The culture of an organization

The culture of an organization is developed through the shared values, beliefs, attitudes, and rules that guide the decision-making and actions of individuals. An organization’s culture typically develops over time and is characterized by the common interests shared amongst a group of people (Thomas, 2018). Organizational culture in nursing and healthcare impacts leadership style, and staff performance, and is a key element of job satisfaction, staff retention, and patient outcomes. An important component of a healthcare organization’s culture is its nursing leadership. Nurse leaders play a significant role in creating motivation, collaboration, and building trust, which in turn, increases the safety and quality of care for patients. Barriers encountered by nurse leaders can create the feeling of being powerless and negatively affect their ability to do their job and support the staff. Some of these barriers include nurse leaders lacking the ability to make decisions about their staffing needs and being forced to work with less manpower. When this occurs it can cause a ripple effect throughout the nursing staff of lack of support and feelings of powerlessness (Barkhordari-Sharifabad et al., 2017).

Another barrier for nurse leaders can be a lack of respect within the organization. Often nurses are not seen as revenue generators compared to physicians so their requests may be disregarded and not considered a high priority. As nurses continue to be overlooked it can develop a culture of job dissatisfaction, decrease morale, and cause a high nurse turnover rate. When nurse leaders feel empowered to help make a change and better the organizational culture this will increase job satisfaction among the rest of the nursing staff, which will result in positive outcomes for nurses and the patients they are caring for (Janjua et al., 2014).

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