Introduction
Nursing leadership and nursing management are terms often used interchangeably when explaining executive nursing roles in nursing care. Explored reviews from articles and websites further suggest a common curriculum for nursing students aiming for administrative positions and hardly perceive the two roles as different. However, research postulates that leadership and management are profoundly different roles in nursing. If these assertions are correct, then it is important to identify unique elements that differentiate leadership and management in nursing care.
Jennings, B. M., Scalzi, C. C., Rodgers III, J. D., & Keane, A. (2007). “Differentiating Nursing Leadership and Management Competencies”. Nursing Outlook, 55(4), 169-175.
Executives in nursing administration have consistently complained for the development of curricula suitable to prepare nurse administrators for their demanding tasks. However, literature rarely defines the differences in nursing leaders and nurse managers roles. With reference to notions projected by Jennings et al., (2007) in the article “Differentiating Nursing Leadership and Management Competencies”, leadership and management competencies are not synonymous. Jennings et al., (2007) notes that leadership emphasizes on fostering human relationships to move towards achieving a set goal while management involves task accomplishment through planning and coordinating resources. To prove this, the article’s methodology reviews 140 articles published between 2000-2004 on leadership and management competencies in nurse administration. Jennings et al., (2007) findings project that out of 894 competencies found in the literature, 862 were common to both leadership and management while 32 were different. This was attributed to the changing dynamics in the healthcare systems that created diverse nursing roles and competencies. As such, the analysis concludes that an evolving educational curriculum that reflects these competency changes should be drafted to prepare nurses better in their administrative careers.
Supporting Literature
Empirical evidence supports Jennings et al., (2007) ideology that nurse leadership and management have distinctive differences. According to (Murray, 2017) the concepts of leadership and management differ based on characteristics, processes, and situational needs. Nurse leaders’ tasks are often oriented on influencing nursing teams, instigating transformation, and setting policies to ensure the overall quality of patient care delivery and satisfaction (Weiss et al., 2019). For example, chief nurse executives may set motivating strategies for nursing staffs to encourage and convince them on their abilities to accomplish tasks and achieve quality work with other people (Murray, 2017). On the other hand, nurse managers delegate responsibilities, supervises, and guides team members within their assigned errands to ensure patient care (Weiss et al., 2019). In this regard, nurse administration should design leadership courses that equip student nurses with the knowledge needed in problem solving systems such as diagnosis and simulate management roles that facilitate critical thinking on how health situations may be tackled within the nursing environment.
Limitation of the Article
Despite this, Jennings et al., (2007) does not highlight similarities that demonstrate how leadership and management overlap in contrast to its literature counterparts. This a limitation to the article. Weiss et al., (2019) notes that nursing leadership and management roles complement each other, especially in situational perspectives and directing health strategies. For instance, during disaster management nurses combine spontaneous knowledge, critical thinking, operational, and financial skills to provide satisfying cost-effective care for their patients and ensure health promotion. Increasingly, their chaotic environments demand motivation from leaders and mangers to implement a vision into action. This reveals that nurse managers function best in the company of good nurse leaders while effective leadership is achieved in partnerships with competent mangers. An aspect that should be considered in the proposed curriculum development.
Conclusion
In brief, I do agree that regardless of the many similarities between leadership and management in nurse administration there lies distinct competencies in roles that should be considered in the curriculum.
