Abstract
Nursing operational managers in Primary Health Care (PHC) clinics experience daily challenges. They must manage the clinics' human and material resources, ensure that operations run smoothly, and patient satisfaction is always at its best. To achieve the above-mentioned roles of the nursing operational managers, they must be diligent, dedicated, passionate, adaptive, and goal oriented. Although the nursing operational managers’ quality of leadership has been upheld in the PHC clinics, challenges that have been brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic have led to a significant change in the quality of leadership. Based on this, there is minimal evidence in the literature review regarding the lived experiences of their quality of leadership.
The purpose of this research was to explore and describe the lived experiences of nursing operational managers’ quality of leadership amid the COVID-19 pandemic and to develop recommendations to enhance the quality of their leadership in PHC clinics in Johannesburg, as well as to create future-ready managers that will thrive in pandemics of this nature. This study pursued a qualitative, exploratory, descriptive, and contextual research design using a phenomenological approach, as it was aimed at finding the truth about and ascribing meaning to the nursing operational managers’ experience on their quality of leadership amid the COVID-19 pandemic. A non-probability, purposeful sampling method was used. The study population comprised nursing operational managers at PHC Clinics in the city of Johannesburg. In-depth, phenomenological, individual interviews were conducted during data collection until data saturation was reached.
Lincoln and Guba’s criteria for establishing trustworthiness in qualitative research were used throughout the study, and it encompassed the following four elements: credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. The researcher adhered to the ethical consideration of beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, and justice. Data was analysed using Colaizzis’ thematic method of data analysis. The findings of the study revealed a central theme, namely that the quality of operational managers’ leadership was compromised by a myriad of factors amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The following themes and categories emanated as negative experiences of the quality of operational
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managers’ leadership: leading staff that was fearful and anxious during the pandemic; emotional, mental, and physical distress; poor support from management throughout the pandemic; additional workload and limited resources. Leadership roles included ambiguity in respect of leadership roles, poor communication from senior management, and lack of training and development. The positive experiences of the quality of operational managers' leadership involved the use of teamwork to rise above the pandemic and effective employee assistance programmes during the pandemic. Literature was integrated to conceptualise the findings and recommendations were given followed by a description of limitations, reflections, and conclusion.