Personal Leadership Qualities

Leadership refers to the ability of an individual to influence others to willingly follow. Every organization needs leaders at every level of management. Leadership qualities are innate and if properly nurtured, they can develop into character traits of a person and can be useful in leading individuals, teams and even the entire organization. Just like other organizations, healthcare organization requires effective leadership as well so that there is proper management and handling of patients in the healthcare environment. Personally, I have some leadership qualities that I believe will help get through my career successfully. This paper aims at analyzing my personal leadership qualities and aspects so as to help prepare a portrait of my aspiring effective healthcare administrator role.

Honesty is the primary character trait for all leaders and I know I possess this quality. Leadership involves earning the trust of the followers and honest can ensure them that one can lead them in the right direction. Another quality that can is emphasized in the leadership role is the humility. Humble leader is not self-effacing but rather tries to uplift everyone. This is a leadership quality that has made it possible in many leadership roles to get along well with the other members of the team. A health administrator is a person who is in charge of a healthcare facility such as a clinic, doctor’s office and even a hospital. He or she has a role of hiring, promoting and managing the healthcare employees. This implies that healthcare administrator must be people’s person so as to be able to relate well with them. As an aspiring effective healthcare administrator, honesty and humility are the primary leadership qualities that will enable me accomplish my roles successfully. An effective health administrator must be a good communicator, negotiator, delegator and at times diplomat. Therefore, an effective healthcare administrator must be able to delegate. This implies that the team leader must entrust his followers with a vision of the business so as to be effective and efficient hence will be easier to progress to the next stage. It is important for a leader to always remember that trusting the team with the ideas is a sign of strength and a good leader has to capitalize on the members’ strengths. Creativity is another leadership quality that is required of the effective healthcare administrator that will enhance my ability to think differently from the team members. It offers me the ability to see things in a different way and thus lead followers in new directions.

As an aspiring effective healthcare administrator, the above leadership qualities will help me manage the facility, healthcare staff as well as the patients. Empathy and patience are two qualities that are very important in the handling of patients in the healthcare environment. This will create a favorable environment for both patients and the healthcare employees.

My Leadership Strengths and Weaknesses

Transformational leadership theory suggests that leadership is about bringing positive changes in the followers whereby their interests are well taken care of by acting in the interests of the group as a whole (Bass, 2005). In this leadership style, the leader inspires morality and good performance of his follower group. This implies that the followers must be given a chance to grow into a better person in many ways. A good leader must offer a chance to the followers to enhance their skills and become successful in their roles so as to improve the efficiency of the organization.

According to this theory, the following are my leadership strengths and weaknesses

Strengths

• Enthusiastic. In my leadership role, I like motivating and helping other people
• Result-oriented. My leadership style involves focusing on producing positive results and therefore, will always work on bringing positive changes on my followers.
• Patience. This is another one of my strengths that has enabled me work well with other people in a group. Offering them a chance to change is the best way to bring out positive changes in the group.
• Multitasking. This is another strength that has enabled me to work better in handling various tasks with the aim of bring out the best from the followers.

Weaknesses

• Over-confidence. Having too much confidence on those we lead can bring out negative results because it will mean assuming many things in the group which includes the weaknesses of others.
• Lacking emotional intelligence. In my leadership style, my focus on producing positive changes decreases my ability to endure other people’s feelings because it will always be about producing positive changes.

Maintaining Positive Relationships

It takes a lot to become an effective healthcare administrator because it is not just about possession of the leadership qualities but also leadership characteristics that enhances collaborative relationship between patients, other disciplines and the entire community. In this case, there are leadership characteristics which I already possess and those which I wish to develop so as to make my leadership effective and efficient.

My leadership characteristics which include consistency, empathy, honesty, communication, and flexibility are the ones that I already possess and will enhance my relationship with the patients and the entire community. This is because these characteristics will help me handle situations in a more understanding way as it involves getting to work better with people in the community as well as in the healthcare environment. Consistency enables one to earn respect from those he or she leads because it will ensure them that their problems will be properly handled as they require. Empathy is the main characteristic required in the healthcare environment because it enables one to better understand the challenges that the patients face. This characteristic will allow me to have compassion to guide the patients in their healthcare provision which ensures that quality care is provided. As a leader showing empathy to others, especially the patients in the healthcare environment will inspire other healthcare staff to do the same and even more hence influence positive changes in the healthcare environment in terms of quality. The act of empathy is a way of showing positive relationship with other people.

