This document discusses gender differences in leadership styles and their relevance to the military. It notes that research has found men and women tend to lead in different ways, with women's styles focusing more on vision, collaboration, communication and empowering subordinates. These styles align with modern leadership theories emphasizing qualities often associated with female leaders. While the military has traditionally emphasized strict command, future challenges will require key leadership skills like vision and building consensus. As such, many female leadership styles could effectively complement military leadership by incorporating both sides of thinking and flexible structures.
1. Running head: HEALTH CARE
1
HEALTH CARE
2
Healthcare
Healthcare is still a rare commodity in many households
within the United States today. It might come as a surprise, but
many people still cannot afford basic medical care because of
the high costs. It is an expensive industry because of the
intricacies that it comes with. The government has a role in
making it accessible to the citizens through subsidies where it
helps in footing part of the bill. An example of this is the
Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act signed into law in 2010
(World Health Organization, 2014). It still reports that despite
2. such measures taken by the government to address this issue,
people still cannot afford this insurance, 18% of individuals
under the age of 65 are thus unable to access healthcare. My
research paper shall, therefore, address the problem of access to
health care and the challenges surrounding this industry and
some of the mitigations that have been taken or could be taken.
1. Access to healthcare
The introduction of Obama care in the United States meant
that the health care system was not accessible to more people.
The country spends close to 28 trillion dollars in the medical
industry (World Health Organization, 2014). This cost the
country a huge percentage of the Gross Domestic Product; it
was also one of the highest amounts spent in comparison to
other first world countries. People who do not have insurance
with either a state-sponsored insurance, Medicare, Medicaid,
State Children's Health Insurance program or a military health
plan are therefore unable to receive healthcare. It is only
restricted to those who have any of the above insurance covers.
Because of the financial obligation that these guarantees comes
with, many people are unable to afford them. As a result, they
end up not getting access to healthcare whenever the need
arises.
Research carried out by Agency for Healthcare Research
Quality, showed that the number of people who were unable to
get insured was lower than the ones who could afford. The
statistics revealed that White Americans were more likely to
have access to healthcare because of their ability to pay
premiums. The numbers of black Americans, Native Americans,
and Alaska Natives were much lower. This can be attributed to
the opportunities the minorities have as opposed to their white
counterparts. For one to be able to pay the premiums, one needs
to have a stable source of income that allows one to spend on
the necessities and on top of that pay the government for health
care. The amount is subsidized but still quite high for most
people who are either poor or low-income earner. Some middle-
income earners also have a problem paying these premiums.
3. Efforts, therefore, need to be undertaken to give people of all
races equal opportunities regarding employment. Helping them
have equality of opportunity will lead to more people being able
to afford health care which is a crucial need.
2. High cost of medical insurance
The introduction of the insurance system in hospitals was
the onset of the problems of access to health care. People could
not just afford to pay the high insurance that is required for
health care. Most hospitals around the country do not provide
health care to patients without insurance. This works against
those who are unable to take care of the bill, they delay seeking
treatment and thus put themselves at risk of having the disease
worsen. The irony is that in the end, the person still ends up
paying more money to treat the disease that has by now
worsened. Some even end up filing for bankruptcy. According
to Agency for Healthcare Research Quality, reports that the
uninsured patients have challenges when it comes to getting
healthcare, they also seek treatment at later stages and end up
getting less care (2011).
One is considered insured if they are registered with a
private health insurance, other examples of insurance policies
are the ones offered by Medicare, Medicaid, State Children's
Health Insurance program, a state-sponsored or a military health
plan (Agency for Healthcare Research Quality, 2011). An
individual does not get access to medical care if the only
insurance plan they have is the Indian health insurance. There
have been real statistics recorded over the years of people
getting insured. The numbers of children who got insured
between the ages of 0-17 years increased from 88% to 92%,
between the years 1999-2009, this is a good sign plan (Agency
for Healthcare Research Quality, 2011). It shows responsibility,
and that children's welfare is being taken care of. The
percentage also signified that more work needs to be done to
educate more and more parents on the benefits of getting health
insurance.
