Leading
The leadership is extremely important in the contemporary world and the effectiveness
of the leadership can, to a significant extent, define the effectiveness of
the performance of the entire organization. On the other hand, the inability
of leaders to organize and manage the functioning of the organization effectively
often leads to the deterioration of the performance of the organization and
may lead to a profound internal crisis. In this respect, the case of King/Drew
Medical Center is particularly noteworthy because the inability of the administration
of the center to organize its functioning effectively resulted not only in internal
problems but also led to deaths of patients, who could have survived if they
had received a proper medical aid in time. In such a way, it is obvious that
the effective leadership is crucial in the contemporary world.
Basically, contemporary leaders should possess a wide range of traits and qualities
that contribute to their effective work and management of organization. First
of all, it should be said that the contemporary leader should possess such traditional
leadership traits as charisma, the power to untie people and convince them to
support decisions taken by the leader. In such a way, these traditional traits
allow the leader to get the authority which is based not on his formal power
but on his personal power, his charisma (Pinkerton, 2000). In such a context,
the formal authority of the leader should rather complementary than the dominant
authority.
On the other hand, the contemporary leader should be also able to manage effectively
the entire organization. This means that the contemporary leader should develop
trait and qualities which are rather typical for a manager than a leader. In
this respect, it should be said that the contemporary leader should be able
to plan, develop effective strategies, manage and control the performance of
the organization and its development (Coddington, et al., 2000). In fact, these
are key characteristics of the effective manager and, today, they are essential
for a leader as well because purely leadership traits are not sufficient for
the effective management.
In this respect, the case of King/Drew Medical Center proves the fact that the
inability of leaders to manage the organization effectively, which is the inability
to be effective managers, leads to the deterioration of the performance of the
organization. In fact, it is the poor management that was the main cause of
the problems that have struck King/Drew Medical Center. One of the major problems
of the medical center was the poor organization of the work of the personnel
and the employment of specialists whose qualification was very low. The restructuring
of the organization resulted in the consistent job cuts which led to the employment
only well-qualified personnel. Obviously, if such restructuring took place earlier,
deaths of patients and ineffective performance of the medical center could have
been avoided.
Thus, in conclusion, it is possible to say that the failure of leaders to manage
the organization effectively can lead to extremely negative outcomes, especially
in the healthcare setting, as it was the case of King/Drew Medical Center.
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