Creating, Developing, and Leading Effective Teams - Essay Example

"Creating, Developing, and Leading Effective Teams" is a perfect example of a paper on care.
Productivity and employees' commitment to an organization is to some extent determined by the quality of teams created. It is therefore important for nurse managers to effectively create, develop, and lead teams in order for them to achieve their intended purpose. There are requirements that ought to be accomplished within the workplace and it is the responsibility of the nurse manager or leader to create a team for each purpose. This paper offers a description of a team I would create, including the purpose the team would serve, the team type, and the specific skills each member would contribute as well as their job positions. This paper also describes leadership strategies I could implement to help this team effectively achieve its purpose.

Definition of team

A team as described by Manion (2011) is a "Structural unit or a group of people designed and drawn together to complete certain prescribed work" (p. 215). The Laureate Education Inc (2006) additionally implies that for a group to be called a team, then they must have a pertinent and collective idea, universal objectives, divergent abilities and skills, a universal approach in regard to cooperation and collaboration, and must also be reciprocally responsible and answerable for their endeavors.

Team description

An insufficient number of nurses has been a major issue in healthcare today. Within my unit in my organization, there is a need for a leadership team to address the issues associated with the inadequate nurse to a patient ratio such as low job satisfaction, low levels of motivation, and low nurse retention levels. A leadership team comprising of the director of the unit, nurse leader of the unit, the human resource manager, and a nurse within the unit would serve the purpose. Strategies need to be created and implement to help improve motivation among nurses as this would lead to improved job satisfaction and retention of nurses. The human resource personnel is well equipped with negotiation skills. All stakeholders involved in this scenario will definitely have divergent viewpoints on how issues ought to be handled. Therefore, the negotiation skills of the human resource manager would come in handy and help the parties come to a consensus. The role of the nurse manager would be to prioritize activities within the unit geared towards increasing motivation. The skills necessary for the nurse would be mobilization skills. It would be easier for a nurse to mobilize and bring together other nurses since they have a shared goal and objective. The major task of the director would be to communicate the organizational goals and objectives to the team hence communication skills would be imperative for this role.  

Leadership strategies

For this team to achieve its purpose effectively, I would be required to implement a number of leadership strategies. One of the strategies I would implement is to create growth opportunities. In other words, giving promotions to the individuals in the leadership team or giving them bigger assignments creates openings for other members of the unit to join the leadership team and hence bring in the novel and fresh skills (Beeson, 2011). Bringing new talents constantly helps the team develop. The second strategy as posited by Calendrillo (2009) would be to ensure and oversee the creation of standards as guidelines to help guide how the parties involved behave. Benchmarks especially in regard to communication and how the parties treat and engage each other ought to be created. In a nutshell, a team comprising of all stakeholders helps bring divergent skills, knowledge, and abilities necessary for the team to develop. There is a need for the creation and implementation of effective leadership strategies such as the creation of benchmarks to guide the process and creating opportunities for growth. These strategies are geared towards guiding the process and bringing in new talents within the team.