The percentage of adults between the ages of 18-44 years
4. decreased from 79-74% during the same period plan (Agency
for Healthcare Research Quality, 2011). This is a worrying
trend it signifies that people place priorities on other uses of
money as opposed to paying premiums for health insurance. The
rising cost of living due to inflation can also be blamed. The
insurance policies are structured in such a way that the older
one gets, the higher one pays. Health complications are more
when one is older as opposed to the younger generation it will
cost more to pay for an ailing adult than it will cost to pay for a
child. Then there is also the fact that one does not always get
sick. They would much rather pay hospital bills when the illness
comes that regularly pay up insurances and they rarely get sick.
This is, however, an illogical way of reasoning; we are told that
one's health is one's wealth. Failing to protect one's health
ultimately catches up with someone when they are admitted to
hospital because they were unable to treat the disease during its
early stages.
It is evident that the financial burden that comes with
paying up premiums is expensive for most families. The whole
point of having health insurance is so that people are prevented
from paying high bills when they need health care. It is sad to
record that most families can only afford to pay for 12% of the
medical care they receive in these facilities (Agency for
Healthcare Research Quality, 2011). The research carried out by
the agency records that 17% of people under the age of 65 years
were footing medical expenses in the form of insurance and cost
them more than 10% of the total family income (2011). The
numbers were even higher for those with private employer-
sponsored insurance and those with private non-group insurance
groups. This is a worrying trend; people are barely making it
foot their day to day expenses. The medical premiums just add
salt to the wound.
3. Quality of care
The United States of America is a first world country,
which by expected standards should have one of the best records
when it comes to the provision of health care. This is, however,
5. a problem in most facilities. The biggest issue facing medical
institutions is the small numbers of employees. The workers in
these establishments are the nurses and doctors mostly. The
problem of understaffing nurses has been prevalent in the
country for a long time. The problem with having few nurses
translates to the few nurses working more extended hours this
threatens the quality of healthcare in these hospitals. A nurse
can only do what is humanly possible, and they do the sensitive
though important work in hospitals. It is sad that they do not get
paid well to do their jobs.
They work in deplorable conditions because they do not
even get paid to work overtime. Overworking nurses is risky
because a tired nurse cannot carry out work to their best
abilities. This leads to medical errors being done. These errors
translate to even death cases just from mixing up patient's
information. Nurses have been known to hold strikes to push the
authorities in charge of them to improve their working
conditions. This paints a negative image of the profession. As a
result, fewer people choose that profession, the bodies that are
charged with hiring nurses to end up having the problem of
getting employees. Another reason for understaffing is the
increased numbers of professional nurses.
According to Roni Jacobson, health administrators are
against taking in more nurses because it would mean more costs
in paying up labor (2015). The industry does not allocate
enough funding to take care of energy costs. The irony with this
action is that it requires more when a patient suffers the
consequences of a medical error only because the number of
personnel placed to take care of him or she were not enough.
The hospital incurs more when patients have to come back
because of mistakes that were made the first time. Not to
mention, some could lose their lives as a result of this errors.
There have been many cases reported in hospitals of patients
suffering in the hands of nurses and some sadly never getting
any justice. Punishing the nurses or even getting legal action on
the hospitals does not solve the problem in its entirety, the issue
6. of understanding needs to be addressed.
Small numbers jeopardize the quality of health care and
are, therefore, a matter that ought to be addressed. The solution
to this menace is increasing the number of nurses in hospitals.
Studies carried out indicate that increasing a nurse's workload
by even one patient increases the chances of a patient dying by
7% (Jacobson, 2015). Their work is important; they help ease
the work of surgeons and doctors through even paperwork. They
are required to keep tabs on patients in hospitals, and
emergencies could occur at any time. Their job is around the
cloth; they have to work day and night. Therefore their working
conditions need to be improved. The government needs to
budget and allocate more money to the hospital industry. Paying
the nurses well translates to high-quality work. They are like
everyone else and therefore have to be motivated to keep doing
a good job.
