The Importance, Applicability, and Effectiveness of Nurse Leader's Use of the Five Major Conflict Resolution Management Strategies - Essay Example

Nursing Leadership Student’s name Course name Instructor’s name Date: The nursing profession is characterized by cooperative and collaborative associations with different stakeholders such as patients, colleagues, subordinate staffs and family members (Al-Hamdan, 2009). It is one of the professions where diverse cultural backgrounds are pulled together to ensure that quality healthcare service is delivered to the patients (Al-Hamdan, 2009). The people in the nursing profession may have diverse perspectives, opinion and values regarding different issues. The variations in perspectives and opinions provide a fertile ground for conflicts to arise in the health care setting. It is therefore imperative to note that conflict is part and parcel of the nursing profession, and the tendency of having conflicts in the health care setting is an endless process. According to Al-Hamdan (2009) conflict can be viewed from the perspective of an individual feeling affected negatively by the actions, words or conduct of another individual (Al-Hamda, 2009). Conflict is therefore the internal discord that emerges from differences in feelings, values, opinions, and ideas between two, or between groups of people (Al-Hamdan (2009). Al-Hamdan, Shukri & Anthony (2011) cited several sources of conflict in the healthcare setting. The first source of conflict is limited resources and time in the workplace. This may arise due shortage of staff leading to longer shifts and heavier workloads. Shortage of resources such as nursing equipments may also lead to intense competition between the nurses which may be a recipe for conflict. The second source of conflict is differing perspectives, work-styles and perspectives which lead to unmet expectations (Al-Hamdan, 2009). Unmet expectations strains relationships between the nurses leading to conflict in the workplace. The third source of conflict is cultural diversity among patients and colleagues. Cultural diversity makes it hard for nurses to understand and communicate their opinions with each other. As a result, errors committed in the course of duty due to breakdown in communication may result to endless blame-game among the nurses giving rise to conflict. Power and knowledge disparity has also been cited as another common source of conflict among the nurses in the health care setting (Almost, Doran, McGillis & Spence, 2010). Arguably, conflict resolution management strategies are paramount in managing conflicts in the health care setting so that the anticipated benefits of healthcare delivery can be experienced by the patients. This paper explores the importance, applicability, and effectiveness of nurse leader’s use of the five major conflict resolution management strategies, that is, compromising, collaboration, avoidance, competition, and accommodation in a range of contemporary clinical practice contexts, including the new graduate practice context. The importance of use can be defined as the anticipated benefits derived from the application of a specific conflict resolution strategy as compared to the other (Almost, Doran, McGillis & Spence, 2010). Additionally, applicability can be defined as the practical use or application of a certain conflict resolution strategy when conflicts arise in the health care setting, and effectiveness is defined as the extent to which a certain conflict resolution strategy has achieved the desired expectations or outcome (Brinkert, 2010). Nursing leadership is an important factor of conflict resolution in the health care setting. Nursing leadership refers to the role of a nurse leader in providing direction and inspiration so that other nurses can work towards achieving a common goal, mainly, enhancing the quality of healthcare delivered to the patients (Brinkert, 2010). Various estimates and surveys have revealed that nurse leaders spend more than 30 to 45 percent of their time resolving different levels and magnitude of conflicts in the workplace (Sorensen et al, 2008). This underlines the importance of nursing leadership in conflict resolution because unresolved conflicts have negative impact on productivity of individual nurses. Various experts have previously undertaken studies about different mechanisms through which people respond to conflicts. One of the significant tools developed so far is the Thomas-Killman Instrument (TKI) which comprises of five tactics or styles applied commonly by people to resolve conflict (Leever, 2010). The tactics include compromising, collaboration, avoidance, competition, and accommodation. Compromising can be defined as a method of solving conflicts where a solution is reached by two parties through a negotiation process in which temporary settlement is reached (Leever, 2010, p.612). One of the features of this mode of conflict resolution is that parties involved must give up their hard-line positions in order to reach a temporary settlement (Leever, 2010, p.617). Compromise is mainly used by people in equal positions of power. This method of conflict resolution can be used in different scenarios in the health care setting. Firstly, the issue of conflict should be of moderate or mild importance and it should not compromise the safety of the patient (Leever, 2010, p.618). For instance, nurses in the same rank may disagree on a given approach or work schedule. Secondly, this method should be used when nurses have limited time. It means that nurses should discuss and agree on the most appropriate approach