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Greta Cummings

Most people think of ‘follow the leader’ as a child’s game, but it’s all business for Dr. Greta Cummings, who studies the impact of leadership style on nurse morale and, consequently, the care they give their patients.

Principal Investigator for the CLEAR Outcomes Research Program (Connecting Leadership, Education and Research), Dr. Cummings focuses on the role and mandate of healthcare system leaders to contribute to quality work environments, and to intervene in or not tolerate toxic work environments in their organization.

“Healthcare leaders can influence the healthcare workforce, work environments and patient outcomes both positively and negatively, which suggests room for improvement in many areas,” says Dr. Cummings. “For example, managing people by projecting the attitude that ‘it’s my way or the highway’ is much less effective in the long run.”

With over 20 years of her career in various leadership positions, Dr. Cummings has experienced firsthand the impact of a quality worklife (QWL) across the healthcare spectrum, from a nurse to a senior administrator.

It was her time working in the hospital system of the 90s when massive cutbacks required her to layoff many nurses that spurred Dr. Cummings to find out how the nurses left behind were affected.

As an Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR) Population Health Investigator and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Alberta, Dr. Cummings is particularly interested in the effects of ‘emotionally intelligent’ leadership.

Emotionally intelligent leaders foster relationships in the workplace and spend time investing in the personal and professional development of their staff. “This style of manager does not view an employee as ‘just a worker’, but as a person,” she explains.

As detailed in the Spring 2007 issue of Research News, her systematic reviews of literature and her research revealed that nurses who reported to emotionally intelligent leaders were healthier, less emotionally exhausted, and better able to look after their patients than nurses who worked for performance-focused, commanding leaders.

“Leadership style has farther-reaching implications than job satisfaction,” confirms Dr. Cummings. “It leads to better patient care and retention of nurses, and it will ultimately save the system money.”

Given Dr. Cummings’ expertise in the QWL field, it’s no surprise she was an early contributor to the Quality Worklife Quality Healthcare Collaborative (QWQHC), sitting on the Measurement Committee to help identify indicators of healthy healthcare work environments.

When asked why she thinks the Collaborative is an important initiative in terms of advancing QWL in Canadian healthcare settings, Dr. Cummings replied “The importance of the QWQHC is the clear mandate for healthcare leaders and other stakeholders to work together to create and sustain truly quality work environments.”

“We have a moral imperative to provide opportunities for meaningful work and for healthcare providers to contribute significantly to achieving health of Canadians,” she stresses.

The fact that the healthcare workplace has a very significant influence on the ability of providers to give optimum care and achieve optimum patient outcomes strengthened Dr. Cummings’ decision to support the Collaborative.

In her ongoing quest to explore all facets of QWL in the health system, such as how best to train effective leaders, Dr. Cummings is currently investigating the effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving the healthcare work environment. “There’s a lot of research to be done yet,” she says.

For Dr. Cummings, the most important factor of QWL in healthcare settings is that an organization’s staff is its most important resource.

“The people who make up a healthcare organization are the health system’s most valuable resource -- far more important than capital or fiscal resources,” she concludes. “We must protect them, engage them and ensure their health and vitality in order to maintain our future health as citizens.”

For more information on Dr. Cummings and her QWL-related efforts, please see visit www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/nursing/gcummings.cfm