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Managing Organizations and Leading People: Task 2

Managing Organizations and Leading People

C200: Task 2

Confidential
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Managing Organizations and Leading People: Task 2

Table of Contents

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………….3

Description of Organization………………………………………………………………………3

Leadership Practices………………………………………………………………………4

Effects of Current Leader on Culture……………………………………………….…….6

SWOT Analysis…………………………………………………………………………………...7

Organization’s Current Strengths…………………………………………………………7

Organization’s Current Weaknesses………………………………………………………8

Organization’s Current Unmet Opportunities……………………………………………10

Organization’s Current Unresolved Threats……………………………………………..11

Leadership Evaluation…………………………………………………………………………...13

Strengths of Current Leader……………………………………………………………..13

Weaknesses of Current Leader…………………………………………………………..15

Recommendations for Current Leader…………………………………………………..16

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….……18

References………………………………………………………………………………………..19
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Introduction

There are many factors that contribute to the success of an organization. In order for an

organization to be successful and profitable, there needs to be a strong leader that is willing to do

what it takes in order to achieve the facility's goals. This leader must be able to not only highlight

the strengths of the organization, but also address the weaknesses as they keep in mind they must

upkeep organization’s mission and values.

Description of Organization

For the sake of this organization’s privacy, the name of the facility, and the name of the

employees, have been altered in order for it to remain confidential. The organization that is being

mentioned will now be referred to as, Sunset Medical Center. For over 55 years, Sunset Medical

Center has been the largest acute care facility that provides both inpatient and outpatient services

within the community that it is located in. This level-one trauma facility that was founded in

1958, and now houses 762 beds, provides various services from women’s health and emergency

care, to providing numerous inpatient and outpatient surgeries. This facility was opened with the

intention of having this state’s first neonatal ICU considering it has both an adult and pediatric

hospital on the property. The former CEO of the hospital pushed through with this plan, and

opened their neonatal ICU in 1974; they have continued to expand and renovate the facility ever

since. Sunset Medical Center’s both mission and vision strive to provide the community with an

elevated standard of compassionate patient care. Aside from this facility’s goal regarding
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providing patient care, this facility also has various financial goals, as they are a for-profit

facility. When a hospital or organization is considered to be “for-profit”, they are usually

investor-owned facilities that have the mentality to want to make a large profit for their

shareholders. Sunset Medical Center is owned by a large, well-known company that is very

successful as they also oversee 186 other facilities nationwide.

Leadership Practices

Within Sunset Medical Center, there is a very special individual that has taken on

multiple leadership roles. Liz has been an employee at this facility for more than a decade and

has been supervising multiple departments ever since. Alike most individuals part of the

administration team, Liz works most weekdays and has a daily routine of rounding, hosting

meetings, and planning with her team of leads for the goals for the week. Liz oversees the

transport department, support services, guest services, and the concierge team. Liz’s main tasks

as a leader is to oversee her departments by rounding, ensure her employees are doing their jobs

efficiently while adhering to the facility’s mission and vision, and to support other areas of the

hospital as directed by the CEO. Liz’s leadership approach is very personable and favorable by

her team as they are able to effectively communicate with her. Over the years, Liz has made an

incredible impact on the organization by not only taking on such a lofty goal of overseeing

multiple departments, but implementing various concepts from her leadership style that has

improved the workplace environment for both administration and staff.

Although Liz oversees multiple departments, she is still a part of the hospital’s

administration team and has the official title of Director of Support Services. During her rounds

throughout each department, she normally starts off by meeting up with her department’s leads
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to discuss the daily goals of the department, and what tactics should be utilized to successfully

meet these goals. Liz ensures to ask her team if they have any questions, or need anything from

her to ensure they are able to effectively perform their job. As a transformational leader, this

method of interaction has been very useful considering the feedback and trust she is able to build

with her teams. As Liz collects feedback, she then takes the information into consideration when

trying to alter or create new department goals. This daily routine of rounding on her departments

has made a significant impact on the workplace due to the increase in effective communication

and confidence of the employees with their leader. Liz’s most effective leadership practices

include her innate ability to communicate and encourage her employees.