A lot also needs to be done to sell the profession to
students. Educating them on the importance of this business
would not be enough if they are aware of the poor conditions. If
the industry gets to a point where they cannot get more numbers
coming into the labor market, the quality of health care could
suffer in the long run. This should, therefore, start with the
government funding the health care and improving the state of
affairs in this industry. The number of strikes being witnessed
in the country should reduce. Then they should encourage
students who are about to go to college to select courses in the
medicine field. It is a critical field because everyone needs
health care. These emergencies could occur anytime, they,
therefore, need more people in the area to handle the intricacies
that come with it.
Conclusion
Health care needs to be given more priority, coming to
think of it, everything else will fall into place economically if
the people dealing with these economic activities are healthcare.
People, therefore, need to be sensitized on the need of having
insurance covers. It should be made a topic in schools, to enable
7. more people to get an education. The economics of paying
premiums makes more sense than having to pay for the medical
expenses when sickness has already escalated. Many people are
unaware of this and therefore end up filing for bankruptcy when
they are unable to pay medical bills when it is already too late.
More needs to be done to improve the conditions at the places
of work of personnel; this will directly translate to higher
quality of health care.
References
World Health Organization (2014). Bulletin of the World Health
Organization. Policy and Practice. Retrieved from
http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/92/12/14-141762/en/
Agency for Healthcare Research Quality. (2011). U.S.
Department of Health & Human Services. Access to Healthcare.
Retrieved from
http://www.ahrq.gov/research/findings/nhqrdr/nhqr11/chap9.ht
ml
Jacobson R. (2015). Scientific American. Widespread
Understaffing increases risks to patients. Retrieved from
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/widespread-
8. understaffing-of-nurses-increases-risk-to-patients/
Running head: LEADERSHIP SKILLS IN MILITARY
1
LEADERSHIP SKILLS IN MILITARY 6
LEADERSHIP SKILLS IN MILITARY
Leadership Skills in Military
As tended to in the past research, women and men work in the
workplace into some degree distinctive routes based upon
hereditary/organic contrasts, development, correspondence
styles and to some degree, the attributes of the specific vocation
field picked. In this day and age, the initiative culture appears
to support ladies' authority styles and the one of a kind abilities
ladies add to the workplace. In this article, more centers are
particularly on how these distinctions show themselves in the
authority field and upon appropriateness to military initiative
styles, including military ladies' administration styles.
The information accessible shows men and women tend to lead
in various ways and make diverse commitments to the
association. Every style adds to assorted qualities offering
remarkable abilities fundamental to comprehensive hierarchical
9. viability. With the understanding that sex may, actually, assume
a major part in initiative style, an audit of pioneer attributes
current specialists consider key to profoundly viable
associations and correlation with women pioneers' styles is all
together (Kumar & Maheshwari, February 15, 2016).
Sexual orientation Differences in Leadership and the Military
Throughout the years, there has been much discourse rotating
around what separates administration and leadership and how
basic great authority (versus administration) is to any
foundation. There is by all accounts assertion that pioneers have
a key vision, great relational abilities, imagination, and the
capacity to trust and enable subordinates. Current initiative
rationality stresses numerous qualities normally saw as female
characteristics much of the time utilized by ladies possessing
authority positions in an association.
Perry Smith, Major General (Ret) examined long haul planning
as a basic component in initiative style, like the idea of vision.
Stephen Covey (guideline focused initiative master) trusts that a
predominant pattern without bounds, long haul considering,
favors the common capacities and abilities of ladies. He
additionally distinguishes authority as "to a greater extent a
privilege brained instinctive, visionary approach toward
building associations with individuals. This deduces ladies have
the edge in today's administration challenges.
Equal opportunity has at last tipped for ladies. It is not about
ladies assuming control, but rather ladies and men together
communicating their maximum capacity neither prevalent nor
mediocre. In the event that Martians arrived and gave
prospective employee meetings, it appears to be likely they
would guide men to games focus and difficult work and staff
most callings, discretion, and government with ladies. Rianne
Eisner, as cited by Naisbett and Aburdene depicts two
fundamental sorts of society's dominator or organization. She
trusts ladies' initiative styles tend to utilize an organization
model, an approach to structure human connections based on
connecting (Sjoberg, July 8, 2014).
