Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Titles Page
Introduction 2
Conclusions 8
References 9
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Leading and Managing an Emergency Department
Leadership and followership are processes that occur between people. The
leadership is visionaries who help subordinates to plan, lead, control, and organize their
activities. Leadership is an attitude that shows behaviour, not series of skills or tasks.
One of the greatest challenges faced by our profession is to develop the future leaders.
Nowadays, it is hard to find people that have powerful leadership skills as many of them
do not know how to apply the theory and priciples of leadership that they have learnt
and put it into practice. Hence, every organisation requires leadership workers who can
master leadership styles and not only the theories and principles. In this way, it can
produce efficient leaders who capable to manage every circumstance that will lead to
better performance.
departments. This is because of the department's hierarchy of organization that puts the
team leader to follow their manager and at the same time, leading their subordinates to
Being a manager is different from being a leader. This is because leadership and
management are two different concepts. Seow (2013) stated that leaders create
people while managers plan, organise and exert power onto the subordinates to control.
Managers always focus on task completion, whereas a leader always guiding the
people to complete the tasks. Besides, managers always emphasise on present tasks
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while leaders look into the future and vision. Bush, Bell, and Wood (2010) mentioned
that managers use their authority to issue instructions while leaders use persuasions
and motivations to make them follow the instructions. These show a wide gap between
we must be technically proficient, know our job and have a solid familiarity with the
responsibilities of workers, which can help to develop good character traits and will help
them carry out their professional responsibilities. Besides that, a leader must ensure
that tasks are understood, supervised, and accomplished. Communication is a key for
leader, that can help communicate effectively. Furthermore , leader must know how to
communicate with not only junior staff, but senior staff and other key people as well to
make sure our worker’s informed. One the other hand, be well versed in basic human
nature and recognize the importance of sincerely caring for workers also a part of
principles for leadership. Then, a good leader must good in problem solving, decision
making, and planning tools. Wisely, during critical subordinates rely on team leader to
make a decision making. Seek for responsibility and take responsibility also importance
for a leader. When things go wrong do not blame others, analyze the situation, instead
take corrective action, and move on to the next challenge. Leaders must be a good role
model for employees. Because employees must not only be told what is expected of
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In our practice area, there are numerous of methods and styles of leadership
used by all staffs. We use behavioural, trait, situational, motivating, transactional and
Behavioural theory is a concept that monitors the leaders’ behaviour . This theory
can be categorised into three different styles which are democratic, autocratic, and
leaders have complete power over staff. Staff and team members have little opportunity
to make suggestions, even if these are in the best interest of the team or organization.
In our practice, leaders show autocratic styles occasionally due to some circumstances
which are relevant and acceptable for us. For example, when handling emergency
cases, there is no time for discussion. Therefore, Medical Officer (MO) as a team
leader will make a fast and clear decision because during the critical time, the patient’s
life is the highest priority. Based on Strauss and Mayer (2014), he indicated that
autocratic style might be useful in handling critical situation. Nevertheless, the leader
who made the decision must be responsible for any possible outcomes.
In contrast, democratic leaders make the final decisions, but include team
members are often highly engaged in projects and decisions. There are many benefits
of democratic leadership. Team members tend to have high job satisfaction and are
productive because they are more involved. This style also helps develop employees’
skills. In workplaces, leaders use this style when we have monthly meetings. We will
discuss the problems that we encounter and how to find its solution. The advantage of
this style is all the subordinates will be happy and satisfied with the decisions as the
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decisions are made together. However, disagreement of ideas and opinions will make it
Lancefield, and Dawson (2016), laissez-faire leadership may be the best or the worst of
leadership styles. Laissez-faire, this French phrase for “let it be,” when applied to
leadership describes leaders who allow people to work on their own. Laissez-faire
leaders abdicate responsibilities and avoid making decisions, they may give teams
complete freedom to do their work and set their own deadlines. This style of leadership
occurs in workplace when the staffs are assigned to run mentorship program for new-
coming staff and give a Continuous Medical Education (CME) presentation. The
Nonetheless, they might commit mistake if there is no guidance given. Plus, without
monitoring from the superiors, some staffs might take this advantage to skip from
working.