As a member of the administration team, Liz frequently participates in tasks outside of

her departments. Sunset’s CEO often requests Liz to take on tasks due to her history of being

reliable and task-driven. When Liz is given a task that is outside of her department, she ensures

to take into account the facility’s mission and vision when creating a game plan to successfully

complete the given task. For example, Liz was given the opportunity to create the game plan as

to how visitors would be let in the hospital to visit throughout this pandemic. Liz was faced with

many obstacles as there were now many policies regarding visitation that she had to now keep

into consideration when making the procedure. Liz made an effort to speak with those employees

involved with visitation, and was able to retrieve feedback from them to help her create an

effective procedure guideline based off the methods that were already doing well. Liz’s creativity

and effective communication skills are just some of her qualities that help her excel in her

position as Director of Support Services.

Managing Organizations and Leading People: Task 2

Another practice that Liz has to incorporate into her daily work regime is ensuring her

employees are implementing the hospital’s mission and vision during their interactions with their

peers and patients. Sunset Medical Center’s mission and vision both follow the principle of

striving to provide the community with an elevated standard of compassionate patient care.

When working in the medical field, you tend to encounter many different types of people and

mentalities. As staff makes these encounters with patients, it is important to ensure they are not

only being kind and respectful, but doing everything in their power to ensure they are providing

the best patient care they can. Liz evaluates her team and their abilities to do so by conducting

floor evaluations which consist of watching the encounters with patients and how they handle

various stressful situations. Based off of the evaluations she makes, she is then able to provide

her team with useful feedback as to what is going well, and what areas could use some

improvement.

Effects of Current Leader on Culture

Sunset Medical Center’s both mission and vision revolve around the goal of wanting

provide an elevated standard of quality patient care for the community. Considering Sunset’s

mission and vision, they have been working on not only providing excellent patient care, but

providing access to various health services for individuals of all ages and health issues. Sunset

Medical Center puts an emphasis on the concept of striving to provide access to quality care by

expanding their horizons with various surgical robotic devices and areas of medical specialties.

It is crucial for all leaders to work on instilling the values of the organization’s mission

and vision into their daily routine. Liz regularly utilizes her own beliefs and leadership skills to

align with the culture of Sunset Medical Center. Liz has been dedicated to Sunset for over a
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decade and strives to do her best in all she does. Liz believes that people tend to produce better

outcomes when supported by a strong leader that is involved. This reflects in her work as she has

been able to make various changes within the facility that has improved the quality of the

workplace. Liz has been able to improve the quality of the workplace by providing her team with

a strong leader that they can trust and easily approach. She embraces the idea of not only being a

leader to her team, but being a strong support system for when they seem to need it the most. By

connecting her transformational leadership style, to the culture of the facility, Liz is then able to

assist her employees with embracing the culture of the organization by practicing both the

mission and visions.

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis is a form of reflection that is utilized to help an organization identify

various strengths, weaknesses, unmet opportunities, and unresolved threats. When conducting a

SWOT analysis, it is very important to be critical regarding the person or organization being

analyzed to ensure the end goal is met. This form of reflection can be very beneficial to an

organization as it can help with achieving and altering goals to make improvements for more

favorable outcomes. For Sunset Medical Center, I will be identifying two of each component of

the SWOT analysis.

Organization’s Current Strengths

Sunset Medical Center is a very successful facility that is known for many different

attributes. When it comes to this facility’s strengths, there are a few that stand out amongst the

rest. This facility’s willingness to outreach to the community, and ability to be intuitive to offer a

wide range of services, are just some of this facility’s greatest strengths.
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Sunset Medical Center hosts multiple outreach programs that vary from women’s health

services, to health classes to help inform the community about relevant issues. On a monthly

basis, this facility gathers a team of professionals to assist with classes and outreach programs to

help teach the community about being healthy, and inform about preventative measures in order

to keep their families safe. These small, yet useful programs are making a big difference in the

community as it is helping inform, and provide resources to those who do not have access

otherwise. Many members of the community have been able to change their bad habits due to

this facility’s outreach programs. Many of the outreach programs offered at Sunset Medical

Center are based on women’s health services, STD screenings, vaccine clinics, and prevention

training events. These specific types of outreach programs are relevant and very much sought

after by the community as many are uninsured and can’t afford to go to a primary care physician

for these type of services. Sunset has made an incredible impact on the community by providing

these services for its members.               

