Integrating Current and Past Literature

EVIDENCE FOR GAP IN PRACTICE 2

Evidence for Gap in Practice

Alexis Ferrell

Capella University

DB8610 Week 3 Assignment

Leadership Theory and Practice

Dr. David Braga

November 11th, 2023

Evidence for Gap in Practice

Effective leadership skills represent the root cause solution to employing a more positive work culture environment and providing a clear vision for sustainable company growth. Leaders with strong interpersonal skills and awareness of employee’s attitudes/beliefs of daily operations lead to increased employee engagement and job satisfaction (Mahajan & Sharma, 2015). A leader's ability to communicate strategically and operate within an effective leadership framework is critical in maintaining knowledge transfer among employees, especially in times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic (Lee et al., 2021). When leaders emphasize fostering a more positive workplace environment, subsequent leadership efforts often provide a mediating effect between increased employee satisfaction and more positive consumer experiences (Wang & DeWing, 2021). Executive leaders must balance competing company needs (i.e., those of employees vs. revenue goals) and prioritize collaboration as the core company value, allowing various departments to operate more efficiently. The CareLead team must implement robust leadership practices including the adoption of specific leadership styles to address a lack of employee engagement and offset negative consequences like burnout and reduced effort from employees. A lack of executive presence, strategic internal communication skills, and effective leadership styles contributes to a gap in desired performance versus actual performance, resulting in reduced revenue.

Problem and Gap

Many factors, including market saturation, the COVID-19 pandemic, and leadership ineffectiveness, result in the identified business problem of reduced annual growth and declining KPI metrics. CareLead could be experiencing a unique dynamic known as the halo effect, where company performance, positive or negative, determines the overall impression of leaders, strategies, work culture, and output (Rosenzweig, 2007). When the internal environment of a company is ineffective, specifically in nursing leadership, it extends to increased adverse patient experiences (Wang & Dewing, 2021). As a result, CareLead is now actively experiencing a unique dynamic where employees (internal) and patients (external) are unhappy, leading to a shared downfall of experiences. Subsequently, unhappy employees often do not work as hard for a company they do not feel values them and patients begin to seek other medical care due to unsatisfactory experiences. Falling prey to the halo effect can lead executives to implement solutions that do not address the problem, like what CareLead is currently experiencing. Since the CareLead medical team faces multiple challenges and competing priorities, executives should conduct a market analysis with a SWOT analysis to ensure all potential problems are accounted for when implementing solutions.  

Alignment  

Without cohesive leadership efforts, the negative impacts of poor leadership on a company’s organizational outcomes will continue to affect every department until addressed appropriately. Times of global crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, alter the way people communicate with one another, ranging from companies that strategically use communication to make quick and effective decisions to other companies that hastily make decisions without input from various impacted departments (Lee et al., 2021). Additionally, a lack of teamwork exposes companies to risks with increased vulnerability to patient quality and care safety (Buljac-Samardzic et al., 2020). Lower employee engagement levels act as an additional source of risk as unengaged employees typically do not provide an innovative work ethic to assist in meeting company goals (Mahajan & Sharma, 2015). Ensuring alignment between leadership inefficiencies and employee attitudes will be the only path forward to mitigating risk and restoring the company’s reputation. Leaders will need to determine how lack of cohesive management impacts each department; accordingly, leaders will also need to possess reflective and self-awareness skills to correctly identify if their efficiencies contribute to the overall problem. CareLead should conduct an anonymous company survey to assess employee attitudes, as they could use this measurable data to ensure implemented solutions address feedback. It will be paramount for CareLead to ensure that any actionable choices address the problem source to avoid creating any additional challenges or further lowering employee engagement levels.  

Problem Source  

The scope of ineffective leadership can occur on multiple levels; thus, CareLead’s first step must be to determine if ineffective leadership is the result of undesirable leadership attributes or if it is a result of improper implementation of employed business strategies. Leaders often attempt to respond to crisis events with solutions that need more room for flexibility and innovation; insinuating it is possible to have leaders who possess all the "right" leadership qualities but do not hold the executive presence necessary to direct others proficiently (Emerson, 2022; Lee et al, 2021). The power of perception can often be highly misleading, leading to those within power assuming they are held in a higher regard when their leadership styles are perceived on different levels (Chavez et al., 2017). To lessen future power struggles, these management departments must collectively discuss an achievable goal and how each department can contribute to the overall objective. Additionally, given the nature of CareLead operating within the medical industry during a global pandemic, leaders must review crisis protocols and ensure that communication breakdown is not simply due to the global pandemic and increased stress placed on hospital facilities. The management team at CareLead must realize how to adopt solutions within its realistic setting (I.e., COVID-19), allowing for conversations to include new, potentially even unorthodox, ideas. Influential leaders, specifically those who operate within a transformational leadership style, display the ability to read each situation and respond accordingly. As the world straddles between Industry 4.0 and 5.0, leaders must be privy to adapt to evolving situations without compromising the quality of communication offered to other team members.  