to handle the situation. The effectiveness of this approach is realized when the parties involved relinquish their hard-line positions and adopt a common approach which result in improved teamwork and a united workforce in the healthcare setting (Leever, 2010). Collaboration refers to the aspect of both parties adopting a mutual solution when the positions of the parties are hard to compromise due to their level of importance (Morrison, 2008). This method should not be used to solve trivial issues in the health care setting. It should be used to solve major issues that touch on patient safety and resource use. Collaboration involves cooperation and assertiveness because parties to the conflict try to reach a solution by merging their insights (Morrison, 2008, p.974). This method is applicable when the parties seek a lasting solution to their conflict and a high level of emotional intelligence is required. The importance of this method in conflict resolution is that once the conflict is resolved, the same method can be used in resolving similar conflicts in future. It acts as a point of future reference for nurse leaders (Morrison, 2008, p.978). The effectiveness of this method is realized when parties involved in the conflict are satisfied with the resolution because the nurse leader has to ingrate the input, ideas and opinions of each party to the conflict in order to reach an amicable solution that pleases each party. This method is importance because it creates a sense of ownership and belonging, particularly when the patient is involved in selecting the most desirable procedure for his/her treatment. Such a patient is likely to cooperate with the nurses during the treatment procedure. Collaboration has been vetted as one of the effective conflict resolution strategies in the health care setting because it cultivates positive nurse-patient, nurse-nurse manager, and nurse-nurse relationships (Morrison, 2008, p.983). In addition, it increases the trust between different players in the health care setting. For instance, patients can trust their nurses when they are involved in selecting their preferable treatment procedure. Every other request made by the nurse to the patient can be accepted easily. Hence, the work of the nurses is made easy and fast due to minimal conflicts that arise in the course of administering treatment. Avoidance refers to the aspect of avoiding conflict in the workplace (Pavlakis et al, 2011). Notably, this method is not advised because some conflicts may be positive in that they may give rise to better working relationships or better nursing practice through exchange of ideas and opinions. Avoidance may work well with fresh graduate nurses because they try to appease their senior nurses by avoiding conflicts. This method is important when the nurse is confronted by other significant issues. The effectiveness of this approach is realized if the nurse attends to more important issues in the workplace and avoids the trivial issues to prevent escalation of the problem (Pavlakis t al, 2011). For instance, a nurse may choose to attend to patients that require her attention rather than discuss work schedules with her colleagues. Competition is characterized by low cooperation and high assertiveness from parties involved in a conflict (Pines et al, 2011). It is regarded as one of the negative ways of resolving conflicts in the healthcare setting. As stated in the beginning of this paper, conflicts arise due to competing values, perspectives, ideas, and opinions held by people from diverse cultural backgrounds. In view of this, competition may lead to escalation of the problem if not well applied. The applicability of this method is only possible during emergency situations where decisions have to be made quickly to save the life of a patient. This method is effective when the life of the patient is saved due to prompt decisions made by the nurse leader. It is important to use this method in situations where the nurse leader feels that nurses are compromising the laid down procedures in the course of undertaking their duties (Pines et al, 2011). Accommodation refers to the aspect of letting the other party win so that positive work relationships and harmony can be preserved at all costs (Siu, Laschinger & Finegan, 2008). This method is applicable in situations where a nurse realizes that her opinion, perspective or idea about an issue is not right. For example, a patient may have prior knowledge of certain aspects of treatment procedures that work well with his/her ailment. However, a new nurse may have a contrary opinion. Accommodation is important in such a situation to ensure that one party, particularly the nurse, concedes ground and allows the patient to win. The effectiveness of this method is realized when harmony and positive relationships prevail between the parties involved. References Al-Hamdan, Z. (2009). Nurse managers, diversity and conflict management. Diversity in Health and Care, 6, 31-43. Al-Hamdan, Z., Shukri, R., & Anthony, D. (2011).Conflict management styles used by nurse managers in the Sultanate of Oman. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 20, 571-580. Almost, J., Doran, D.M, McGillis Hall, L., & Spence Laschinger, H.K. (2010).Antecedents and consequences of intra-group conflict among nurses. Journal of Nursing Management, 18, 981-992. Brinkert, R. (2010). A literature review of conflict communication, causes, costs, benefits and interventions in nursing.Journal of Nursing Management, 18, 145-156. Leever, A. M., Hulst, M. V. 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