Effective Leadership is the major driver for successful implementation of organizational change
Critically Analyse of the leadership role in developing a performance improvement plan.
Change is an inevitable component that is constant in the lifeline of an entity. Change also impact the personal and professional life in the context of the new societal adaptations, and brings with it the requirement to undertake crucial decisions for incorporating change. Previously, incremental change have been adopted by many organizations. However, in the modern environment change requirements are radical, with innovative and variegated organizational goals and missions, different organizational structure and higher pressure to modify organizational culture, which are objectives that requires rampant and swift adaptation to change. This promptly implies that here is a need for the performance change in each and every sector. Be it the health, food and beverage, textile or any other kinds of sector, there is the inevitable need for change. This is because without the change there cannot be any kind of progression. Organizations today, need excellent managers who have the potential to create action framework for change.Such leaders should have the transformational capacity to implement change working under various influences. The improvement plan is one of the most important organization’s strategies as it helps in finding out the different steps that the company has to adapt or undertakes in order to attain the long-term goals and objectives. This essay aims at analyzing the opportunities for change implementation that care open to the drivers of change and how they maneuver the change management activities to successful discretion of change in the field of post-surgery nursing care and medical abidance.
Leaders as well as managers in health care institutions are required to understand the impact of change upon people and anticipate their subsequent reactions. The leaders should also be conscious about choosing the most effective change management strategies so that they are able to effectively implement any incremental change in policy applicable at the ward level or a big organizational change implementable on a grand scale (Smith, 2017). In fact, there are often many complications that the patients and their families have been facing in the post-surgery period. It is for this reason that they want the doctors and other medical officials to change the ongoing trends in the post-surgery period.
The change can be described through Lewis’s the three-stage change model. Good managers in the domain of health care are not sparse. However, increasingly their job-roles are demanding a shift of their presence from the patient’s bedside towards the demanding domains like operational management, Human resource management and even management of economies.The first stage is the stage where the people have to be made aware of the fact that the change is indeed very essential and is needed. However to bring about a change in the existing system is never a very easy task. There will be so many questions that the industry will have to face when they are about to introduce some changes within the organization (BIEBER & ANNABLE, 2015). The attitudes, beliefs and the values that were being continued for so many days will have to be checked. This has to be made known to the doctors that over many years the patients have been suffering from the postoperative or the post-surgery complications and that becomes life-threatening for them (Cummings, Bridgman & Brown, 2016). Some of the common complications are a shock, breathing trouble, unstoppable and huge loss of blood, vomiting, nausea, sore throat and many other such complications. Due to lack of proper awareness, these often are not taken by the patients seriously and they do not seek any treatment. (Carey & Lloyd,1995).
Discussion
It is the duty of the industry, the (health care industry in this context) to make people and the hospital authority concerned about the need for the improvements and the changes in the treatment service so that there is a thorough medical assistance given to the patients in the post-surgery period as well. In order make all the people aware about the need for this change, they have to be persuaded to take part in many campaigns and awareness programs so that they get the idea about the complications associated in the post-surgery period (Morrison, 2014).
Lastly this theory recommends the refreezing part.In this part the institutions and responsible leaders have to make changes so that the patients are able to get suitable and adequate guidance and nursing care of specialist6 health care experts.The healthcare industry will have to establish these changes in the proper way and in a systematic and institutionalized way. The concerned doctors have to be careful that the acute pain that is a normal phase after the tissue injuries that occur in post-surgery period, do not get converted to a chronic pain. Other than that health professionals in many nursing care institutions have limited knowledge and understanding of acute pain management. Besides health packages of hospitals as well as health insurance facilities do not cover the treatment of post-operative medical aid and care. Hence, it is necessary that the leaders of changed management of post-operative care take these facts into consideration.
These improvements are really needed in the existing medical or the healthcare industry. This can easily be described by the Kotter’s 8 step change process.
Establish a sense of urgency
The first and the foremost thing are to find out the need or the urgency of getting or seeing the change. As in this case, the change in the medical system is of utmost importance.
Forming a guiding coalition
This change will lead the hospital and nursing care authorities to employ better and specialized nurses and health care professional who would monitor the phases of acute pain in a patient after severe surgeries. After that comes the professional challenges. Hospitals’ authorities are unable to charge more fees for the post-operative treatment. Hence they seem to neglect the treatment procedure in the post-operative phase.