Honesty is another characteristic that influences positive changes in the field of healthcare. This is due to the fact that an honest leader will treat people the same way that he or she would want to be treated by others. As a healthcare administrator, honest is fundamental to successful leadership because it assures all the stakeholders that they can rely on you for anything. This will lead to fair treatment of patients, healthcare employees and the community at large. Treating people fairly and equally helps in maintaining positive relationship with them.

Flexibility is the ability to adopt other ways of finding solutions to a certain problem. This characteristic is fundamental to educating patients and the healthcare employees. This is because it will teach them other ways of finding solutions to the difficult situations. This will teach about the importance of creativity and being flexible to certain changes that mat be brought in. Also, a good communicator will always inform the followers about certain changes and educate them the expectations in the field.

There are other leadership characteristics that I wish to develop while performing my duty as an effective healthcare administrator so as to enhance the management of the healthcare field. One of them includes the ability to inspire action. Having a vision that people can work to achieve it is the best way to lead but it requires the ability to inspire the followers act in ways that help in attaining the vision (Goleman, 2000). As an effective healthcare administrator, I will be required to make work easier for the patients and healthcare staff so as to easily achieve quality care. I also wish to be decisive while discharging my duties. It is important for any highly effective leader to be decisive so that tough calls can quickly be made when circumstances require it (Mendez-Morse 1992). This means that under any difficult circumstance, all the required information will be collected for an informed decision to be made without any hesitation. Inspiring action and being decisive also helps in maintaining positive relationship between patients and the entire community.

Ethical Leadership

Ethical leadership for a healthcare administrator involves ensuring that patients are receiving high quality and ethical treatment (Boyle, 2001). There are principles of ethics that must be applied in the medical setting so as to ensure that there is ethical leadership in the healthcare field. The principles include:

• Autonomy. This principle suggests that the patient has a right to make his or her own decisions hence must be given a chance to in the treatment process. Giving them a chance to decide about their treatment approaches will inspire positivity in the patient.
• Beneficence. This principle suggests that health care providers must always focus on benefitting the patient in every situation. This implies that all procedures and treatments recommended must be with the intention of bringing most good for the patient.
• Non-Maleficence. This principle suggests that under no circumstances will the decision made harms the patient. Therefore, all the procedures and treatments chosen must never do any harm to the patient even if it is made for the benefit of an individual patient.
• Justice. This principle states an element of fairness must prevail in all medical decisions. This will ensure that all patients are fairly and equally treated.

Responding to Diversity

Diversity is an element which must be addressed in the healthcare environment. This is because the healthcare environment has diversified goals which need to be met. It involves meeting the needs of the patients, healthcare staff, community and the other disciplines. The healthcare has to provide quality care to the patients and favorable working environment to the healthcare staff. As a way of responding to their needs, transformational style of leadership will help in influencing positive changes in the healthcare environment (Freshman & Rubino, 2002). Personal professional and academic experiences will also help in the personal development and hence making it easier to manage and influence positive changes in the healthcare field.

Conclusion

In conclusion, from the above discussion, it is evident that leadership style is fundamental for the effective operation of healthcare environment. Effective healthcare administrator will effectively organize, manage and inspire actions with the right leadership style. This is required of the effective healthcare administrator so that patients and healthcare staff maintain positive relationship.

References

Bass, B. (2005). Transformational leadership theory. JB Miner. Organizational behavior I. Essential theories of motivation and leadership, 361-385.

Boyle, P. (2001). Organizational ethics in health care: Principles, cases, and practical solutions (Vol. 10). John Wiley & Sons.

Freshman, B., & Rubino, L. (2002). Emotional intelligence: a core competency for health care administrators. The health care manager, 20(4), 1-9.

Goleman, D. (2000). Leadership that gets results. Harvard business review, 78(2), 4-17.

Mendez-Morse, S. (1992). Leadership Characteristics That Facilitate School Change.