Analyzing a Leader/Manager 7

Running head: ANALYZING A LEADER/MANAGER 1

Analyzing a Leader/Manager

Denise Cooney

Ferris State University

NURS 440 ANALYZING A LEADER/MANAGER 2

Analyzing a Leader/Manager

In the medical profession, there are many types of leaders in many different health care fields. A leader, as defined by Yoder-Wise, is a person who demonstrates and exercises influence and power over others (Yoder-Wise, 2011, p.612). A manager directs and controls the staff whereas leaders set the direction, and develop the vision to be followed by the staff (Yoder-

Wise, 2011). The managers of multiple departments work together to accomplish the goal of safe patient centered care. The manager that will be discussed in this paper is Sandy Meyer. She is a manager of the respiratory therapy department at CareLink of Jackson. CareLink is a small long term acute care hospital that has an average census of 35 patients. Sandy received an

Associate’s degree in respiratory therapy in 1987. She worked as a registered respiratory therapist in a hospital for twelve years. During this time she continued her education and received a bachelor’s degree in Health Management. Her official title in her current position, which she has been in for ten years, is the Director of Respiratory Therapy and Ancillary

Services. Because of the small size of the hospital, the managers each oversee more than one department.

Job Duties

Sandy’s job duties include managing the respiratory therapy department and overseeing the ancillary services which include maintenance, dietary, Bio-med, and laundry. According to

Sandy her tasks include: scheduling and payroll for respiratory therapy; attending the morning meeting to discuss with case management and the nursing supervisors potential admissions for the day and to give this report to the therapy staff on the patient care units; develop project lists for maintenance and to order supplies and equipment needed for these projects; employee evaluations; meetings with the chief executive officer (CEO), chief operating officer (COO) and ANALYZING A LEADER/MANAGER 3 the chief financial officer (CFO) to discuss a budget and any potential projects. In her role as manager, the entire respiratory therapy department reports to her and Sandy reports to the clinical director or the COO.

Collaboration

Many managers in health care, Sandy included, consider decision making and problem solving a major part of their job. In order to effectively accomplish this task, managers need to form collaborative relationships with other departments to achieve effective care and quality patient outcomes (Keith & Askins, 2008). As an RT manager, Sandy meets with the nursing supervisor and case management each morning to coordinate the plans for patient admissions, discharges and arrange for staff to accompany a patient to other facilities for testing. She is also available for questions about direct patient care from her RT staff and the nursing staff. Her role as manager of ancillary services involves responding to calls from the nursing staff or other hospital employees about maintenance issues. She is responsible for arranging for the maintenance staff or an outside vendor to correct the problem. These issues can sometimes involve Sandy meeting with the CEO and CFO to get approval for the repair.

Legal or Ethical Issues

Managers are responsible for monitoring the employees under their supervision and to ensure that their credentials are up to date. (Yoder-Wise, 2011) They are also required to maintain safe staffing ratios to keep the quality of patient care and patient safety up to the hospital and regulatory standards. Managers must be competent in ethical decision making and be role models for their staff (Badzek et al, 1998). An ethical issue that Sandy has been dealing with for some time now, involves one of her respiratory therapists. This individual has tried, using Sandy’s words, to undermine her authority. This staff member has met with the Clinical ANALYZING A LEADER/MANAGER 4

Director and the COO to complain about Sandy being intimidating and “picking on her.” Sandy cannot ethically or legally fire this individual for her actions. As a manager, she must continue to work with this person and try not to treat this person any differently than the other therapists.

These events also cannot sway Sandy’s judgment during the therapist’s yearly evaluation.

Power and Influence

Because Sandy is a manager over such a variety of departments, she has a lot of influence over the day to day functioning of the hospital. For example, a new dishwasher is going to be installed in the kitchen. This involves getting the proper permits filled out and signed, organizing the in house maintenance staff and the outside vendors’ time table for completion, and arranging for the dietary staff to have disposable plates and utensils for the patients’ meals during this installation. This one project affects the whole hospital. Sandy’s years of experience as a respiratory therapist are a great influence on her ability to lead her therapy department. She uses this power, “the ability to influence others in an effort to achieve goals,” (Yoder-Wise,

2011, p. 176) to help her therapy staff to grow professionally.

Decision Making and Problem Solving

Sandy states that she uses the SBAR (situation, background, assessment, and recommendation) format when faced with making a decision or solving a problem. Each decision in health care must be focused around what is best for the patients. Whether the problem is with a patient or with a maintenance issue in the hospital, critical thinking is involved in determining the best solution for all involved. An example of this happened when the roof was leaking over the patient care area of the hospital. Two patient rooms were affected by this occurrence. A patient needed to be moved to another room and a new patient was delayed an admission to the facility because of lack of available beds. This decision involved the nursing ANALYZING A LEADER/MANAGER 5 staff working together with maintenance to ensure patient safety. Sandy also works closely with the Director of Clinical Services to financially prioritize the equipment and repairs that are necessary for the staff to safely care for the patients in an efficient and evidence based manor.

Management and Resolution of Conflict

In a hospital conflicts often arise in response to prioritizing the departments care of a patient. Each department, nursing, respiratory therapy, rehab, and dietary all feel what they have to do for the patient is top priority, so time conflicts sometimes happen. An example of this would be a respiratory therapist decides to give a breathing treatment at the same time that physical therapy was planning on taking the patient to the rehab room for therapy and the RN was going to start an IVPB. This conflict involves coordination of care and discussions between departments. Managers often are asked to intervene with some of these conflicts. Another type of conflict that Sandy had to deal with recently involved lateral violence which is the “aggressive and destructive behavior or psychological harassment of staff against each other.” (Yoder-Wise,

2011, p. 477) Sandy set up a meeting with the individuals involved for a one-to-one conflict resolution. This area of leadership involves certain types of communication skills such as active listening and having the ability to inspire others. (Nilsson & Furaker, 2012) Managing and overseeing a group of people that are not in your area of expertise can be challenging. Sandy has had to confront maintenance project managers about differences in expectations on renovation projects and spending more than the necessary amount of money to complete a high quality project.

Conclusion

As a manager, Sandy covers a wide range of areas, some of which are even out of her professional scope of practice. She is not always open to new ideas or ways of doing things ANALYZING A LEADER/MANAGER 6 which can make it hard for some people to approach her. However, she is respected by the other managers and staff members. She needs to continue with a commitment to improve her ability to lead and raise the bar for the staff she supervises to achieve new goals (Yoder-Wise, 2011).

Leading by example and sharing her knowledge from past experiences will make her a positive influence to the entire hospital staff. ANALYZING A LEADER/MANAGER 7

References

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Merkeley Keith, K. & Fraser Askin, D. (2008). Effective collaboration: the key to better

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