HCS/475 Version 7 / 1
Weekly Overview
Week One
Overview
Week One’s discussion highlights the concepts of leadership and management. Leadership and management are distinct concepts, but they are often viewed as synonyms.A manager’s responsibilities include carrying out the four functions of management: planning, organizing, directing (leading), and handeling teams to accomplish organizational goals. Leaders focus on a global approach whereas the focus of management is more departmental or internal. Leaders will spend their time communicating and aligning with outside groups that can help their organization or influence them, whereas managers may not have the ability to complete this task. There is a crossover between leadership and managerment across various areas though there is a clear distinction between duties and responsibilities.
This week you will analyze different leadership theories and examine the relationship between personal characteristics and effective leadership. Leadership theories provide focus as to what is relevant, what works, and how to apply them to guide followers. Some examples of leadership theories are trait theories, behavioral theories, andcontingency or situational theories. Personal characteristics, such as honesty, listening skills, competence, the ability to be forward thinking, and creditability, are just a few examples of traits an effective leader should possess. While all traits are important in leadership, the most essential is credibility. If staff members lack trust and credibility in their leader, he or she will not be able to motivate or lead their team.
The concepts learned in this course are fundamental to any leadership role and sector in health care. As you continue to learn throughout your program, continue to build on these concepts. Discussing and learning about these leadership concepts are critical to your understanding of how leaders affect change and improve service delivery in every aspect of health care.
Content outline
1. Leadership Theory
a. Explain leadership theories.
1) “Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an organized group toward goal achievement” (Ledlow & Coppola, 2014, p. 13).
2) Great Man and Trait Theory
a) Leaders are born with unique characteristics (heroes/highly influential) that predispose them to lead
(1) Pros
(a) Helped in understanding traits
(2) Cons
(a) No scientific validity with the theory
(b) Born to lead or not
(c) Male focused
3) Leader-centered theories are focused on defining what a leader is:
a) Formal leaders exercise legitimate authority conferred by a position within an organization.
b) Informal leaders do not have a specified management role. For example, within a medical billing group there is a team member (who is not a supervisor) everyone seeks out if there are billing issues that baffle them. This staff member has no more authority than her peers, but she is able to lead the group to accomplish a task or solve a problem.
(1) Focused on characteristics of leaders
(a) Intelligence
(b) Personality
(c) Abilities
4) Behavioral theories
a) Basic premise
(1) Great leaders are made and not born
(2) Focuses on actions (behaviors)
(3) People can become leaders via education and nurturing
b) Douglas McGregor
(1) Theory X and Theory Y
(a) Theory X—workers as drones without ambition, requiring coercion to achieve results
(b) Theory Y—workers are self-motivated, creative, and enjoy working and taking on responsibilities
(c) Leader’s theory bias affects how followers are led
5) Situational theories
a) Leadership behaviors range from authoritarian to permissive and vary based on current needs and future probabilities
b) Fieldler’s Contingency Theory (1967) states that a leader is most effective when he or she matches their leadership style to situational factors
(1) An example might be how you would treat a recent graduate just entering the workplace compared to a seasoned professional within the department
c) Hersey, Blanchard, and Johnson (2001) expanded on Fieldler’s Theory. They believed the four distinct leadership styles are prescribed according to the readiness and ability of the followers
b. Differentiate between leadership and management.
1) Leadership
a) A leader uses interpersonal skills to influence others to accomplish specific goals
(1) Definitions
(2) General definition contrast with characteristics within health care
2) Leader versus Manager
a) Management
(1) A manager is an individual employed by an organization and is responsible for efficiently accomplishing the goals of the organization
b) Management functions
(1) Planning
(2) Organizing
(3) Directing
(4) Controlling
c) Levels of management
(1) First level—first line manager
(2) Middle level—supervises a number of first-level managers
(3) Upper level—top executives to whom middle-level managers report
d) Leaders
(1) Leaders do not have to hold management positions
(2) Managers have subordinates and leaders have followers
(3) Management versus leadership
(a) Shorter time horizon vs. long-term vision
(b) Mission oriented vs. vision followed by mission
(c) Maintenance of culture vs. cultural development
e) Leadership subset of management
c. Examine the relationship between personal characteristics and leadership effectiveness.
1) A leader must understand the importance of an emotionally and behaviorally intelligent style of leadership to ensure that their staff feel empowered and supported
a) Self-awareness—emotional and behavioral intelligence
b) Emotional and behavioral intelligence (EQ/BQ) starts with self-awareness or an objective understanding of one’s emotional and behavioral wiring
c) Self-awareness requires recognition and acceptance of the effect that an individual’s behavior has on others so that the individual can then mitigate those undesired effects
d) Social awareness—leader must understand the behavioral attributes and needs of the people he or she leads
2) Leader must understand or be socially aware of the behavioral makeup of their organization’s employees
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