Leadership involves different processes and characteristics which may or may not be applicable or advantageous in certain areas and settings. Different leadership style has its own advantages and disadvantages that could affect the outcomes and objectives. Furthermore, leadership in a hospital or inpatient setting is crucial that could affect the turnover, job satisfaction, performance and most importantly the services provided by the nurses which may affect patient outcomes and patient safety. In this essay, it will discuss different leadership styles such as autocratic, bureaucratic and democratic leadership style and its’ relationship to the safety of patient specifically the factors in medication errors in an inpatient setting.
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Marquis and Huston (2015), mentioned authoritarian leadership tends to increase productivity while it reduces motivation, creativity and growth. For instance, a team leader will ask a new graduate nurse to give medication urgently to a patient that was due 1 hour ago without asking why it needs to be given. The inexperience nurse will tend to follow instructions to please a senior staff and not adhere to medication administration protocols properly compromising the safety of the patient. In a bureaucratic leadership, the advantages include systematic, organise, efficient, safe practice and maintaining the standards of procedures, however, some of the rules may not be realistic and must be strictly followed, slow-paced, not fully utilising creativity and innovation punishment (Marquis & Huston, 2015). For example, a new graduate nurse who adheres to protocols during medication administration may lessen the medication errors, however, if a medication procedure includes verifying the patient details multiple times would be time-consuming in the long term may produce burnout, increase workload and task to be done affecting the nurse skills and abilities to make decisions which may increase incidence of medication error. In article by Wong, Cummings and Ducharme (2013), suggested that communication between leader and member which is essential to discuss patient care which could hinder patient safety, in addition, support from leaders may lessen the medication errors. Democratic or participative leadership style promotes autonomy and growth producing positive nurse-patient relationship, nevertheless, the productivity is less compared to autocratic leader and would take more time to make a decision punishment (Marquis & Huston, 2015). For example, a new graduate nurse needs to administer