Another strength of Sunset Medical Center involves their ability to provide a wide range

of both inpatient and outpatient services. This facility is the only hospital within the community

to provide specialty treatments like bariatric surgery, burn and wound care services, emergency

care, imaging services, oncology, pulmonary care, robotic surgery, women’s health services, and

children’s specialty services all year long. Although these are just some examples, Sunset

Medical Center is considered to be the facility with the most available amenities within the

surrounding area. Many individuals from other states are also referred to this facility due to the

special surgeries they are able to perform. Many hospitals within the state are only small acute

care facilities that do not provide these other services, which could cause issues for patients that
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try to stay with certain providers. Sunset Medical Center has made it very easy for their patients

to be seen in one facility that could cater to all of their medical necessities, while having all of

their providers in one facility.

Organization’s Current Weaknesses

Although Sunset Medical Center is a very successful facility, there are a few weaknesses

within the organization that make a negative impact. When it comes to the weaknesses, this

facility tends to forget about their employees and has a lack of much needed security within the

hospital. With some alterations in leadership and mentality, this facility is able to make changes

that will greatly impact the quality and safety of the workplace environment.

When referring to the issue of employee treatment and satisfaction, there has been an

issue of staff being overlooked by administration, as they make other concerns a priority.

Considering this organization is a healthcare facility, it is staffed with hundreds of individuals

that give their all when it comes to providing the community with exceptional patient care. In

return for their dedication and willingness to serve the community, the employees should not

only be heard, but treated with respect and gratitude for all they do for the facility and patients.

There have been many instances where employees are voicing their opinions and concerns and

never heard back from administration like they were told they would. These unsolved issues

could turn into bigger issues down the line, like issues with elevated employee turn-over rates.

Another internal weakness of Sunset Medical Center involves the lack of security

patrolling the facility. It is known by all staff how important it is to have adequate security to

protect staff, as well as patients. Over the past five years, there have been drastic changes to the

budget and policies put in place for this department. For example, due to various changes in
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budget and policies, security officers are now prohibited from physically involving themselves in

situations where they should. There have been instances of violence between a staff members

and patients where the security guard could have stepped in to assist, although due to the new

policies, they were informed to stay back and attempt to verbally assist while the staff member

was being assaulted. When these issues were brought to the attention of administration, they

created the “solution” of installing metal detectors at entrances of the facility to ensure anything

harmful does not enter the facility. Although this is a partial solution to some issues that have

occurred in the past involving weapons being brought into the facility, it does not solve the issue

of staff members being potentially harmed.

Organization’s Current Unmet Opportunities

Sunset Medical Center was built in 1958. Taking into consideration that it has been

operating over 50 years, there are definitely some improvements that should be made in order to

enhance the facility and operations. For the first suggested improvement for unmet opportunities,

this facility should consider updating their outdated technology and software. Sunset Medical

Center utilizes a third-party technology and software company that only provides only outdated

programs and software. The idea of upgrading the technology and software being utilized within

the facility will greatly benefit the patients and staff. Considering the current third-party

company being used only offers outdated systems, they should consider finding other

alternatives. By investing in updated technology and computer software systems, the

organization will be able to see an increase in productivity and efficiency amongst employees as

they will not be spending time trying to troubleshoot the outdated systems. As technology is
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ever-changing, it is important for organization’s to stay updated with the advancements that

could potentially increase productivity and in-turn provide better care for their patients. Besides

the technology and software being outdated and prone to glitches, it is also more likely to

encounter issues with malware or cyber-attacks which can be very harmful to the organization.

Potential cyber-attacks can be very harmful to an organization as their data and systems have

been tampered with by someone with foul intentions.

Sunset Medical Center already provides an array of various treatments and services.

Another unmet opportunity of this facility would to expand the mental health services that are

offered within the facility. Considering the demographic in which in the hospital is located, there

tends to be an elevated number of patients coming in for mental health related concerns, and not

enough beds within the hospital to assist them with these issues. Sunset normally has the routine

of accepting the patient for an evaluation and then either referring or transferring them to a

specialized facility outside of the facility. Considering the amount of patients being transferred to

mental health facilities across town, they should consider expanding the facility to also include a

mental health department. This would not only be very profitable for the organization, but be

beneficial to the patient as they are being seen by one care team instead of being transferred from

place to place in attempt to find them some assistance. Taking into consideration the cost of

expansion and property size, this could be a potential opportunity, but there is a better

alternative. For patients that are normally transferred outside the facility to continue their mental

health services, they are usually transferred to the facility across the street from the hospital. In

order to make a cost-effective and profitable decision, Sunset should consider trying to create a
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potential partnership with that mental health facility in order to have a designated and reliable

transfer facility, and to not only save money, but make a profit while doing so.

Organization’s Current Unresolved Threats

One of Sunset Medical Center’s most detrimental threat is potentially losing staff to

facilities outside of their healthcare system. Within the community, there is another large level-

one trauma center that offers better incentives and could potentially recruit staff from other

hospitals within Sunset’s healthcare system. This facility could lure staff from Sunset Medical

Center by offering better pay, medical benefits, and safer workplace conditions. Taking into

consideration that there has been a lethal pandemic attacking the nation for over a year now,

healthcare workers are now being overworked and burnt out due to the work they are doing at

the rate of pay being offered. As nurses and hospital staff continue to work countless hours

through this relentless pandemic, hospitals are finding themselves short-staffed and scrambling

for staff. Due to the issues with not having enough staff to run the facility, hospitals have been

resorting to implementing dangerous patient to staff ratios in order to keep up with the high

demand. Regardless of the workplace conditions, the administration team still holds their

hospital staff to the expectation for them to provide the highest level of patient care. By Sunset’s

administration making unrealistic expectations for their staff, with their minimal support, the

staff of the facility is hesitant to exert maximum effort with such minimal benefit in return. Some

administrators tend to forget that although hospital staff’s primary goal is to provide the best care

possible for their patients, that this is also their staff’s form of income. This opposing facility has

an advantage and could easily lure Sunset’s staff if they do not take better care of their staff. By

this opposing facility potentially offering Sunset Medical Center’s staff better incentives, they
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could be at risk for losing their staff and potentially facing issues with employee retention down

the line.

Another external threat that Sunset Medical Center could face is losing profit and the

number of patients coming to seek services at the hospital. Considering that Sunset Medical

Center fails to update their technology and software devices, other hospitals outside of Sunset’s

healthcare system could potentially steal their patients and profit due to their more favorable

updated and advanced systems. As technology is constantly changing, it is important to advance

with these improvements in order to provide patients with the most accurate and efficient care.

Although Sunset is known for having an array of offered services that other hospitals do not

offer, other hospitals that have the updated versions of some of our software and devices will

cause them to now become our patient’s first choice over us. The lack of advancements in

technology will cause issues with security, efficiency, and profitability.

Leadership Evaluation

In the 1970’s, James McGregor Burns created the concept of transformational leadership

(Flynn, 2021). Transformational leaders can be best described as individuals who create an

impact in individuals or within social systems. Effective transformational leaders are able to

encourage change and growth that will in the end help others not only accomplish their goals, but

also help them develop their skills to become a future leader.

Strengths of Current Leader

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Transformational leaders strive to effectively achieve their goals by utilizing innovative

and logical solutions. This form of leadership has four main targets that help exhibit their goals

as a leader. Transformational leaders want to be a role model, inspire and motivate others, as

well as demonstrate emotional intelligence with their employees (Rinfret, 2020). This leadership

type tends to involve leaders that strive to motivate their employees to grow as they develop their

skills. Liz Jones is a part of the administration team at Sunset Medical Center. For over a decade,

Liz has taken on many roles within the facility, and has made a great impact on the members of

her departments. Liz’s top leadership strengths involve the same ideologies of the

transformational leadership theory.

