Organizational Culture Barriers Encountered By Nurse Leaders

Organizational Culture Barriers Encountered By Nurse Leaders

An organizational culture entails views, knowledge, beliefs, and practices within an organization. It reflects the standard customs and habits of an organization (Szara et al., 2018). Organizational culture, therefore, has a major impact on healthcare workers, especially nurses and their leaders. It also influences attitudes towards the working environment and productivity of healthcare workers. A positive organizational culture motivates nurse leaders to effectively lead their teams in attaining the goals of the organization they are working for. The productivity of the nurse leader and the team they lead will be increased, and patient outcomes will be improved (Yun & Kang, 2018). However, if there is a negative organizational culture, the nurse leader and the team they lead will be disinterested in playing their various roles. Productivity will be low, and patient outcomes will be poor. The nurse leader will be rendered powerless due to an unhealthy and insecure work environment.

In some organizations, there is disregard for the authority of the nurse leaders by high-level management. Disregarding their authority prevents the leaders from effectively completing their tasks as nurse leaders because they cannot get the resources to create a conducive work environment (Kwon & Kwon, 2018). The leaders are ignored when they try to communicate the needs and demands of the team members that they are in charge of. The leaders are also excluded from important decision-making processes that affect the nursing team. For instance, decisions on recruitment and allocation of new nursing staff are made by higher-level management instead of the nursing leader. The belief that the nursing profession is meant for women is another barrier encountered by nurse leaders (Gedzyk‐Nieman & Svoboda, 2019). If a nurse leader is male in gender, then he is thought to lack the skills and ability to perform the role of a nurse leader adequately.

References

Gedzyk‐Nieman, S. A., & Svoboda, G. (2019). Exploring attitudes of acceptance of males in nursing among registered nurses. Journal of Nursing Management, 27(3), 647-654. https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.12723

Kwon, S. M., & Kwon, M. S. (2019). Effect of nurse’s self-leadership, job involvement, and empowerment on turnover intention. Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial Cooperation Society, 20(1), 152-161. https://doi.org/10.5762/KAIS.2019.20.1.152

Szara, M., Ksykiewicz-Dorota, A., Klukow, J., & Lamont, M. (2018). Review of research on organizational culture in the health care system. Pielegniarstwo XXI wieku/Nursing in the 21st Century, 17(2), 32-44. https://doi.org/10.2478/pielxxiw-2018-0013

Yun, S., & Kang, J. (2018). Influencing factors and consequences of workplace bullying among nurses: a structural equation modeling. Asian nursing research, 12(1), 26-33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anr.2018.01.004