Next, our department also applies Trait Theory of leadership which stresses on
including charisma, creativity and flexibility. In practice area, when medical officer asks
for an in charge staff for a particular task, they choose the person by referring to these
According to Bush, Bell, and Wood (2010) motivating Theory is described as guiding the
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human behaviour based on value and motivation in order to fulfil their desire and goals.
A good leader will always motivate their followers. It is important for leaders to ensure
their subordinates achieve their personal and professional goals. As an example, our
leader always motivates and guides all the staffs to perform well. An annual
performance evaluation will be conducted and the staff with the best performance will
get cash prizes and certificates. At the same time, the rewards can motivate the staff to
improve their performance or maintain their excellence. This theory can intrinsically
motivate all staffs to show their best in doing their job. In spite of that, it can raise
competition among staff which can make the working environment less harmony.
Leitch, Lancefield, and Dawson (2016) specified that transformational leaders always
focus and concern towards their followers’ need and development. This is the most
common theory used by our leaders in workplace. Medical officers as the leader always
encourage and concern about our personal and professional goals. This makes all the
staffs enjoy working together as a team and achieving our goals which is providing the
There are some barriers in developing leadership skills in health care staffs’
practice. Strauss and Mayer (2014) indicated that some leaders have bad attitudes and
cannot be a role model to their subordinates. Some of the healthcare staff such as
nurses and Asistance Medical Officer did not have confidence and feel powerless due
to the hierarchical position in the organisation. They have a stigma that only the
superiors have rights, and they must follow without question as they work under their
leader’s order. This mindset prevents teamwork between the leader and the
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subordinates. Consequently, the leaders face difficulty in getting cooperation from the
staffs. Besides, lacks of opportunities for advancement causes impediments to find new
potential leader. Moreover, some of the healthcare staffs only focus on their daily jobs
and did not have a long term vision to develop and move forward. Thus, we need to
overcome all these problems and barriers so as to develop future leadership among
wide knowledge, good management, communication and teamwork skills, portrays solid
understanding about current problems and have a high level of self-awareness to lead
the whole team and makes changes proactively. Plus, an effective leader must have a
good attitude because everybody hates leaders who are grumpy or have negative
attitudes. A good leader also needs to focus on their employees’ satisfaction by making
the workplace a great place to work. Seow (2013) stated that every staff needs a leader
who is enthusiastic, inspiring and has credibility. Moreover, an effective leader must
show concern for their staff’s needs and objectives so as to ensure that the productivity
health care, the leaders must know how to motivate their staffs and encourage them to
Last but not least, in order to improve the clinical leadership in practice, clinical
staffs should be educated by the management regularly. Educational preparation for the
health care staffs about leadership is very important. Some investment has to be made
Leadership styles should also be introduced into the syllabus since the training time can
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make all the health care staffs have better understanding about leadership. Apart from
that, mentoring program for the new staffs is a good platform for healthcare staff to
show their leadership skills. Hence, the selection of the mentor for the mentorship
program should have a rotation so that everyone will get opportunities to improve their
leadership skills. In addition, the leaders in the clinic can involve their subordinates in
daily practice and decision-making process. In this way, they might find better ideas or
health care practice prioritises on being a role model to others, shows good qualities of
leader, have high integrity and impressive communication skills. We also must use the
implementing the principles and leadership styles into practice, we can reflect on our
leadership styles and identify the strengths and weaknesses in order to make
leadership skills. In this manner, we can develop effective leaders and produce future
will serve as an asset to the organisation and help us in achieving our main goal which
is to provide better quality of services in the health care. As a result, it will benefit both
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REFERENCES
Bush, T., Bell, L. and Wood, D.M., (2010). The principles of educational leadership and
Leitch, J., Lancefield, D. and Dawson, M., (2016). 10 priciples of strategic leadership.
business.com/article/10-principles-of-strategic-leadership.
Strauss, R.W. and Mayer, T.A., (2014). Emergency department management. China: