Running head: Analyzing the Leadership Role

Analyzing the Leadership Role

Kelly DeBolt
Ferris State University

Analyzing the Leadership Role

Analyzing the Leadership Role

Good leadership skills are necessary for all managers.
Managers are responsible for creating a safe and healthy work environment
that supports their health care team while maintaining patient safety and
employee engagement (Exectuives, 2015). The purpose of this paper is to
gain insight on Danielle Penfolds management and leadership skills, look at
some of the challenges she has faced, and see some of the impact she has
had on her organization as an effective manager. Danielle Penfold is a
Register Dietician with a Master in Science from Central Michigan University.
She works at Scheurer Healthcare Network in Pigeon, MI. as the Manager of
Nutritional Services. Outside of Danielles Masters degree, she is also
certified in diabetes education. Danielle has had many different roles within
the health care setting including diabetic educator, medical devices sales for
insulin pumps, pharmaceutical sales for Novonordisk, manager of diabetic
education, and finally her current role as manager of nutritional services.
Danielle has a passion for nutritional services and diabetic education not only
professional but also personal. Danielle said living with a family member
with type I diabetes has definitely changed my outlook on nutrition and
diabetes education (D. Penfold, personal communication, October 25, 2016).
Danielles unique personal experience allows her to understand and relate to
the needs of special diets and education related to diabetes. Danielle has
five years of experience as a manager, because of her clinical background

Analyzing the Leadership Role

she is able to provide a unique insight related to progression within a

company and how management can impact patients outcomes.
Roles and Responsibilities
As manager of nutritional services Danielle is responsible for
all personal and system functions as they relate to the development and
management of the food service operations at Scheurer Healthcare Network.
She is responsible for managing the budget for not only her staff but also for
needed kitchen supplies. Danielle role is to ensure every patients nutritional
needs are meet and run an efficient cafeteria and catering service for
employees at Scheurer Healthcare Network. The vision for Scheurer
Healthcare Networks places emphasize on putting quality first, focusing on
customer relationships, being a committed employee, promoting teamwork,
staying involved in the community, and recognizing and celebrating their
achievements (About Us: the Presidnets's Pen , 2016). A vision is an
articulated goal that everyone within the organization is striving to achieve
(Yoder-Wise, 2015, p. 137). Danielle stated the philosophy at Scheurer is to
treat everyone fairly and to a high level of competency (D. Penfold, personal
communication, October 25, 2016). A philosophy expresses that value and
belief that members of the organization hold about the nature of their work,
about the people whom they provide service to, and about themselves and
others providing services. (Yoder-Wise, 2015, p. 137). Danielle adheres to
this vision and philosophy as a manager by holding her staff accountable
while maintaining a fair and balanced workplace.

Analyzing the Leadership Role

The organizational structure at Scheurer is a functional

structure. A functional structure looks and the departments and services and
arranges them according to their specialties (Yoder-Wise, 2015, p. 145). For
example, at Scheurer they have a CEO who oversees everything, under the
CEO is their administrative leaders or vice presidents, next you have service
leaders which is where Danielle falls, then you have tech leaders, and finally
you have your front line staff. This type of organizational structure helps to
support professional expertise and encourages advancements (Yoder-Wise,
2015, p. 145). Danielle was able to achieve her advancement within the
organization because of the functional structure they have at Scheurer. Prior
to Danielles current role she was a tech leader for dieticians at Scheurer.
Danielle did voice that at times because of the structure she feels there is a
lack of communication between the silos. According to Yoder-Wise, this is a
common concern with this type of organizational structure (p. 145). Danielle
has attempted to overcome this barrier by keep the organization informed by
printing an article about the cafeteria every quarter for their organizational
newsletter. Danielle said that she has had great feedback from many staff
members regarding this and has prompted many other service departments
to do the same.
Human Resource Management and Human Resource Leadership
Skills
Human Resource (HR) is of significant value to most effective
managers. Managers who work with their HR department are able to become

Analyzing the Leadership Role

proficient in the strategies of HR, which allows them to be highly effective

manager (Mayhew, 2016). HR supports managers by assisting them with
departmental staffing, helping managers to develop workforce strategies,
assisting manager with performance appraisals, and assisting managers with
conflict resolution (Mayhew, 2016). As a manager Danielle relies of her HR
department to assist her with hiring new employees for the cafeteria. When
Danielle needs to hire a new employee she relies her HR department to do
an initial interviews and narrow the applicants down to their top five
potential new hires. From there Danielle contacts the potential new hire and
brings them in for a second interview with herself, her tech leader, and
usually another staff memeber. Danielles HR department also assist her with
determining the pay scale for a new employee. In order for organization to
have a successful recruitment and retention of their employees HR must
have a partnership with management (Danna, 2016). AONE states that nurse
manager should gain expertise in Human Resource management by assisting
with staff selection and maintain staff retention (2015, p.4). Danielle
demonstrates these traits well by collaborating with her organizations
Human Resource Department.
Performance Improvement and Strategic Management
Performance improvement includes areas like promoting
performance improvement, improving customer and patient engagement,
increasing intra/interdepartmental communication, monitoring and
promoting workplace safety requirements, improving patient safety, and