Create a vision
A vision has to be created for bringing about these changes in the existing medical system. There have to be some medical treatments established and made available for the patients so that they do not suffer from any kind of injuries or any kinds of complications in the post-operation period (Riggio& Porter, 2017).Often it is also the lack of knowledge about consequences of negligence towards acute pain during the post-operative phases. Hardly, are patient parties aware that deep vein thrombosis, chronic pain, pneumonia or infection in the tissues. That is why they do not pay heed to the forthcoming complications and are eager to discharge the patients. The hospital authorities also face a conflict of interest in this case. They hardly make the patient parties aware of the consequences of post-surgery complications.
Step 1
Communicate the vision
The process of communicating the vision is one of the most important parts of bringing any kind of change or improvement in the existing system. The healthcare industry has to take for steps for the proper communication and the advertisement of the improvement or rather the change that they want to bring. In this regard, the doctors have to step forward and make arrangement for proving the patients with complete cure. They have to use the promotional media to preach the fact that neglected post-operative treatment can often prove to fatal too.
Empowering others to act on this vision
All the stakeholders including the doctors, the medical shops, and even the patients need to be empowered properly so that they can support and contribute towards bringing this change (Batalden& Davidoff, 2007). Change managers from every of the medical industry have to take up the step towards the change and create awareness for providing better care to the patients in the post-surgery period.
Planning for and creating short-term wins
The work has to increase on a step by step process and the success at first will come at small levels followed by the long term ones.
Institutionalizing new approaches
This has to be taken care of that the new approaches are not kept confined within any particular places or industries or sectors but they are channelized among all the other people and other industries.General hospitals for the middle class, often face lack of interest of the doctors towards individual patient’s cause. In that case, the role of authorities become critical. Besides, the central government of the country can also act as an important stakeholder in the process of change management. They can frame rules for incorporating a separate post-surgery care department for treating the patients.
Planning for and creating short-term wins
In order to make this change on a large scale, wins on short terms have to be made possible. This is because of the idea of opening up new areas of post-surgery treatment for the patients us very essential (Bolman& Deal, 2017). At first, it has to be started at the smaller levels like one or two hospitals. As it will seem that yes the cha be or the improvement is successful, and the patients are getting benefitted from it and likeit, it is then when the plan will be taken on a large scale.
The small steps towards changes will be gathered and used for the future purposes. If the post-operation treatment plans are successful in one or two hospitals or medical clinics, then this must be started in some other parts as well. This will lead to the overall improvement (Mainz, 2009).The patients would be aware of the cause and would not consider post-operative care to be an art of hospitals for skimming money only.
Forming a guiding coalition
So, it is evident that the need or the pressure for this change is mainly coming from the fact that the patients or the customers in the healthcare centers are the ones who are in need of the change. It is because these patients have often suffered a great deal from diseases like lack of enough blood, internal bleeding or internal hemorrhage.
Role of a leader in bringing about the change in the organization is huge. For the change to take place and be implemented successfully, the leader has to play a huge role. They have to change the structure of the organization and the thoughts and beliefs of the employees as well. The first and the foremost thing that they have to do is to create a clear vision. It is after creating a proper and a common goal or a vision that they can work for introducing their employees with the same. The goals have to link with setting up an infrastructure for a separate post-surgery treatment department. The leader must be following the aspects of transformational leadership if they are about tobring any change within the performance. The leaders must have the good connection with their peers and they must try to persuade, motivate and influence them for a new kind of a change. The health experts must try their best to create a change or a performance improvement in the post-operation clinical care (D’aleo, 2007).
Different models for the performance management must be used for seeing if the improvement is being carried on properly. The first in this is the accountability. The leader himself has to be accountable for all the decisions that he is taking and the same is applied to his followers as well. A leader has to make all the stakeholders in the healthcare industry develop the accountability for any kind of activities taking place like artery bypass operation, the rate of infection in the wounds in the post-operation period and others (Casali& Day, 2010).
