Paper Example on Leadership Style & Quality of Care: A Systematic Review

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 (Basel, Switzerland), 5(4). 73. Doi: 10.3390/healthcare5040073

Leadership has been widely explored as a factor that profoundly determines the success of any organization. In this article, Sfantou et al. analyze the association between quality of care within a healthcare organization and the leadership style practiced within the same organization. This is a study facilitated by a lack of research particularly aiming at establishing a relationship between the leadership style of an organization and the quality of care, even though lots of studies have majored on the issue of leadership pertaining to the healthcare setting. Eighteen articles were obtained from a search on major medical databases such as PubMed and EMBASE, and out of these, a strong correlation was obtained regarding the leadership style and the quality of care.

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Well-coordinated and provision of quality care, as well as patient satisfaction, rely heavily on leadership. However, the extent of these competencies depends on the type of leadership prevailing within a healthcare organization. The authors identified six leadership styles, among them transactional, transformational, laissez-faire, autocratic, task-oriented, and relationship-orientated styles. Transactional leaders are primarily managers of change as forms of transactions between management and the employees aimed at attaining the goals of the organizations. Transformational leadership, on the other hand, focus on the employees as crucial inputs towards the attainment of the various set goals. They, therefore, motivate the employees and create relationships with them. They possess an efficacy to inspire confidence in them, communicate honor and loyalty, and strengthen them, thus resulting in increased morale and productivity. Autocratic leadership is authoritarian and only considered suitable in emergencies. The task-oriented leader focuses on the activities to be accomplished while the relations-oriented leadership incorporated recognition, support, and development of the employees.

Based on these categorizations, the authors sought to gauge the level of quality care each style would deliver. Quality care was presented as care that is patient-centered, safe, effective, efficient, equitable, and reliable. Patient satisfaction, structure, process, and healthcare outcomes were used to measure the quality of care delivered by each style. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses were used on 18 articles from the USA, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait to come up with the findings.

From the systematic reviews and meta-analyses, the authors found a correlation between the leadership style and the quality of care within a healthcare organization. Resonant leadership styles were found to have 28% lower mortality in a 30-day period as compared to high dissonant leadership styles which had a 14% lower mortality. Transformational leadership correlated to a positive organizational culture within the nursing unit white transactional and laissez-faire styles had adverse effects on the same. Leadership styles that empowered the employees like the relations-oriented and transformational leadership had a positive impact on nursing quality care.

This article has made it clear that it is not merely about having a leader. It is about the type of leader presiding over matters within a healthcare system. Quality of care and patient satisfaction are the two most critical outcomes within a healthcare organization, and by tackling how leadership impacts them, the authors have sealed a gap that would have had detrimental impacts on the health outcomes of patients. The task-oriented and relationship-oriented leaders have been introduced to the styles of leadership alongside the other four, to show that even though transformational leaders exist, they can affect the change by either concentrating on the task or the relationship with the employees.

Reference

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 (Basel, Switzerland), 5(4). 73. Doi: 10.3390/healthcare5040073