Alike all efficient transformational leaders, Liz has the innate ability to assist her

employees with growth, and motivate those who express an interest, or have the potential to

become a future leader. Considering Liz oversee multiple departments, she is able to examine the

various career goals that her employees have, and assist them with achieving those goals by

providing the advice and various resources they may need. By Liz being aware of her

employee’s various career goals, she then provides them with feedback and suggestions that

could potentially help them achieve their goals. For example, a university within the same

community of the hospital made an agreement for the graduate students. When students in the

graduate programs are in their practicums, and need to have completed a certain amount of hours

of on-site experience, Liz take those students and provides them with various tasks and projects

to complete as a part of their practicum. As their preceptor, Liz ensures to encourage her interns

to show what they are capable of, and she then provides them with as much feedback as she can.
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Being the transformational leader that Liz is, she recruits interns from the program to work as her

employee within one of her departments, and helps them grow into their desired careers.

Another strength that Liz exudes is her ability to conduct regular rounding on her

employees. Before the start of each shift, Liz ensures to go around each of her departments and

talk to her employees about their weekly department concerns and goals. Liz makes sure to ask

her team if they have any questions, or need anything from her to ensure they are able to

effectively perform their job. Liz’s leadership approach is very personable and favorable by her

team as they are able to effectively communicate with her. As a transformational leader, Liz’s

habit of conducting her daily rounds throughout the department is an effective way to get to

know her employees, but gain their trust as their leader.

Another strength Liz has as a transformational leader is her ability to practice her

emotional intelligence. When a leader has emotional intelligence, they are able to better

comprehend the needs of their employees and peers as they all work together to accomplish their

goals. The concept behind emotional intelligence involves the ability for leaders to recognize and

differentiate their own emotions, when compared to the emotions of others, in order to alter their

leadership approach to in-turn be a more effective leader for their organization. By Liz being

able to comprehend how to be an emotionally intelligent leader, she utilizes these skills to alter

her leadership approach in a way that makes her employees more responsive and favorable of her

as their mentor.

Weaknesses of Current Leader

Transformational leaders feel most accomplished by completing tasks and goals,

meanwhile motivating their employees and peers to be the best versions of themselves. Although
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Liz has many qualities that make her a strong leader, she also possesses some traits that hinder

her from improving her leadership skills. As a transformational leader, some of Liz’s greatest

weaknesses involve staff burnout, lack of organizational skills, and taking on too much

responsibilities. These issues stem from her tendencies as a transformational leader due to her

strive to want to complete tasks in a timely manner.

Like many transformational leaders, Liz strives to accomplish goals regardless of size.

Considering Liz oversees multiple departments within Sunset Medical Center, she tends to take

on too many projects within her departments at one time. Liz is very passionate about her career

and has the best intentions when taking on new projects. With each of her departments having

different demands and goals, Liz tends to fail to recognize details that will impact the outcome of

the department specific goals which then causes delays and issues later on. For example, Liz

tends to become overwhelmed when given multiple tasks and forgets to recall details about each

one. When she attempts to take on too much, she tends to pay more attention to one task over the

other which then causes delays and issues for the other department.

The next weakness Liz has involves failing to push through with resolving issues that

were verbally expressed by her employees during rounding. By Liz being involved with multiple

departments within the hospital, she finds herself scrambling to resolve issues that are presented

to her on top of the preexisting problems and goals they are trying to accomplish. Liz often finds

herself trying to resolve multiple issues at once by herself. For example, during the daily routine

of department rounding, Liz’s employee expressed their concern regarding the signage that was

posted around the hospital as it was confusing and not very concise. Her employee addressed the

concerns and Liz said that she would later address this issue in order to create a plan to create
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clear and concise signage for the facility. As weeks passed, Liz has not only failed to look for a

solution, but had completely forgot about the situation entirely. Although Liz is motivated and

determined to be handle each and every aspect of each department, it is just far too much for just

one individual to oversee at one time.

