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Leadership & Strategy Part A Leadership requires a lot of learning and trying of new tactics to solve a problem. Nurse leaders, in particular, play a crucial role in the health sector, striving to inspire others to work together towards achieving a common goal. A competent nurse leader can identify problems and solve them, is courageous, initiative, and with high level of integrity. Such qualities are necessary in making decisions that are essential for the normal performance and development of their organizations. A case study by Jean-Louis Barsoux and Mattia Gilmartin highlights the challenges that leaders undergo in their quest to bring about change in the organizations they lead. It describes the enormous task that Tracy Burns was given and the goals that she had to achieve as well as how she was able to collaborate with others to ensure these goals are met. Effective leadership presupposes the application of various leadership styles that can expertly help them tackle the challenges they face. Synopsis “Leading Organizational Change” is case of King Edgar Hospitals NHS Trust. The hospital had three divisions: the Bronte Hospital, the Clover Hospital, and the Friar Hospital, which merged to form the Trust. The process was driven by the prevailing circumstances of the time, which required proper management and improvement of services. One of the problems for the Trust was the issue of increased delay of trolleys for patients in the cases of accident and emergency (A&E0 department). Also, there were problems in the medical admissions, high admission rates, longer lengths of stay for patients, delays in discharges, poor relationships with social services, and more other patients’ complaints. Of all the issues, the primary concern was the poor performance of the admission-to-discharge chain, which was the cause of all the delays (p 1). Tracey Burns, the Executive Director of Nursing, was given the responsibility of addressing this problem. The case study focuses on several issues, which they strive to bring out to the public. The first concern is the National Health Service and the impacts it has had on the UK health system. The case study focuses on the issues that affected most hospitals across Britain in their quest to be ranked higher by the NHS, thereby being able to receive more funding (p 2). The key topic is leadership and different leadership styles. As the Trust was facing internal problems threatening their performance, they had undergone drastic changes aimed at improving the performance of the hospital. The admission-to-discharge chain is one of the issues that the case study focuses on. The authors look at the critical management changes that the hospital had to undertake to realign this chain and make it more effective as well as the measures they had to take to meet the NHS requirements to be able to achieve a three-star rating. The Hospital had only received a one star which meant they had to endeavor to improve their performance. Tracey Burns, the Executive Director of Nursing, was chosen by the Board to lead this process due to her previous experience as a Matron, which taught her to deal with challenges in hospital. Purpose of the Case Study 1.   To highlight the problems faced by most hospitals regarding the NHS rules. 2.   To help address the issues faced in the admission-to-discharge chain in hospitals. 3.   To describe leadership styles and their ability to help drive change in an organization. 4.   To define several leadership theories Key Actor In this case, Tracey Burns is a key actor; she was in charge of leading the change implementation at King Edgar Hospitals NHS Trust. Burns chooses the job for two reasons. The first reason is that as a caregiver, she tried to put herself in the patients’ shoes, who were forced to wait for up to 12 hours before receiving any services. Her second reason is she saw an opportunity to enhance the role of nurses in the environment that had been dominated mainly by the medical profession (p 2). Burns started with instilling a systematic approach that begins with the first stage of admission. She also radically changed various issues including establishing nurse-led changes aimed at enhancing their scope of operation and identified the areas that require sweeping changes, including the readmission issues, the discharge process, issues with social services, and discharge planning among others(Xu,2017). Her focus is clear, that is to address the underlying problems affecting the admission to discharge chain, and to do that she had to make changes including giving others the power to be able to act more. Burns was successful in most of her plans, including successfully renegotiating a deal with the Social Services in a way acceptable to both parties. Predominant Style The most predominant style shown by Tracey Burns is transformational leadership style. In transformational leadership style, the leader encourages, motivates, and brings cohesion and teamwork among employees. In the case study, there are several instances where Tracey Burns shows signs of being a transformational leader. For example, when she wanted to convince the nursing team to accept more responsibilities on the discharge process, she had to convince them on the benefits of making this step(p 3). She was able to effectively motivate the nurses and reassure them of the benefits that added responsibilities would bring to the organization (Hu, 2017). Burns also believed in promoting teamwork among employees at the hospital. Theories of leadership Transformational leadership presupposes being an inspirational leader that can convince the team to agree with his or her goals and objectives. Burns achieved this objective when she effectively inspired nurses to accept more roles which were not traditionally theirs. She also persuaded the matrons to allow more functions that were initially meant for nurses (Steinhauer, 2016). Burns was able to get the necessary support from her superiors when she convinced them to sign off to her plan. One of the critical reasons for Burns’ success was her confidence in being able to lead most of the groups under her. She used her faith to enable her to inspire loyalty from both the nurses and the matrons. Tracey Burn also demonstrated transactional leadership when she encouraged employees to work together. According to Saleh (2018), this leadership style is a constructive form of command, which brings together various individuals or teams for a specified goal. It involves well-defined agreements or contracts, which individuals or groups should perform. For example, when Tracey Burns was offering Sue Greens the job of assistant nursing director, she had to show her the job description expressly and what she was required to do. When she involved the nursing team in a group discussion, there should have been detailed instructions of how specific responsibilities should be fulfilled. Burns carried out a similar thing with the Matron’s team (Asamani, Naab, & Ofei, 2016). She was able to understand the abilities of the people she assigned these jobs and was sure they would deliver within the time given. For example, Sue Green was assigned a specific task of running a workshop with key stakeholders to discuss the discharge issues. It is clear that Tracey Burns was an active leader in the sense that she applied different leadership styles, in particular transformational and the transactional, to ensure success.

