Traditional Attitudes and Socialisation

Abstract

In previous chapters, I have tried to clarify how nursing’s apparent failure to produce effective leaders in sufficient quantities is a product of its social and political history. Hempstead (1992) claims that nurses are prisoners of their own past — steeped in tradition, comfortable in hierarchical structures and comfortable with management in a conventional, controlled environment. In the past, matrons exercised their power through their medical colleagues, consensus management in the 1970s meant that risk-taking was uncommon, and layers of functional management tiers meant that responsibility could be avoided relatively easily. Because of the profession’s dependence upon functional structures (nurses managing nurses), leading to the confusion of management of the service with leadership (MacPherson 1991), nurses were simply not demonstrating the right skills or attitudes to make an impact after the implementation of the Griffiths recommendations in the 1980s.