Leadership as an Integral Element in Healthcare

Document from the year 2018 in the subject Medicine - Hospital Environment, Clinical Medicine, grade: 1, Egerton University, language: English, abstract: This research paper provides a focused discussion on leadership, qualities of a leader, today's workforce leadership challenges, and outcomes of good/bad leadership in a healthcare organization. Leadership seems to have become a powerful tool in organizational management. This is attributable to the notion that leaders, rather than managers have significant influences in legitimate organizations. According to Bertocci (2009), one of the key reasons why leadership has become an integral element in recent years is because of the evolving nature of the business world which has become more competitive, more global and more volatile. It is also apparent that organizations are increasingly becoming technologically complex; thus, demanding a high level of expert power. Given the evolving nature of today's workplace environment and dynamics in the business world, it is explicit that leadership enhances organizational effectiveness through improving production, flexibility, competitiveness, quality, efficiency, satisfaction, and development. This is consistent with the opinion held by social scientists and organizational management experts who believe that effective leadership results into a level of order and consistency to the profitability, as well as quality of products and services. On the other hand, Lunenburg (2012) observes that a true leader promotes organizational effectiveness through influencing others and modifying their behavior. In retrospect, leadership has not been a complex task, but the evolving workplace environment due to changes in organizational structure and design are increasingly driving evolution in leadership. In order to cope with the current organizational change, it is believed that effective leadership is essential for organizational survival.