Management functions and roles

Management Functions and Roles at Ascension Health

Ascension Health is the largest not for profit health care system in the United States, with facilities established in over 20 states (Medical News Today). The institution implements the Catholic principles and strives to offer assistance to those most in need. It also promotes the principles of social equality (Website of Ascension Health, 2010). In order for the medical teams to be able to deliver its services, the managerial team has to accomplish its functions. The managerial functions can generally be divided into two sets:

Technical functions, and Human functions.

The technical functions refer to aspects such as ensuring a commodity sufficiency, a resource compliance or the identification and satisfaction of the staffing needs. These functions can be learnt on the job and developed through gradual and sustained training efforts. The human functions are however more complex and more difficult to learn. They are innate features, upon which the manager builds. The most important function is the leadership function. At a general level, the leadership function is the means employed by an individual to convince a group of people to become organized and attain a common goal. Specifically, "leadership is a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective and directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent" (NW Link, 2010).

The general meaning of leadership is maintained within Ascension Health, with the specification that the scope of this organizational leader is that of offering high quality medical services to those in need. Through this, the institution hopes to create a better world. At an internal level, there are several challenges associated with the function. For instance, it is yet unsettled whether this position should be occupied by a medical doctor, with vast expertise in the medical field, or whether it should be occupied by a business professional, with vast expertise in management and leading people.

Another difficulty is raised by the nature of the environment in which the leadership function is exercised. The medical field is a traumatizing one, in which people need not only follow their professional desiderate, but also cope with the drama of human death on daily basis. This makes it significantly more difficult for the leader to motivate his staff. Within a general business context, the employees deal with numbers, commodities, customers, deadlines, targets, final products and so on, and the major risk is that of registering financial loses. At Ascension Health, the major risk is that of losing human life.

The challenges virtually imply the necessity for the leader to possess a combination of three distinct characteristics:

Technical knowledge of the medical field

Ability to lead the people, and Ability to understand and manage trauma.

In order to reduce the power of the challenges -- because their entire removal is not possible -- the leader at Ascension Health could be subjected to the following:

His subjection to gradual and consistent training programs of the medical field nature