Charismatic Leadership In Healthcare

When researching the different styles of leadership, one must fully understand what leadership is first. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, leadership is defined as the “capacity to lead” (Leadership). This is true for many types of workers but especially crucial for the healthcare profession. The leader of the healthcare team such as the charge nurse, management, or supervisor, plays a vital role in how the healthcare team performs care and ultimately affects patient satisfaction. As a healthcare team, it is imperative that there is an exceptional leader in place for the team to be successful. There are various types of leaders, such as transactional, transformational, charismatic, laissez-faire, and autocratic leadership. These various

This type of leader awakens his or her follower’s energy and commitment influencing their emotions. Often these types of leaders offer a positive result in a crisis as well as changes (Boerner & Dutschke, 2008). When thinking of a charismatic leader, one may think of a presidential candidate. To gain votes from various groups of people, the leader must have a charismatic behavior. A study that was conducted in 2013 focused on how people voted based on their admiration for the various presidential candidates in 2008. Throughout this study, they obtained 126 undergraduate students and evaluated the effects of the charismatic leader before and after the presidential race. This study found that charismatic leaders often provoke certain emotions on the followers; therefore, the followers work on behalf of their leader (Michel, Wallace, & Rawlings, 2013). It also found that this type of leadership may be rejected if the followers do not wish to have change happen (Michel, Wallace, & Rawlings, 2013). In the nursing profession, this could be seen if a manager or supervisor possessed the traits of charismatic leaders, and if the followers desired the change, the result would be outstanding. However, not everyone will be drawn to this type of leader; therefore, the result could be

This type of leader is usually a power-oriented person that is close-minded leader (Giltinnane, 2013). While in lecture, Dr. Hamm discussed a good example of this type of leader. He stated that if there were a problem and the nurse brought it up to this type of leader, they would rarely listen to it. They would simply say “if you don’t like it then there is the door.” This type of leader is usually disliked until positive aspects of the leader comes to light. In an article conducted by Schoel et al, they found that “well-liked leaders might be perceived as ineffective while disliked leaders might be perceived as effective”