Analyzing the Leadership Role

maintain survey and regulatory readiness (Exectuives, 2015). Performance

improvement is used to establish key performance indicators and develop a
plan on how managers should hold employees accountable for their own
individual performance improvement or hold managers accountable for their
departments performance improvement. Performance improvement can
impact patient safety, workplace safety, intra/interdepartmental
communication, or impact patient or employee satisfaction. Danielle
demonstrates performance improvement regularly within the Nutritional
Service Department. Her main focus with performance improvement is
promoting customer service, improving intra/interdepartmental
communication, and improving employee engagement. Danielle stated
when I started in my role as manager of Nutritional Services, the
department was a disaster (D. Penfold, personal communication, October
25, 2016). Danielle said when I took over as manager at that time we had a
lot of employees leaving and a hostile work environment which lead to poor
customer services (D. Penfold, personal communication, October 25, 2016).
Danielle to the time to figure out why her customer service scores were low.
Danielle was able to accomplish rather quickly by looking at what to root
cause was. She found that the manager before her didnt place any
accountability on the employees and there were different standards for
different employees when it came to performance and accountability.
Danielle established a standard for all of her employees and allowed them to
take ownership in the improvement process for nutritional services and for

Analyzing the Leadership Role

their role within the department. Because she involved the staff and allowed
them to have ownership in the improvement process this increased her
employee engagement and improved her customer service scores.
Strategic Management is the continuous planning, monitoring,
analyzing, and assessing that is necessary for an organization to achieve
their goals and objectives (What is Strategic Planning, 2016). Some of the
ways managers are able to guide strategic management within their
department is through endorsing change, managing meeting effectively,
demonstrating excellent writing and oral presentation skills, sharing decision
making, supporting the cultural innovation, and assisting with emergency
planning and project management (Exectuives, 2015). Danielle is able to
achieve Scheurer Healthcare Networks goals and objectives by doing some
of these strategic management skills. Danielle help to facilitate change
within her organization by involving her staff and helping to communicate
changes to her staff and the organization. One change that was made by
Danielle was that every Monday would be meatless Monday in their
cafeteria. This was developed by one of my staff members and was a little
bit of a challenge at first, said Danielle (D. Penfold, personal
communication, October 25, 2016). However, because of strategic
management she was able to overcome this challenge. Danielle uses
effective negotiation skills, shared in the decision making by involving her
staff, and help to facilitate changed by communicating the change well and
involving her staff in the changing process.

Analyzing the Leadership Role

Relationship Management and Influencing behaviors

Managers are charged with maintaining a professional
relationship and influencing the behaviors of their staff members and their
fellow co-workers daily within their organizations. Leaders act as a coach, a
guide, and a resource to their staff. Leader cant achieve excellence unless
the leader is engaged in a team relationship that fosters trust and promotes
openness (Yoder-Wise, 2015, p. 317). Danielle has been able to achieve this
by gaining respect from her staff members. When Danielle started in her
Manager role, she learned all of job duties of her staff, this included washing
dishes, preparing food, working the cash register, etc. (D. Penfold, personal
communication, October 25, 2016). When Danielle came alongside her staff
members she not only gained their respect but she also gained their trust.
Build relationships is an art that is done through promoting team dynamics,
mentoring and coaching staff and colleagues, and apply good
communication skills (Exectuives, 2015). Danielle promotes staff to staff
relationship management as well. Danielle help guide her staff to act
professionally, motivates them, and empowers them to create change
through influential behaviors that she displays daily. She is not afraid to
admit when she has made a mistake and she treats all of her staff
respectfully and with a high level of professionalism. When Danielle was
asked what is the biggest mistake that you have made in your current role?
She stated

Analyzing the Leadership Role

I wish I would have addressed one staff members behavior earlier. I

had an AM cook that was not getting along with a PM cook, the PM
cook was pretty negative towards the AM cook and it was creating a
negative work environment. At first I thought I should just leave it
alone and they will work it out on their own. However, that was not the
case and I had to intervene. I feel bad that let it go one as long as I did
and I learned from this situation that if you have staff members who
are arguing or treating people negatively you must address it quickly
and promptly (D. Penfold, personal communication, October 25, 2016).
Danielle did some great conflict resolution and learned from this event. When
managers are resolving conflict amongst their co-workers in is imperative to
address the human experience or the co-workers perception of the events
(Yoder-Wise, 2015, p. 328). Without taking into account the employees
perception of the event the manager will have a hard time address the
conflict. Danielle is able to identify a solution to workplace conflicts by seeing
the events through her staff members shoes.
Personal and Professional Accountability
Personal and professional accountability includes personal
growth and development as a leader, ethical behaviors, appropriate
involvement in professional associations, and achieving appropriate
certification for the managers field or specialty. Danielle exhibit personal
and professional accountability by allowing herself to reflect on things she

