Impacts of Transformational and Laissez-Faire Leadership in Health

Abstract

The health care industry is continuously developing, and constant leadership must maintain high-quality care to patients. Applying certain leadership styles is critical in developing, aligning and fabricating a pathway to effective and reliable care. Leaders can improve their subordinates’ performance, work behavior, and communication of their subordinates through the application of different styles of leadership. The two styles of leadership under investigation in this paper are transformational leadership and laissez-faire leadership. In health care organizations, transformational leadership improves the quality and safety of patient care. Furthermore, transformation enhances staff commitment to organizational goals. In contrast, Laissez-faire leadership is not an ideal style in health care facilities. Laissez-faire leadership increases stress levels, anxiety, and staff turnover rates. As a result, the higher level of stress among staff leads to medical errors, a higher rate of staff turnovers, and suboptimal care to care for patients. Each leadership style has its strengths and weaknesses; leaders need to apply the appropriate leadership style to improve health care quality, patient safety, teamwork, and increase staff motivation and commitment to reduce adverse events in health care facilities.