Leadership and Management in Practice - Essay Example

From the experience of nurse managers, the problems with work are problems mostly with people. The primary purpose for studying leadership and management is to learn how to work with people, not only as individuals but also as members of groups, teams, and organizations. Use of nursing leadership and management concepts and skills allows the nurse manager a greater understanding and control of events in work situations (Clark, 1994). In health care we work in many different kinds of teams, many of them multidisciplinary, with many different management arrangements.

There are many teams where managerially the team is accountable to one person but individual members each have professional hierarchies of their own. In many of the teams I have worked with there are some members who believe the team exists in order to advise the team leader, and others who perceive it as a decision-making group, with all members having an equal say. When these beliefs coexist in the same group, without being made explicit, then unresolved conflict is inevitable, and typically members will complain about each other (Wenckus, 1995).

The scenario which is being dealt in here actually happened in our unit. There are two teams, team A and team B. As of now, there is gross animosity between these two teams to an extent that member of team A has stopped talking to each other and among one another. If several members of team-A are out sick, no one in team B will help team A on work. Team A members have stopped taking telephone messages of any members in team B and team B members would ask the caller to call later if the call is for any one in team A.

When members of each team come across each other in the hall, they try to avoid eye contact or if at all they make contacts they will glare at each other. It seems the whole unit is in a state of perennial argument with one another. In many states during the work, the argument is sure to occur when the same piece of