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has done well and things she has not done well. When Danielle was asked
about her biggest mistake in her current role she was able to identify it and
also state what she would do differently the next time. By Danielle reflecting
and identifying her downfall to the situation allowed her to be transparent to
her employees. Being transparent to your employees allows trust and buy in
from your team (Woolery, 2016). Danielle displays appropriate involvement
in professional association by being involved in a regional network for
Registered Dieticians and by networking with fellow food services leaders
within her organization and in the surrounding areas. This allows her to
evaluate what other service lines are doing and see some of the things that
are going well for them or not going so well for them. Danielle has chosen to
stays current with her certification for diabetes education through continued
education related to diabetes. Her organization doesnt require her to
maintain this certification, however, because of the growing number of
diabetic patients she feel this certification is vital for her to be an effective
manager for Nutritional Services (D.Penfold, personal communication,
October 25, 2016).
Financial Management
Financial Management is one of the biggest headaches for
most managers. Danielle doesnt have to deal with directly with the impact
of reimbursement on revenue as Nurses Managers do, however, she does
have an understanding and recognition of how reimbursement will affect the
revenue of the hospital as a whole. Danielles financial management deals

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11

more with creating an annual budget and a monthly budget and monitoring
the budget. She deals with more of an operational budget which includes
financial planning for the day to day activities within an organization (YoderWise, 2015, p. 223). In the food service line this is often time a difficult
process because you are dealing with a fine line between having too much
food or not enough food. Danielle stated Inpatient flow directly affect my
budget, I know that during the months of January- March our inpatient flow
will be higher and I will need a high food budget for these months to provide
meals to our inpatient units (D. Penfold, personal communication, October
25, 2016). Danielle is continually evaluating productivity and identifying
areas that may help to improve her budget. Recently, she started to evaluate
to use of disposable paper products. One of Danielles biggest expenses is
Styrofoam and disposable silverware, in order for her to cut down on
expense she has switch to reusable silverware and plates. Danielle stated
that this has had a tremendous impact on her budget and also allow her
organization to start the process of becoming a greener organization (D.
Penfold, personal communication, October 25, 2016). One of biggest and
most impactful changes Danielle has made in regards to her budget is taking
over the order process for food products. She did this because before she
started there was no accountability to the ordering process which often times
lead to unnecessary food ordering. Danielle knew she need to maximize
care and efficiency with this process and taking over the ordering was her
answer (D. Penfold, personal communication, October 25, 2016). Danielle

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has seen a positive reflection in her monthly reports since she has
implemented this change. Danielle deals with capital budget items when she
is evaluating her annual budget. The minimum cost requirement for capital
items within a healthcare organization is usually from $300-$1000 (YoderWise, 2015, p. 225). Danielle manages her capital budget by prioritizing the
items that she may need and keeping it within her annual budget.
Conclusion
This paper gives great insight on Danielles management and
leadership skills. It addresses the challenges that she has faced and how
Danielle has impacted Scheurer Healthcare Network as a manager. Danielles
management and leadership skill reflect the of an effective leader. This is
evident based upon the changes she has made within her organization.
Danielle has not only been impactful to her staff and her organization but
also to the patients that come to Scheurer Healthcare Network. I feel that
Danielle has exhibited leadership skills that I will take within as I progress
forward. Two of the main things I will take with me is how she was able to
gain respect from her staff members and how she has implemented change
within her organization.

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References
About Us: the Presidnets's Pen . (2016, November 12). Retrieved from
Scheurer Healthcare Network: www.scheurer.org/about-presidents penaspx
Danna, D. (2016, November 12). Essential business skills for nurse
managers. Retrieved from Strategies for Nurse Mangers.com:
www..strategiesfornursemangers.com/ce_detail/20441.cfm#
Exectuives, A. O. (2015). AONE Nurse Manager Competencies. American
Assoication of Critical Care Nurses, 1-8.
Mayhew, R. (2016, November 12). Why Should HR & Line Managers Work
Together? Retrieved from Small Business Chron:
http://smallbusinesschron.com/should-hr-line-managers-work-together10377.html
Woolery, N. (2016, March ). 22 Qualities That Make a Great Leader.
Entrepreneur.
Yoder-Wise, P. (2015). Leading and Managing in Nursing (Vol. Sixth ). St.
Louis, MO : Elesvier.