Leadership Succession and Creating a Motivating Climate
What best describes someone who is an informal nursing leader?
A well-respected nurse with years of experience on the unit becomes a team leader. Words and phrases such as "appointed", "legitimate authority", and "chosen by the nursing administration" all describes a formal leader with legitimate power or (formal) position power. A nurse without a formal leadership role who has many years of experience, is well respected, and is sought out by others can be considered as an informal leader. Informal versus formal nursing leadership can also be thought of in terms of the types of power that may be exerted by staff on a nursing unit. An experienced, well-respected nurse is thought to have expert power, which is power gained through knowledge, experience, or expertise.
One of the first actions a new nurse manager must address is the unit practice of posting photographs on social media of staff with favorite patients without the patient's permission. When planning communication about this topic, the nurse manager intends to use which communication techniques? (Select all that apply.)
Differentiating between information and communication, ensuring that the unit staff receive both types of communication, Preparing written communication with clear and specific language, Ensuring congruence in verbal and nonverbal communication with the staff This is a critical communication issue for the nurse manager, as nursing staff can be justly terminated for violation of the U.S. government's Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which protects patients' rights to the privacy and confidentiality of all medical information, including written, oral, electronic, and personally identifying information like photographs, unless the client has expressly consented in writing to the disclosure of the information. Ensuring congruence or similar messaging in all forms of communication about this topic, making sure that staff members receive both information and communication about this topic, and preparing written communication understandable to all levels of unit staff are appropriate management communication functions. It would be inappropriate for the manager to share specific situations where nurses have been terminated. Meeting with all staff together is better than meeting individually, as it ensures that all staff members have heard the same message at the same time and group discussion can occur.
For which reasons does the nurse manager understand that frequent individual and group communication is critical to employee satisfaction? (Select all that apply.)
It provides a shared vision for all staff to work towards., It gives the opportunity for the manager to clarify policies and organizational changes., It motivates all staff to do their jobs well and go "above and beyond." Effective communication by a manager occurs with frequent, timely individual and group communication. One of the most important skills of a nurse manager is communication with the unit staff, both as a group as well as individually. Good communication can provide a shared vision and motivation for a team, as well as a venue to clarify policies, roles, and responsibilities, and address organizational changes. While employees should be encouraged to address grievances with interprofessional team members, "complaining" is not appropriate.
A new nurse manager recognizes the importance of promoting a positive organizational culture on the unit. Which behavior indicates that this has occurred?
Unit staff meet weekly to share positive events, identify concerns, and review shared goals. A unit with a positive culture addresses both positive and negative occurrences, meets frequently as a team, and has developed and works towards shared goals. Self-scheduling, policies on floating, and 360-degree evaluations are part of many unit processes, but they do not necessarily suggest a positive culture.
A new nurse manager is interested in a transformational leadership style. Which statement best describes this type of leadership?
Seeks input from all staff for joint problem solving with a focus on team building A transformational leader focuses on the individuals that make up the team and their individual and collective relationships, seeking input from all staff to solve problems together. Nursing leadership creates a vision for the nursing organization; servant leadership focuses on serving followers rather than being served; and transactional leadership focuses on completing tasks with efficiency.
During a staff meeting, a nurse manager identifies interpersonal conflict occurring between two RNs about how best to schedule new graduate nurses. The manager responds, "You both agree that the schedule for the new graduates is critical to their success, so let's start there." Which conflict resolution strategy is the manager using?
Smoothing Smoothing is a conflict resolution strategy that occurs when the nurse manager attempts to pacify both parties involved in the conflict by focusing on agreements rather than differences. The goal of this resolution strategy is to minimize the emotional component of the conflict. If the manager had ignored the conflict without attempting to acknowledge or resolve it, this would indicate a conflict resolution strategy of avoiding, which would not be appropriate for the manager under the circumstances. Other conflict resolution strategies are compromising, which occurs when each party gives up something it wants, or collaborating, when both parties cooperate to establish a primary goal.
While focusing on preparing for an upcoming accreditation visit, a new charge nurse becomes aware of an interpersonal conflict between two nurses occurring on her shift. Given the pending accreditation visit, she decides to disregard the conflict. The nurse manager explains that which outcome may result from this avoidance approach?
The conflict will remain and reemerge at a later time in a more exaggerated way. The greatest problem in using avoidance as a conflict resolution strategy is the likelihood that the conflict will remain and reemerge if allowed to continue without appropriate intervention. It is unlikely that the conflict will "go away" or resolve itself before the accreditation visit; it may even become visible to accreditors. "Win-win" feelings usually occur with a cooperating or accommodating conflict resolution strategy; staff are likely to continue experiencing negative feelings as the conflict continues unresolved.
Leadership succession planning is defined as:
The organization has ensured that there are competent, qualified, well-prepared people available for future positions Leadership succession planning is considered to be a fundamental leadership skill and occurs through management development initiatives. Succession planning is critical to both individual professional development and organizational workforce planning. It ensures that qualified candidates who have received training for the new role are in place when a vacancy arises so that a seamless transition can occur. The identification and grooming of potential management candidates, often by attending management development programs, is one way to accomplish leadership succession planning.
