The Use of Contract Employees
- Hello world! - October 21, 2020
The nursing profession is based on leadership. An ability to convince somebody, be in emotional touch, understand other person’s needs and to lead are appropriate skills for performing the working tasks successfully. Training leadership skills will improve the performance of working tasks, develop the feeling of being valued and confident. Different models of leadership, managing, specific of duties show the most suitable way to improve work quality of regular and contract employees of health care.
Management and leadership are connected in the work of a nurse. Management is a complex of controlling techniques which help to organize the working process. Management skills in nursing play the leading role, which is explained by the specific environment. Sometimes, an employee faces circumstances which had not experienced before, but still has to perform a doctor’s orders quickly. Human life depends on the nurse’s adaptation to operation process. The manager’s task is to define aims, allocate duties, observe the process of performance, and appraise it. The leader’s task is a bit different.
Leadership is a way to rule organization by new directions, coordinate subordinates in order to improve their actions dedicated to achieving the defined goals. In other words, the leader has to organize workers, inspire them, and control the performance of the defined tasks with the use of power among other people. Leadership implies authority over others because of their appreciation and respectful attitude, while management has a more official meaning. In order to be a professional, health care worker has to combine both characteristics (Huber, 2013).
- Wheeler et al. in their research compared the participation perspectives of registered nurses and those who were educated intentionally. In fact, the scientists proved that there were no perception differences of participation. That is to say, both types of the health care employees were equally disciplined.
Both types of workers perceived it personally meaningless because their work had a secondary role. As a matter of fact, the nurses are educated in a such way that they are able to take care of the patients in a specific way, and everything that differed from the usual scheme of behaving provoked difficulties. That is why registered and intentionally educated nurses feel more confident about themselves while they stay at the bedside. The workers claimed that if health care organization had improved communicative ties and adopted a clear policy, it would be easier for nurses to perform their duties more individually. In other words, the system of health care should be changed for the better in order to enable regular and contract workers do develop leadership skills freely (Wheeler et al., 2013).
The contract employment is popular because there is an increased need in flexible workers. However, the employment is often connected with the feeling of insecurity because there is no warranty of a stable job. Also, contract nurses feel that they play a secondary role in the organization because they follow orders from the top. That causes contract worker’s internal tension that may decrease the work productivity. Conception of self-leadership contains methods of self-rewarding and motivating which would help to rule one’s own actions without external control. After working on the capacity to lead and organize, the contract workers’ level of demands to subordinates becomes lower because they feel more empowered and confident (Jooste, 2014).
Even if it is hard to act individually when employees have strict instructions, J.A. O’Neil insists on the fact that leadership is the base of successful professional growth of nurses. His conception of transformational leadership is based on the thought that the leaders cooperate with their followers by inspiring and giving them appropriate motivation that improves their performance. In their turn, the followers also give the same support. Emotional intelligence plays the leading role because it helps to perceive feelings and thoughts of other people and understand the reasons of their actions. In other words, it gives leader a chance to understand which kind of motivation might be suitable for a certain employee (O’Neil, 2013).
As for me, David Stanley’s model of congruent leadership is the most suitable way to interact with other people in the sphere of health care and nursing. The abilities of a clinical leader are based on his/her beliefs and personal characteristics; therefore, forming a strong theoretical conception will help medical workers to understand this capacity better. Congruent leadership comprises deals, activities, and capacities of the leader which are influenced by principles and characteristic of a person.
David Stanley explains that congruent leaders are more inclined to act according to their emotional state. It means that they are more flexible and thus can empathize and build good relationships with other people. Leaders also pay more attention to the ways of supporting others, not to their own power over them. Therefore, even those people who do not have a formal impact may be effective leaders.
Contract nurses often think that their work is undervalued as they have to follow orders from the top, and their work is not so appreciated as that of doctors, for example. However, congruent leadership theory is based on the thought that the leader does not need to have a high official position. People follow clinical leaders because of their personal values and principles, which help to adjust communication, show competence in medical sphere, impact others in a positive way, and apply clinical knowledge.
If nurses understand the nature of clinical leadership and skills which need to be developed for it, they are more likely to perform their duties more actively. As a matter of fact, the congruent theory represents leadership as the ability to act according to the circumstances taking into account thoughts and feelings of the followers (Stanley, 2008).
To conclude, the practical researches proved that there are no substantial differences between discipline required from registered and intentionally educated workers. Both types are unconfident because they feel unvalued in their workplace and are often controlled by other people. Registered and contract nurses prefer to stay at the bedside because of the lack of the leadership skills.
The capacity to be a leader can be developed by creating suitable working environment, external support, and motivation. However, the key is the improvement of skills of both registered and intentionally educated nurses; besides, such personal abilities as self-leadership, emotional intelligence, communicative skills, and confidence matter as well.
References
Huber, D. (2017). Leadership and nursing care management (6th ed.). Chapter I Leadership and Management Principles. Retrieved from: http://evolve.elsevier.com.
Jooste, K. & Roux, L. Z. (2014). The practice of self-leadership in personal and professional development of contract nursing staff in the environment of higher education institution. African Journal for Physical, Health Education, Recreation and Dance, October (Supplement 1:1), 275-285.
O’Neill, J. A. (2013). Advancing the nursing profession begins with leadership. Retrieved from: https://lopes.idm.oclc.org.
Stanley, D. (2008). Congruent leadership: Values in action. Journal of Nursing Management, 16, 519-524.
Wheeler, R. M. & Foster, J. W. (2013). Barriers to participation in governance and professional advancement: A comparison of internationally educated nurses and registered nurses educated in the United States. Retrieved from: http://ovidsp.tx.ovid.com.