Managment Styles- Community Nursing

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorUniversity, Master's April 2001

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This essay will demonstrate how the theories of leadership from a human relationship perspective are relevant to nursing practice. It will focus on the professional relationships within a community nursing team. This will be supported by a discussion of the issues raised from personal reflection of the author and supported by relevant published literature.

Leadership and what makes an effective leader has been a contentious and well-discussed question for a long time. Theories abound on the subject from "a controller of subordinates in a bureaucratic manner"Ã¯Â¿Â½ (Fayol 1916) (Cited?). Jago (1982) described a leader as, "someone able to develop two way communication, being actively involved in the planning and directing of the groups activities"Ã¯Â¿Â½; Stewart (1989) saw a leader as, "A visionary that guides the way forward when it is not clear"Ã¯Â¿Â½; While Bass (1990), Portrayed a leader as " Someone that can inspire and excite their subordinates."Ã¯Â¿Â½; and Brown (2000), describes leadership as a personal attribute, and result of situational determinants, interaction of personality and situation, and a process of negotiation between leaders and followers.

One of the most well know theories about leadership is that there are born leaders. This hypothesis, the "great person theory"Ã¯Â¿Â½ asserts that there are certain key personality traits that make an effective leader. According to Albright and Forziai (1995), leaders show more; ÃÂÃÂ· Intelligence than non leaders, ÃÂÃÂ· Drive to be powerful, ÃÂÃÂ· Charisma, ÃÂÃÂ· Social skills, ÃÂÃÂ· Adaptation and flexibility.

This "great person"Ã¯Â¿Â½ theory is of little use in psychological terms as circumstance is often an important aspect, the fact someone has these traits doesn't determine their ability to lead unrelated groups in different situations.

There are three well-known styles of leadership Autocratic, Democratic and Laissez Faire (Lewin, Lippitt and White 1939), and further to these Vroom and Yetton (????...