Delegation is an important function in any organization and in today’s environment we see it becoming increasingly important in the health care setting. For management to make the best use of their time and skills effective delegation of tasks to the staff assists in their growth and development, builds confidence and trust, and increases the amount of work completed. Effective delegating provides benefits to the organization when managers mobilize resources, share responsibilities, and focus on doing a few tasks well, rather than many things less effectively resulting in increased management and leadership potential. The need for accessible, affordable, quality health care and an ever-growing shortfall of practitioners and providers means that health care managers must use every health care worker and ensure appropriate delegation of authority and tasks. With the United States currently experiencing a critical shortage of Nurses, health care organizations and policy makers realize they must depend on their licensed Nurses to delegate nursing tasks to licensed and unlicensed health care workers (Nursing Shortage Fact Sheet, 2010). The majority of delegation issues in health care today revolve around nursing care with the Registered Nurse (RN) assuming responsibility and accountability for the proper delegation of tasks to deliver optimum patient care (American Nursing Association, 2001).
McConnell (1995) describes delegation and empowerment as being one in the same with empowerment occurring when the delegation of a task is done correctly. In delegation accountability is given to the person the task was delegated to. Delegation assigns the limits of authority at each level. From an organizational viewpoint management del...
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...ty delegated will close the gap between practice and procedure. Again proper delegation and empowerment are seen as one in the same and when used in this manner by the health care manager create more productive work environments but failure to effectively delegate leads inevitably to management failure (McConnell, 2006).
In conclusion upon review of all the references it seems clear to me that an organization must use all its resources, especially that of management and staff, to achieve its goals and become successful. By using proper delegation and empowerment of staff, management is able to become more productive focus on priority projects while training and developing their subordinates. The tools of delegation and empowerment have been and are still used in the health care setting all the while adapting to change, which is what our future holds a lot of.
In the nursing profession, strategic thinking, effective decision making and delegation is important. With this, the goal of providing quality care is key and can be accomplished through a theory called servant leadership. In this style of leadership and management, the entire team has input into decision making based on the organization’s values and ideals. Servant leaders create devoted followers in response to the positive attention they give (Nursing Community Journal, 2015).
Delegation is the being able to pass the responsibility or authority to another person. This act of delegation is important in the outcome of patient care (Yoon,2016). As discussed to be able to have well developed leadership and management skills a good aid of communication has to be developed. In the workplace environment being able to effectively delegate without having appropriate communication skills therefore emotional intelligence the ongoing care of the patient can be threatened and errors can occur. However, being able to effectively do so enable the patient outcomes to be achieved ( Wong,2013). These skills aid in importance as newly graduate nurses receive student nurses to mentor and supervise. Being able to supervise and manage a student nurse contains having a well-developed leadership and management skills ( Jones,2013). The role of a mentor includes assessing and evaluating the students’ performance, providing supervision and having accountability of the students action( royal college of nursing, 2007). This role a graduate nurse must have an area of leadership and management skills. As If these skills aren't developed the student nurse not only will lack mentorship but also the lack of guidance and supervision can impact on the patients care (
Personal and Professional Accountability Leadership and accountability go hand in hand. The American Nurses Association’ Code of Ethics defines accountability, “to be answerable to oneself and others for one’s own choices, decisions, and actions” (American Nurses Association [ANA], 2016, p. 38). In assessing her accountability, the author feels she actively seeks opportunities for personal growth and development. Furthermore, she would like to bring some of the tools from the Healthy Workplace Bill (Healthy Workplace Bill [HWB], 2016) to the nurse practice counsel, shared governance committees, and organizational leaders.
This addresses the environment in which nurses practices and strives for “an innovative environment where strong professional practice flourishes and where the mission, vision, and values come to life to achieve the outcomes believed to be important for the organization” (ANCC, 2008). This type of environment is accomplished by nurses working together towards a strategic plan outlined with facility policies and knowledge-based nursing and skills to achieve desired outcomes and accomplish organizational goals. I believe my facility does a great job with structural empowerment. Our nurse manager makes sure we know what our goals are as a unit. We review hospital satisfaction scores and infection rates to determine what practices need to be addressed for achieving organization and desired outcomes. We work to provide cost-effective care that exceeds national standards for excellence while working to strengthen bonds between staff members and making sure that at our facility “caring comes first”
The next chapter in part two is, “David Doesn’t Delegate”. This chapter highlights an experienced manager, David, who is an ineffective delegator because of his immunity to delegating. When a leader has a staff that they supervise one would think they would relish the power to be able to delegate. Delegation takes some of the responsibilities off the plate of the leader. However, the authors admit that leaders often say their goal is
Support of a decentralized organizational philosophy can transform organizations, staff, and patients because it affects the culture, improves staff outlook, promotes personal involvement and encourages staff to reach higher levels of quality care. In my organization, nursing leaders should strive to involve all patient care units and staff in shared governance, educate unit leadership council chairs, and build on the positive aspects by empowering, motivating and developing staff members. These actions will increase creativity, responsibility, intellectual stimulation, and well-being.