Part B Introduction Tracey Burns had the most challenging job in the entire organization having to turn it around and change its way of operations. She had to apply both transformational and transactional leadership styles to enable her to pull through in this case. It is clear from the case study that she had to work together with others sometimes motivating them to perform specific tasks and sometimes giving them express instructions on what she expected them to do. In all these instances, Tracey Burns did what she thought was right and what she believed would help bring change to the organization. Given an opportunity to take up her job, I would do exactly what she did. I would apply both these two leadership styles to increase my chances of success. The problems at the Trusty were not unique for that organization alone. Different organizations continue to face challenges which make it difficult for them to succeed. In such cases, a change in leadership styles used is always the best way to address these challenges. The problems at the Trust were numerous with almost every department having their short-comings. Tracey Burns knew each department had different issues and that she had to shake up the entire team to ensure they can run smoothly. I would do precisely that, going from, one department to another making changes aimed at addressing the different issues affecting them. The very first leadership duty she did was to carry out a study to identify all the problems the hospitals faced. If I were in her situation, I would also carry out a similar, so that I can understand the magnitude of the issues facing the hospital. The study will also be helpful in the sense that it can be used as a checklist while solving the problems from one department to another. Not everyone is born a leader, and not every leader can guarantee success unless they apply specific leadership styles that are uniquely equipped to deal with the issues their organization faces. This is what Mrs. Burns did, opting to use two different leadership styles knowing very well the magnitude of the problems she faced. She knew that she could not approach these problems in the same way due to the fact each department had different managers with different sets of staff. The issues facing them were also various,. While other required motivation to succeed, others needed a firm hand to guide them to achieve their potential which they were not performing. According to Holten and Brenner (2015), one of the best ways to face multiple challenges in an organization s is to adopt policies that help improve effectiveness, efficiency, and profitability. These goals can be easily achieved through the adoption of different leadership styles. For example, transformational leadership has emerged as one of the best methods to bring about change in organizations. Looking at Tracey Burns, it is clear that it was her main leadership style, which enabled her to tackle the issues that faced the hospital. On the other hand, she applied transactional leadership style when she brought different departments together giving them tasks which she expected them to deliver promptly. Having a happy and motivated staff is a sure way to success in any organization (Hu, 2017). This is precisely what Burns did, and I would do the same if I were in her position. Transformational leaders are always able to empower their employees by motivating them, encouraging their positive self-esteem, and engaging them in the decision-making process (Fischer, 2016). Most effective transformational leaders are always able to nurture trust among their employees. As a transformational leader, I would have inspired them to succeed in their endeavors and offer help whenever it is needed. I would also ensure that these employees are well empowered to enable them to perform over and above what is expected. Another important characteristic that enabled Burns to succeed in her transactional leadership theory was her ability to formulate clear goals and objectives all of which were aimed at ensuring everyone was involved in the success of the organization (Boyal & Hewison, 2016). All the participants of the process had their job descriptions changed as a result of new policies, which helped empower employees with more responsibilities. As a transactional leader, I would also empower my employees by promoting them and allowing them the freedom to act independently. However, such promotion would come after ensuring they are up to the task assigned and that they would deliver as required. Burns also promoted several individuals, them giving them more power to make their independent decisions. For example, Helen Edwards and Nikki Thorton were allowed to lead the matrons in adopting the new changes in the organization (p 5). Some employees were promoted, such as Sue Green, who took a position of assistant director of nursing. Conclusion The case study offers a practical application of leadership styles in the workplace. King Edgar Hospitals NHS Trust was facing a crisis in poor performance, which made them adopt new forms of leadership. Tracey Burns was the one given the responsibility to make these changes, and she acted the best way she could. Given a chance to take up her roles, I believe I would proceed the same way she did. Having received only a one-star rating, the hospital knew that they had to change and work hard to maintain the lucrative NHS funding. Tracey Burns was a crucial figure in implementing change in the organization by relying on a transformational style of leadership. She chose to motivate and encourage employees to succeed in something which worked to her advantage. She also applied the transactional and transformational leadership theories which were instrumental in helping her achieve success. These two leadership styles were the best styles to drive this organization forward according to me. I, therefore, believe Tracey Burns did the right thing, and that was seen by how the organization started to show signs of success.