Managing Conflict In Nursing

Leadership and management of conflict coexist. “One’s leadership style defines one’s response to conflicts” (Waite & McKinney, p.123, 2014). “A transformational leader is more accommodating, transactional leader is more compromising and laissez-faire leader is more avoiding when managing conflicts” (Almas, Anis-ul-Haq, Niaz & Saeed, p.214, 2015).
Conflict is inevitable in the nursing profession, some may even consider it a normal part of the profession (Waite et al., 2014). Ogenyemi and colleague (as cited in Waite et al., 2014) the delivery of patient care uses a multidisciplinary approach making nurse more susceptible to conflict (p.126). Conflict that a nurse may experience can be either: nurse/nurse, nurse/doctor, patient/nurse and expressive/instrumental (Grohar-Murray & Langan, 2011).
Nurses care for patient is a very “demanding environment, hierarchies, prolonged work hours, multiple roles and emotional demands” (Waite et al., p. 126, 2014). When conflict arises, it can be emotionally stressful for the nurse, “which can lead to ineffective patient care compromising patient safety” (Klinkhamer, p.337, 2015) negatively impacting the healthcare organization’s reputation.
Even though leadership style defines how management deal with conflict, it is standard in some institutional for management to have an
The ability of a leader to resolve conflict is a learned skill (Klinkhamer, 2015) “which is foundational to supporting the nurse morale, decreasing nurse turnover, and diminishing lawsuits” (Waite et al., p.123, 2014). Northam (as cited in Klinkhamer, 2015) highlight the importance of training nurse to identify and manage conflict amongst themselves before it escalates (p.339) which, can be poor interpersonal relationship, unclear roles, differing expectation, and an imbalance of power (Klinhamer, p.338,