Project of Interest 

To address the gap in practice at CareLead, executives should implement a leadership seminar series to be attended by any employee in a managerial role. Given the current lack of communication between departments, it will be critical to ensure that all potential bias is removed from the project so as not to exacerbate present problems and posit a clear focus on improving communication through collaboration (Gino & Coffman, 2021). Additionally, CareLead must act with transparency as part of the leadership seminar series to foster a stronger sense of collaboration across teams (Parekh, 2022). Often, a company's attempts to alter dissent among teams through training could be more effective due to a lack of actionable solutions reinforcing the need for change within an organization (Gino & Coffman, 2021). The CareLead Medical team continues to feel an impact across multiple departments due to the increasing levels of ineffective leadership. Thus, other potential project ideas, such as an in-house reward system for employees to boost overall morale, ultimately would not address the overall issue of ineffective leadership. Prior to creating a leadership seminar series, one of the most significant challenges for CareLead will be to determine who at the company will develop and lead the series. Leaders will need to explore how to strengthen their independent leadership styles and combine this learning to collaborate with other departments; subsequently, results will allow CareLead to leverage competitive advantage, increasing key KPI metrics and re-invigorating revenue growth.  

Reflection 

Critical skills necessary in all organizations, no matter the type, will require identifying risks and proactively implementing solutions to mitigate those risks. One significant challenge companies face is knowing how to define a leader and highlighting leadership attributes when leadership is often situationally dependent on organizational context (Skyrzypczyńsk, 2018). Leaders must also possess a high level of self-awareness to adapt their leadership models situationally using direct and indirect feedback (Chavez et al., 2017). Without the appropriate knowledge of narrowing down the root of the problem, it is easy for companies to implement solutions that do not address the actual business problem. Thus, companies potentially waste valuable company resources and employee effort in implementing unsuccessful solutions. The managers at CareLead need to foster a mutual understanding that allows collaboration and communication to work towards creating, implementing, and monitoring a collective goal. Transitioning leadership teams to demonstrate cohesive values will require valuable company time and potentially valuable company resources. However, CareLead must understand that there is a synergistic relationship between how their leaders handle daily operations and how organizational outcomes (I.e., patient satisfaction and company revenue) occur.  

 

 

References 

Buljac-Samardzic, M., Doekhie, K. D., & van Wijngaarden, J. D. (2020). Interventions to improve team effectiveness within health care: a systematic review of the past decade.  Human resources for health,  18(1), 1-42. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-019-0411-3   

Capella University. (n.d.). CareLead Medical: Business Story [Capella Media]. Retrieved from https://media.capella.edu/coursemedia/db8610element237441/wrapper.asp   

Chavez, C. I., Gomez, C., Valenzuela, M., & Perera, Y. B. (2017). Teaching leaders to lead themselves: An emerging leader exercise. Management Teaching Review, 2(1), 80-91. https://doi-org.library.capella.edu/10.1177/23792981166782  

Emerson, M. (2022). 7 Reasons Why Change Management Strategies Fail and How to Avoid Them. Professional Development: Harvard Division of Continuing Education. https://professional.dce.harvard.edu/blog/7-reasons-why-change-management-strategies-fail-and-how-to-avoid-them/   

Gino, F. & Coffman, K. (2021). Unconscious Bias Training That Works. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2021/09/unconscious-bias-training-that-works 

Lee, Y., Tao, W., Li, J. Y. Q., & Sun, R. (2021). Enhancing employees’ knowledge sharing through diversity-oriented leadership and strategic internal communication during the COVID-19 outbreak.  Journal of Knowledge Management,  25(6), 1526-1549. https://doi.org/10.1108/JKM-06-2020-0483   

Mahajan. S., & Sharma, R. (2015). Impact of effective leadership on employee engagement. International Journal of Education and Management Studies, 5(4), 288-291.  http://library.capella.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fscholarly-journals%2Fimpact-effective-leadership-on-employee%2Fdocview%2F1792354182%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D27965  

Parekh, D. (2022). How To Understand And Tackle Unconscious Bias As A Leader. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2022/01/20/how-tounderstand-and-tackle-unconscious-bias-as-a-leader/?sh=61e4e493120a 

Rosenzweig, P. (2007). The halo effect, and other managerial delusions. McKinsey & Company. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/the-halo-effect-and-other-managerial-delusions   

Skyrzypczyńska, K. (2018). Significance of Emotional Intelligence in Leadership. Journal of Positive Management, 9(4), 66-78. http://library.capella.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fscholarly-journals%2Fsignificance-emotional-intelligence-leadership%2Fdocview%2F2385738811%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D27965     

Wang, M., & Dewing, J. (2021). Exploring mediating effects between nursing leadership and patient safety from a person‐centred perspective: A literature review.  Journal of Nursing Management,  29(5), 878-889. https://doi-org.library.capella.edu/10.1111/jonm.13226