QI or the quality improvement process so that all the stakeholder involved get a good training and are able to bring about positive changes and improvements in the organization. The quality improvement process may include activities like the different training programme. As it is a healthcare industry the training programs may include many campaigns and many training program activities like proper hand washing techniques and benefits pre and post-surgery period.Nurses and doctors have to attend training sessions for becoming capable to treat cases of post-operative issues like ileus, urinary retention, embolism, delirium and so on. This will help in bringing about a good quality improvement in health care system. The wound dressing campaigns is one of the most important aspects that have to be made a part of this quality improvement programme. This will indeed be very helpful as it will help the nurses and then other medical officials now the right techniques for dressing the wounds in the post-operation period. This indeed will be very helpful in reducing the number of infections that can often arise from the improper dressing of the post-surgery wounds (D’aleo et al., 2007)
Create a vision
Capacity building is one of the most importantaspects for bringing about any change within an existing system. This is something without which the improvement or the change in the healthcare system will not be successful. There can be some of the nurses who are newly recruited and they might be very naïve and they may not be properly versed in the aspect of providing post-operative care. A good example can be during the time of any kind of surgery. There can be post operation trauma, or breathing problems, loss of blood, infections at the area of the stitches or many other such problems. It is the leader who will have to take the lead and then make the arrangements for these training campaigns (Laser, 2016). The leader has to motivate all his followers. However there are many qualities that are to be present within a leader to that he can contribute towards the capacity building and consequently the change within the organization. However a leader has to make sure that he is successful in bringing this change within the cultural, geographical and several other such factors. He has to have the long-term goals and work for the change and the improvement in the long-term basis by attaining many wins on the short-term basis as well (Maddern et al., 2006).
A leader has to have the qualities like the motivational, empowering and the empathetic qualities as well. He has to keep in mind that often bringing a change within an ongoing political, geographical and political scenario is not such easy task. There will be many obstacles that they might face from the political party or any other such factors that are against bringing any changes for providing a separate section that would look after the post-operation complications of the patients (Gill, 2002).
A leader in this healthcare industry has to make such an environment so that the patients feel that they are valued and their opinions are heard. So, in a healthcare industry like any hospital, it is the leader who has to build a very flexible environment. The leader has to create rules where he will make it a point to visit each and every patient and talk with them. This will help the patients know that their opinions are valued and that they can talk about their difficulties in the post-operation period and can freely tell about any kinds of complications that they have. The leader will have to be very kind and understanding in nature. They will have to create a very friendly and amicable nature so that the patients can very easily reach them. Often there can be many people who will be trying their level best to stop the changes or the improvements that would be taking place.
Communicate the vision
The leader can explain the motivation theories like the Maslow’s hierarchy needs or even the leadership theory of x and y.
The leader has to make the changes for creating opportunities for better health care during the post-surgery period, knowing beforehand that many political and other various influences would act their way and hinder the implementation of change. He has to use the methods like communication, appreciations, motivations, rewards and recognition and other such activities. A leader in a hospital can appoint a group of doctors to take care of the post-operation complications of patients. Once the work is being done properly, the leader can appreciate that group of doctors by giving them some rewards like monetary benefits or promotions. This will help them to get motivated.A leader must believe that his employees are ambitious and are hard working. McGregor’s theory Y holds that the concerned change leaders have to keep motivating and encouraging the stakeholders of change management through various positive strategies.(Lawter et al., 2015).
Again, the theory X proposes that often the directors of change fail to manage the taskforce associated with implementation of change. They seem to over impose their discretionary power on the employees. Consequently, this is never helpful for bringing about a new change. A change can be brought within the organization with the joint and collaborative efforts of both the leader and his followers. However, the followers or the employees will be restrained from implementing the changes if they are not properly motivated by the leader or if they see that the leader does not have enough confidence in him. Hence, leaders who are bringing about the change in the field of post-surgery medical care, should also be cautious of these facts.
The leader must have a proper communication skill so that he can communicate the changes in the best way possible. There are many problems that can often start at the health care centers like class conflicts, race and gender conflicts and many others. The leader has to communicate this message to all that this change is for the good and this change must not be kept confiscated within only a few hospitals or groups; rather it must be distributed among all. It is for this reason that a clear vision and mission has to be set by the leader.
A leader can facilitate this by calling for a meeting or a public gathering where he can discuss the issue and his concern about the issues and complexities that patients face in their post-surgery periods. He might also invite some other doctors from other hospitals like the Queensland hospital, Bundaberg Hospital and other eminent Australian hospitals to speak and enlighten the people on this topic. He may also invite some of the victims or people representing the source from which the need for this change has risen. This can include patients or their families who have suffered from the post operation injuries are demanding for an improved change
Empowering others to act on this vision
Conclusion
So, it can be concluded that the leader has to play a very important role in bringing about the change and for implementing it properly among all the employees. He has to be a very good communicator so that he can convey the message properly among people. Further, it can also be stated that a leader should utilize his or her communication skills and techniques to relate to all the necessary stakeholders the issues that should be addressed and the relative change that is to be introduced should also be communicated. The leader have to openly discuss the importance and severity of the post-surgery complications.
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