Free Essay On Leader Story

In “Leader Story", Margaret McClure argues that most of the practices in use today in the nursing discipline cannot be said to be evidence-based practice. This is because evidence-based practice involves the use of theories in explaining certain aspects in the profession. Theories essentially refer to a body of proven procedures or means through which desired ends can be reached. Theories come up as a result of intensive research on given topics. In the nursing profession, however, most players are reluctant to read and look at research done on various aspects of nursing administration. In the few cases where they read, people are still not ready to change and prefer to maintain the status quo in operations. They prefer to continue running operations in the usual ways that they are accustomed to.
This trend is however not helpful since a change needs to be seen if progressive steps are to be taken in the nursing profession and especially in nursing administration. Players in the industry need to embrace evidence-based practice in order to ensure positive change in administration.
Administrators in nursing have had a faulty approach to the issue in the past. They are usually concerned with pointing out the differences that are there between nursing and other sections in healthcare provision. They are quick to point out on possible improvements to the nursing profession and what can be done to make it better. The author suggests that changes need to be done in this, such that the players in nursing do an extensive literature review. This will enable them to be equipped on how to explain nursing fully and clearly while at the same time providing proof and evidence why certain changes need to be done. This means that the profession at large needs to come up with its own literature. Given the uniqueness of the nursing profession, it is usually difficult to adopt theories from other disciplines. This is because circumstances are usually different and varied thus calling for some level of specificity when it comes to theories. To this end, a need for nurse-specific scholarly work and theories needs to be introduced. This will also come with a new crop of administrative scholars who will deal with administrative issues in a more understandable and nurse friendly manner.
The leadership theory, in this case, is developed by Lawrence and Worsch and named it the differentiation-integration theory. The theory seeks to explain the nature of the relationship between nursing and the overall administrative aspect. According to this theory, complex or large organizations are partitioned into different departments with different roles to play. Given that the departments have to work as a fully functional system, the need for an integrator rises. The integrator has a very important role in the complex organization which is usually to pull together disintegrated effort from different departments into a united final product for the whole system. According to this theory, the nurse administrator usually plays this role of an integrator. Here, the nurse is expected to coordinate various activities in the system, some of which may be unfamiliar to them. A problem, therefore, arises in trying to integrate various aspects which one may not be well versed with.
Marquis & Huston (2012) in developing a kit for leadership and administration in nursing also point out at the different management functions that have been proven to work. They explain how staffing, organizing, controlling, directing and planning can be effectively carried out by the administrator. This is closely related to the approach used in the “Leader Story” article, where the author embarked on studying different theories through which good administration and leadership could be established. This approach to leadership fits perfectly with the story presented in the article. This is because the gap between theory and practice is huge and needs to be bridged by coming up with literature about administration of nursing.

Works Cited

Marquis, B.L. & Huston, C.J. Leadership and Management Tools for the New Nurse: A Case Study Approach. NY: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. 2012.