Emotional intelligence allows nurse leaders to become high-performing professionals with critical thinking and effective decision-making skills. Delegation involves the communication of a delegator to assign a work related task within the employee’s scope of practice in order to achieve a common goal. Delegation is a skill that considers whether the person is right for the task, if communication and direction are clear and effective regarding the assignment, ensures the task is within the person’s scope, and safeguards that the task will be appropriately supervised. (Yoder-Wise, 2015, p.
...mplications that allow for opportunities of change. One of the presumptions is for training and staffing (Shi & Singh, 2012). With the utilization of health care improvements, the staff will need additional instructions on the performance of equipment and how to efficiently achieve the desired results. Managers or supervisors recognize the need for supplemental staffing and training to optimize patient satisfaction and quality of care. The health care administrator must also focus on changes in insurance policies and rules governing the provision of medical assistance (Shi & Singh, 2012).
According to McConell (2012), the difference in a leader and a follower determines the success of a person regarding leadership. This chapter helps explain the content of qualities and proficiency for healthcare managers to be effective. Once again, effective management skills or certain qualifications enhance a healthcare organization environment. Healthcare managers and supervisors must have the capacity to handle challenges while the organization objectives and regulations may change over a period of time. Effective healthcare management governs the success of a healthcare organization. There are many different skill sets and leadership styles to be effective as a manager. People are interested in knowing what strategies are effective in healthcare management.
...ntinually evolve, a certain degree of freedom must be felt by its members, bureaucracy represents and organization from which chaos has completely been eliminated. Nurse Executives, therefore, will need to encourage staff to challenge existing practice. Given the current environment, creative conflict will need to be supported in order for our continued growth.” (McGuire, 1999, p. 9) I believe that Capital Health is on a path for success. They have modernized there organization chart causing a more decentralized environment. This new atmosphere fosters empowerment of its nursing staff. This sense of ownership over their practice provides growth not only for individual nurse, but the entire profession. This positive proactive change of the organizational structure will allow the hospital to experience continued growth and development that is propelled from within.
In today’s society, leadership is a common yet useful trait used in every aspect of life and how we use this trait depends on our role. What defines leadership is when someone has the capability to lead an organization or a group of people. There are many examples that display a great sense of leadership such being an educator in health, a parent to their child, or even a nurse. In the medical field, leadership is highly used among nurses, doctors, nurse managers, director of nursing, and even the vice president of patient care services. Among the many positions in the nursing field, one who is a nurse manager shows great leadership. The reason why nurse manager plays an important role in patient care is because it is known to be the most difficult position. As a nurse manager, one must deal with many patient care issues, relationships with medical staff, staff concerns, supplies, as well as maintaining work-life balance. Also, a nurse manager represents leadership by being accountable for the many responsibilities he or she holds. Furthermore, this position is a collaborative yet vital role because they provide the connection between nursing staff and higher level superiors, as well as giving direction and organization to accomplish tasks and goals. In addition, nurse managers provide nurse-patient ratios and the amount of workload nursing staff has. It is their responsibility to make sure that nursing staff is productive and well balanced between their work and personal lives.
Delegation is the method of giving decision-making authority to lower-level employees. For the process to be successful, a worker must be able to obtain the resources and cooperation needed for successful completion of the delegated task. Empowerment of the workforce and task delegation is closely interrelated. Empowerment occurs when upper-level employees share power with lower-level employees. This involves providing the training, tools and management support that employees need to accomplish a task. Thus, the employee has both the authority and the means to accomplish the work. Even though authority can be delegated, responsibility cannot; the person who delegates a task is held responsible for its success in the end. Thus the assigned worker is liable for meeting the goals and objectives of the assignment (Camp 2006).
Employee empowerment can be described as giving employees' accountability and ability to make choices about their work without managerial authorization. Good managers are expected to assist employees to improve job success by supporting, training, leading and giving advice. Employee empowerment can increase employees' motivation, job satisfaction, and loyalty to their companies. The power that managers comprise should now be shared with employees with confidence, assertion, inspiration, and support. Work decisions and the ability to control an individual’s amount of work are now being relied upon at lower-level management positions (Fragoso, 1999). Groups of empowered employees with little or no supervision are now being formed and these groups are being called self-managed teams. These groups can now solve work problems, make choices on schedules and operations, learn to do other employees’ jobs, and are held accountable for the quality of their finished products.
Empowerment can vary from person to person. A broad perspective of empowerment that the majority of people can relate too is based on setting goals and achieving them. A person needs to take control of their own goals they have set and do everything possible to achieve them. This also means that you need to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses so that your goals will be more attainable. While most of these goals can be personal, they can also be applied to a career setting.
Thus, to be effective in the empowerment process, empowerment requires that managers and staff members, who play a critical and essential role in the entire empowerment process, must define their empowerment, not assume or guess at their roles. Managers should never permit ambiguity about the power or its exercise. The consequences of its expression (both positive and negative) should also be clearly defined at the outset of the empowered relationship between managers and staff (Rapp, et al., 2006; Porter, 1998). The core of employee empowerment process is: show people what they have to know, teach them how to do it, give them the tools they need, and they will do a job that will meet, and often exceed, expectations. The key words here are "show," "teach" and "give." So if you want empowered employees, you have to prepare them for the job. This means that empowerment is a process of things linked with each other to form empowerment at the end (Gresham,