Introduction
Identifying the specific differences in leadership and managerial responsibilities allows for proper organizational performance and minimized risks due to the alignment of the two roles. This paper will focus on the issue of nursing turnover in the healthcare setting as one of the significant factors complicating conventional organizational processes and hindering opportunities to provide proper care to patients. It is claimed that the alignment of managerial and leadership roles according to the organizational goals and policies and the use of a proper leadership style might alleviate the burden of nursing turnover and improve the quality of services.
Nurse Turnover: Issue Description
The contemporary field of nursing human resources is characterized by a significant shortage of personnel. The causes of the shortage are related to the profession’s difficulties, high stress levels, the aging population, and insufficient reward opportunities that lead to increased turnover (Hu et al., 2022, p. 1). The turnover of nurses is one of the most significant issues in healthcare systems worldwide, which requires competent decisions (Hu et al., 2022, p. 1). Indeed, “studies suggest that 4% to 54% of nurses worldwide intend to leave the nursing profession, raising concern over inadequate staff in healthcare facilities and negative patient outcomes” (Magbity et al., 2020, p. 45). High levels of resignation and turnover lead to a shortage of experienced nurses and lower quality of patient care. Therefore, it is essential for healthcare organizations to initiate practices that would mitigate and prevent factors contributing to turnover and its adverse outcomes.
Professional Standards Applicable to the Issue
To rectify the issue of nurse turnover, professional standards within a healthcare organization should be reviewed and revised. Indeed, researchers state that employment and human resource policies, as well as professional standards, must be transparent and clearly identify the roles of nurses in their positions (Marć et al., 2019, p. 12-13). In particular, the conventional standards might include the specifications of primary responsibilities of employees in terms of providing care to patients. However, to ensure that professional conduct is maintained in a long-term perspective, employees’ responsibility to improve their professionalism, stress-coping skills, resilience, and teamwork should be facilitated (Hu et al., 2022, p. 8). For that matter, the professional standards must be diversified and made transparent to the employees beyond their recruitment stage to ensure their awareness of the importance of personal and professional growth to be able to overcome challenges leading to turnover.
Differing Leaders’ and Managers’ Roles in Addressing the Nurse Turnover Issue
In addition to compliance with professional standards, nursing leaders and managers use different approaches to mitigate nurse turnover and understaffing. On the one hand, a nursing manager should work primarily with the processes and resources, such as issuing specific policies aimed at improving the professionalism of nurses via educational and training programs. In particular, initiating resilience training and stress-coping workshops might be an impactful initiative implemented by a nurse manager (Wei et al., 2019, p. 684). Furthermore, a managerial role implies initiating proper human resource practices aimed at fostering proper reward and recognition mechanisms, as well as improvement of the organizational setting of work.
On the other hand, the role of a leader is primarily aimed at working with the employees, who are at the center of the nursing turnover issue. Indeed, unlike managers, leaders are expected to encourage, empower, and foster an organizational culture of teamwork and mutual support (Hu et al., 2022, p. 8). For example, initiating social events and kindness act days, as well as similar initiatives, are the representations of leaders’ work aimed at employee empowerment, team building, and stress alleviation (Wei et al., 2019, p. 683-684). Thus, the differences between leadership and managerial roles allow for tackling the issue of nursing turnover and the resulting deterioration of professional quality from different angles.
Additional Aspects
Apart from the direct actions and procedures aimed at minimizing the rate of nurse turnover in a healthcare setting, nursing leaders and managers might engage in developmental and culture-related endeavors. In particular, to maintain a high level of professionalism and retain talented employees in the organization despite challenging workloads and responsibilities, nurse leaders should improve employee resilience. Indeed, as stated by researchers, “resilience is a process in which people can adapt well to the adversities they face and remain hopeful about the future” (Wei et al., 2019, p. 682). Nurses can learn resilience skills by acquiring coping mechanisms to overcome difficulties at work (Wei et al., 2019, p. 682). Thus, when fostering resilience, nursing leaders improve the professional conduct and strengths of the employees, thus improving patient care quality.
Apart from resilience-directed efforts, leaders in the nursing profession should implement practices aimed at minimizing nurse burnout. Indeed, research suggests that high levels of burnout in the workplace contribute to increased levels of nurse turnover and intention to leave (Wei et al., 2019, p. 1). Therefore, minimizing the risks of burnout by improving workplace culture might be a significant contribution to bridging nurse turnover and improving service quality.
Relevant Leadership Style
When tackling the issue of high rates of nurse turnover, nursing managers should use a relevant leadership style applicable to the setting and the implications of the issue. Indeed, since the core factors in nurse turnover are high levels of stress, lack of resilience, high burnout rates, and dissatisfaction with work, it is essential to choose a style of leadership capable of addressing these factors. According to research, “correlation analysis revealed that participative and transformational leadership styles decrease turnover intention while autocratic and laissez-faire leadership styles increase turnover intention” (Magbity et al., 2020, p. 45). Indeed, both participatory and transformational styles of leadership involve close cooperation between leaders and followers, which allows for cultivating the atmosphere of support, team reliability, and serving the greater good.
In this regard, since participatory leadership allows for closer connections than the transformational style, it should be implemented to minimize nursing turnover. Such a recommendation is based on the finding that nurses’ hope and career identity contribute to their retention, which might be fostered by a participatory leader (Hu et al., 2022, p. 1). Thus, the best leadership style to ensure that the level of turnover is low and the professional quality of patient care is high is the participatory style.
Conclusion
To summarize, nurse turnover adversely influences the quality of organizational performance, goal achievement, and patient outcomes. To address this issue, managerial and leadership roles should be implemented based on their different approaches, where the former focuses on processes and procedures, while the latter prioritizes interpersonal connections. Since nurse turnover is associated with deteriorated job satisfaction, coping with stress, lack of hope, support, and career identity, these issues should be tackled by means of participatory leadership and proper human resource practices.
References
Hu, H., Wang, C., Lan, Y., & Wu, X. (2022). Nurses’ turnover intention, hope and career identity: The mediating role of job satisfaction. BMC Nursing, 21(1), 1-11. Web.
Magbity, J. B., Ofei, A. M. A., & Wilson, D. (2020). Leadership styles of nurse managers and turnover intention. Hospital Topics, 98(2), 45-50. Web.
Marć, M., Bartosiewicz, A., Burzyńska, J., Chmiel, Z., & Januszewicz, P. (2019). A nursing shortage – a prospect of global and local policies. International Nursing Review, 66(1), 9-16.
Wei, H., Roberts, P., Strickler, J., & Corbett, R. W. (2019). Nurse leaders’ strategies to foster nurse resilience. Journal of Nursing Management, 27(4), 681-687. Web.