10. In instruction to the Air War College, Dr. Christine McNulty
portrayed what is required for effectively de-perplexing the
universe without bounds as investigating and blending
information and the capacity to utilize both sides of the mind,
left and right. This seems regular for ladies, predictable with
the capacity to quickly move from left to right cerebrum
working. In another instruction, John Warden (Col, Ret), a
planner of the Desert Storm air crusade, expressed "the military
required an authoritative structure not the same as the current
various leveled arrange which limits viable correspondence
from either the top echelon to the base or the other way
around." Women pioneers have a tendency to work in a
disparate way putting more accentuation on availability and
accord. Partnerships lead by ladies is by all accounts composed
distinctively to include the availability and closeness ladies
incline toward.
Women's' authoritative structures reflect all the more a web,
where the most senior ladies embeds herself amidst the web or
hierarchical structure to amplify correspondence and
availability. Sociological studies demonstrate that ladies'
administration styles vary altogether from those of men. Ladies
are less progressive. They compose on a more extensive base
and favor structures that are less similar to pyramids. Ladies in
gatherings are less inclined to self-affirmation and more
inclined to trade off. In the event that ladies take after the
pattern appeared by the sociological information and turn into
an expensive minority of military workforce, their nearness can
be relied upon to change the hierarchical structure in which they
partake (Kumar & Maheshwari, February 15, 2016).
Military Leadership skills Similarities
In the event that presently held administration systems are not
at all like a military style, would they say they are contradictory
with military operations and are the common capacities which
ladies can contribute not relevant? In spite of the fact that the
military is a customarily male overwhelmed environment (and
11. in some battle situations may require strict charge and control),
future difficulties require key vision and authority. McGee and
Knowlton (referencing US Army manuals) list the
accompanying as key segments of vital authority: capacity to
utilize numerous edges of reference, ability to incorporate and
combine, capacity to impart successfully, capacity to arrange
and fabricate accord, and the capacity to imagine the future.14
As such, a considerable lot of the beforehand examined
administration styles, which exemplify those qualities and
abilities credited as being more "ladylike" are likewise
important to supplement military initiative. Do military ladies
mirror those same "female administration styles" or do their
styles mirror the "charge and control military style?"
There is some confirmation that ladies who picked the military
as a vocation tend to self-choose or adjust to administration,
correspondence and even MBTI sorts most run of the mill of the
greater part (men) in the military. Adjustment and self-
determination create a more uniform association, which albeit
worthwhile in a few regards (as with battle groups who may
need to convey and obviously see each other amid a snapshot of
emergency), relinquishes the advantages of assorted qualities.
There might be other concealed expenses of adjustment which
adversely affect spirit and the productivity/adequacy of the
operation over the long haul (Taylor, Rosenbach, & Rosenbach,
December 30, 2008).
Inquire about shows ladies in the male-overwhelmed profession
fields (to incorporate the military) every now and again self-
select for those vocation fields. At the end of the day, they pick
vocations which mirror their own particular inclinations and
styles. Discussing the effect of self-choice, Howes and
Stevenson say that, "the length of the quantity of ladies
admitted to the inward circle is little; the few who self-select
and are picked will tend to share the prevailing viewpoint of
those as of now set up." As additional confirmation of self-
determinations, these same writers cite Segal who "… suggests
that ladies and men who seek after military administration are
12. of like personality; this position is bolstered by a study
contrasting female and male cadets at West Point." and
Bstydzienski, expounding on ladies and legislative issues "The
few who accomplish abnormal state positions are probably
going to be chosen for their counter cliché qualities."
From this information, it can be gathered that ladies who self-
select for military professions may incline toward
correspondence styles more pervasive in male-commanded
situations, have MBTI inclinations like the dominating male
military officer (ISTJ), and support wonders related in current
day society (in spite of the fact that this might change with
proceeded with mix of men and ladies into non-customary
vocation fields) with manly styles as forcefulness, status
introduction, intensity, and so forth (Morgenthaler, November
3, 2014).