A major issue that Liz has been facing is staff burnout. Considering that hospitals have

been facing the product of this ongoing detrimental pandemic, Liz’s employees have been

working extra hours for long periods of time. Transformational leaders have the tendency to push

their employees to work harder and make loftier goals to help them with their future career goals

(Ferreira, 2020). As Liz’s employees started to pick up more hours, they begun to feel “burnt

out” due to more hours worked per week and, less support from Liz as she was also feeling

overwhelmed. As a leader, it was Liz’s duty to ensure her teams were being taken care of, and

that the hours were being monitored in order to avoid staff burnout.

Recommendations for Current Leader

In order to make a few enhancements to Liz’s leadership style, it would be most

beneficial for her to work on improving the various weaknesses that hinder her ability to be a

more effective transformational leader. Some off these recommendations include delegating,

improving organizational skills, and setting realistic goals for herself and her employees that

align with their career goals.

The first actionable goal would be for Liz to learn how to properly delegate some of her

responsibilities onto her team leads to help give her more time for other tasks. Although Liz

promoted some of her employees to become department leads to assist her with department

focused tasks and goals, she tends to not utilize them to their full potential. Considering one of
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Liz’s weaknesses involves staff burnout, it is crucial that Liz insures to execute this

recommendation mindfully. Although transformational leaders strive to push their employees to

exceed their goals, it is important for the leader to be mindful and encourage others to set

realistic goals that can be accomplished (Ferreria, 2020). In order for this to work, Liz would

have to not only teach herself how to properly delegate, but teach her department’s team leads

how to delegate to the rest of the employees within their departments as well. If done correctly,

Liz will be able to not only prevent staff burnout as a whole, but will be able to better lead her

team as she is not overwhelmed with tasks to complete that could be easily delegated.

Another recommendation that would greatly impact Liz’s ability to enhance her

leadership abilities would be to work on her organizational skills. When trying to oversee

multiple departments, there will be various key details that should not be overlooked or

forgotten. One of Liz’s weaknesses involves failing to follow up or remember details regarding

issues that were verbally said to her during her daily rounding. Upon her team addressing these

issues, she would claim to work on fixing the issues, but would forget amongst the other matters

she has to attend to. In order to help solve this issue, it would be helpful for Liz to write down

these concerns in a planner or notebook as she conducts her rounding so she is able to refer to it

later on to help her recall what needs to be addressed. Upon gathering all of the information, she

will then be able to be more effective when it comes to planning and delegating as all the

necessary details are not being dismissed.

Conclusion

In conclusion, every leader has their own strengths and weaknesses, but it is ultimately up

to the leader to be cognizant of these various traits, and work on improving their skills to be able
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to better lead their team. Every leader has the ability to be successful in their roles if they apply

themselves to do their best.

References
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Ferreira, V., Coelho Amestoy, S., Tadeau Reis da Silva, G., De Lima Trindade, L., Reis dos

Santos, I. A., & Alves Galhardo Varanda, P. (2020). Transformational Leadership in

Nursing Practice: Challenges and Strategies. Transformational Leadership in Nursing

Practice: Challenges and Strategies. Revista Brasileira de Enfermagem(73), 1-7.

doi:https://doi.org/10.1590/0034-7167-2019-0364

Flynn, S. I. (2021). Transformational and Transactional Leadership. Research Starters:

Sociology.

Karl W. Kuhnert, & Philip Lewis. (1987). Transactional and Transformational Leadership: A

Constructive/Developmental Analysis. The Academy of Management Review, 12(4), 648–

657.

Rinfret, N., Laplante, J., Lagacé, M. C., Deschamps, C., & Privé, C. (2020). Impacts of

leadership styles in health and social services: A case from Quebec exploring

relationships between emotional intelligence and TRANSFORMATIONAL

LEADERSHIP. International Journal of Healthcare Management, 13(Sup1), 329-339.

doi:10.1080/20479700.2018.1548153

Tafvelin, S., Nielsen, K., von Thiele Schwarz, U., & Stenling, A. (2019). Leading well is a

matter of resources: Leader vigour and peer support augments the relationship between

transformational leadership and burnout. Work & Stress, 33(2), 156–172.

https://doi.org/10.1080/02678373.2018.1513961