospitals’ dream and the set goals. The vision of the hospital is

enhancing both employees and patients’ satisfaction (Morteza et al. 2013). The goals of the

community hospital entail delivering dedicated patient care and improving patients’ satisfaction.

The community hospital has a total of 1000 employees and 250 physicians on staff.

In a healthcare perspective where people strive to offer patient service, servant leadership

has widely been considered useful. Servant leadership has a connection with various attributes

such as selfless healing, knowledge, persuasion, emotional healing, and organizational

stewardship among others. First, altruistic healing enables leaders to put the interests of others

first. In the community hospital, where the followers’ role entails specifically providing patient

care, servant leadership can play a vital role in effecting this goal. Servant leaders utilize

wisdom, good listening skills, and empathy to create a safe environment for sharing issues

affecting employees such as emotional hardships and trauma.

Persuasion is an important aspect of servant leadership. It describes a leader who uses

logical and conceptual frameworks to influence others. In a healthcare setting where employees

encounter life to scare events, the leaders ought to use professionalism when helping followers in

accepting disheartening outcomes. This way, the manager plays a critical role in building

confidence and empowering the employees to pay attention to deserving patients. When the

employees are well engaged in realizing their potential strengths while addressing their

weaknesses, the result is empowerment that in turn contributes towards the attainment of the

organizational goals.

Employee satisfaction reflects the attitude of workers towards their tasks and the

organization (Williams, Wood, & Ibram 2015). It is the emotional reaction towards the work

environment, which is measurable by comparing results with the organizational expectations. Job
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satisfaction is contingent on internal and external factors. The internal factors depend on an

individual’s discernment and emotive reaction towards the workplace. They include

acknowledgment, advancement, and responsibility. On the other hand, external factors arise from

the organization such as salary, supervision, and working conditions.

Servant leadership strives to understand these factors in a bid to act in a manner that

satisfies them accordingly (Gunnarsdottir 2014). For instance, adopting servant leadership in a

community hospital can help in attaining the triple-aim-format vision of the federal state that

embodies improving the patient’' care while cutting healthcare costs. Servant leaders should

focus on understanding the customers’ needs and guiding the followers towards meeting them.

Thus implementing servant leadership model can help the community to achieve its goals as well

as satisfy its vision.

Robert Greenleaf conceptualized servant leadership to emphasize the importance of

leaders to see themselves as servants first (Grisaffe, VanMeter, & Chonko 2016). Their primary

concern is the growth and welfare of the cohorts. For this reason, implementing the leadership

model in the community hospital can enhance the attainment of the set goals and the vision in

some ways. First, Servant leaders seek to empower the followers. Healthcare workers are likely

to suffer distress due to the nature of their tasks. A leader who fails to understand this

phenomenon is likely to suffer adverse organizational consequences. The over 1000 employees

in the community hospital need motivation and the acknowledgment of their dedicated services.

Servant leaders try to understand their followers in a bid to address their individualized issues

affecting them at the workplace. To improve patient outcomes, servant leaders strive to instill the

notion of serving others into the employees to perceive their tasks as service to others.
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Second, Servant leadership helps hospitals to align objectives such as patient satisfaction

and employee motivation (Gunnarsdottir 2014). Hence, achieving patient satisfaction is a service

to others. In fact, servant leadership focuses on compassionate collaboration that engages the

views of others, building teams and resolving issues to achieve the common goal of the

organization. In a community hospital, servant leadership can work to involve the people’s

beliefs regarding the provision of care. A strong correlation exists between healthcare workers’

satisfaction and servant leadership. In fact, Williams, Wood, and Ibram (2015) observe that

management practices influence the level of satisfaction for health care workers. The author

attributes nurses’ job dissatisfaction and low turnover to leadership’s inadequate support,

unsuitable measures, and failure to listen. Servant leadership is widely practiced in hospitals to

improve job satisfaction, which in turn leads to improved patient outcomes. Servant leaders can

foster a collaborative working environment that features employee involvement, adequate

support, and timely response to the employee concerns. Furthermore, more nurses are likely to

join organizations that recognize and have respect for their professionalism.

Conclusion

Leadership styles play an integral role in determining the success of an organization.

Servant leadership is the creation of Robert Greenleaf, who conceptualized the model in 1970. It

has become a commonplace in many organizations as an appropriate model to address the

challenges of the twenty-first century. It entails a leaders’ initiative of serving their followers to

empower them to realize their potential for personal and professional development. In a

healthcare setting, it influences the attainment of organizational vision, improving patient care

outcomes, and enhancing health workers’ motivation. Its implementation requires proactive

initiative that focuses on engaging all the leadership levels in serving the followers. It is likely to
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face numerous challenges including the realities of culture change, politics, bureaucracy, and

resistance. Nevertheless, servant leadership directly correlates with nurse satisfaction. Hence,

hospital leaders must embrace it.

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References

Fields, JW, Thompson, KC, & Hawkins, JR 2015, 'Servant Leadership: Teaching the Helping

Professional,' Journal of Leadership Education, vol. 14, no. 4, p. 92.

Grisaffe, DB, VanMeter, R, & Chonko, LB 2016, 'Serving first for the benefit of others:

preliminary evidence for a hierarchical conceptualization of servant leadership,' Journal

of Personal Selling & Sales Management, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 40-58.

Gunnarsdottir, S 2014, 'Is servant leadership useful for sustainable Nordic health care?’ Nordic

Journal of Nursing Research, no. 2, p. 53.

Molero, F, Moriano, JA, & Shaver, PR 2013, 'The influence of leadership style on subordinates'

attachment to the leader,' The Spanish Journal of Psychology, vol. 16, p. E62.

Morteza Amani, A, Mohsen Ameri, S, Javad, E, Alieh Kazemi, A, Saeid, S, & Saber, A 2013, 'A

study on the effect of manager’s leadership style to create innovation among

employees,' Management Science Letters, no. 8, p. 2201.

Neubert, MJ, Hunter, EM, & Tolentino, RC 2016, 'Theoretical and Practitioner Letters: A

servant leader and their stakeholders: When does organizational structure enhance a

leader's influence?’ The Leadership Quarterly, vol. 27, pp. 896-910.

Williams, G, Wood, EV, & Ibram, F 2015, 'From medical doctor to the medical director:

leadership style matters,' British Journal of Hospital Medicine (London, England: 2005),

vol. 76, no. 7, pp. 420-422.