These records highlight the degree of the skirmish of the
genders and the challenges for ladies in male-commanded
situations. Albeit such studies and composing may appear to be
one-sided to people who are not individuals from this minority,
brief talks of misogyny with male class individuals at Air War
College did not create disavowal of the presence of the
wonders. These studies and articles by all around regarded
people propose misogyny is a figure to which ladies the military
are subjected and most likely a justifiable reason motivation
behind why numerous adjust, stay silent about disparities, and
fit it.
Consequently, reassuring men and ladies to impart unmistakably
"this conduct is not satisfactory and won't go on without serious
consequences" versus acknowledgment or versatile conduct is
an unquestionable requirement. Provocation irritates the
workplace and results in wastefulness in operations and
adjustment may unbeknown to the culprit, contribute to some
degree to this wonders. As embraced via Air Force Secretary,
Sheila Widnall, quality through differing qualities in the work
environment and perceiving the changing demographics of the
US military populace is vital to future achievement (Hay,
13. December 1, 2010). Differing qualities along these lines is an
objective in vital administration, as well as a component which
military must consider with a specific end goal to work
productively and successfully later on. It's an ideal opportunity
to get on the prepare and take whatever activities are expected
to help individuals in acting naturally as opposed to adjusting to
fit in!
Conclusion
Albeit military organizations have endeavored to open cadets to
a scope of initiative models and broad preparing, as indicated
by Boyce and Herd, both male and female military officer
students are accepted to keep up the purported impression of
sex part generalizations. Bolster for this theory incorporates a
mix of elements; for instance, solid male-overwhelmed
populaces and manly conventions are frequently natural to
administration foundations. Given the scarcity of ladies
commonly found in military settings, there exist a negligible
number of ladies pioneers who, in this way, can serve as good
examples. Besides, the creators recognize that the overarching
military culture is mainly in nature; and in this way, amid their
foundation years, cadets are inundated profoundly in the states
of mind, standards, and conventions of the institute, while all
the while accepting less presentation to the outside world than
regular citizen undergrads (Taylor, Rosenbach, & Rosenbach,
December 30, 2008).
Perceiving the requirement for research in the territory of office
administration attributes and sexual orientation part
generalizations, Boyce and Herd investigated the impression of
military institute understudies at the United States Air Force
Academy (USAFA), a four-year undergrad military
administration school. Their study is in a general sense a
replication of Schein's examination on the relationship between
sexual orientation part stereotyping (i.e., the conviction that an
arrangement of attributes and capacities will probably be found
among one sex than the other) and perspectives of viable
administration qualities. For instance, Schein found that
14. supervisors appraised effective administrators as having
qualities, states of mind, and mines more, for the most part,
credited to men than to ladies.
Various scientists have effectively settled the presence of
obviously characterized sex-part generalizations for men and
ladies, recognitions that to date stay pervasive. For instance,
ladies regularly are seen as relatively less competent, self-
ruling, target, and reasonable than are men. Thus, men are
considered to need interpersonal affectability, warmness, and
expressiveness in contrast with ladies (Chan, Soh, & Ramaya,
June 1, 2011).
Reference
Chan, K.-Y., Soh, S., & Ramaya, R. (June 1, 2011). Military
Leadership in the 21st Century Science and Practice. Cengage
Learning Asia; 1st edition.
Hay, D. J. (December 1, 2010). The Military Leadership of
Matilda of Canossa, 1046-1115 (Gender in History MUP).
Manchester University Press; 1 edition.
Kumar, V. V., & Maheshwari, N. (February 15, 2016). Military
Psychology: Concepts, Trends and Interventions. SAGE
Publications Pvt. Ltd.
Morgenthaler, J. (November 3, 2014). The Courage to Take
Command: Leadership Lessons from a Military Trailblazer.
McGraw-Hill Education; 1 edition.
Sjoberg, L. (July 8, 2014). Gender, War, and Conflict (Gender
and Global Politics). Polity; 1 edition.
Taylor, R. L., Rosenbach, E. B., & Rosenbach, W. E.
(December 30, 2008). Military Leadership: In Pursuit of
Excellence. Westview Press; 6 edition.