Clinical Leadership and Management

Running head: CLINICAL LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
CLINICAL LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1CLINICAL LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
Introduction
Healthcare organizations are home to the multifaceted treatment and therapeutic facilities
and hence, cater to the need of a wide variety of patient population of varied cultures, ethnicities,
ages, genders and disease conditions (Almost et al., 2016). Likewise, in addition to patients,
healthcare organizations are also home to a broad team of clinical staff, of various capabilities
and competencies. Such an environment of multiple skills and health states is bound to result in
circumstances of differential opinion and conflicting situations (Forbat et al., 2017). Such
situations are highly prone to occurrence in aged care community settings, considering the
diverse physiological, emotional, social and psychological upheavals such elderly patients have
to encounter. Hence, healthcare professionals must hence, seek to keep themselves enlightened
on a variety of leadership and management strategies, to ensure timely, prompt and efficient
resolution of conflict resulting in optimum staff as well as patient satisfaction (Sexton &
Orchard, 2016).
The following paragraphs of this paper will seek to shed light on a situation of conflict
occurring in a real life healthcare setting, the events which unfolded due to the lack of conflict
resolution at the moment, the key positions of the nurses or healthcare professionals directly
associated with the situation, the measures and leadership style undertaken to efficiently manage
the incidences, the outcomes which were a resultant of these actions and the long term
implications and recommendations which can be predicted as a product of the aforementioned
leadership and management interventions.

2CLINICAL LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
Discussion
Position
Prior to proceeding towards the details of the event, it is necessary to highlight the
positions and delegations of the various stakeholders of the conflict situation, for improved
management and leadership comprehensiveness. I am currently employed in a community aged
care centered which provides geriatric services to elderly patients, who are inflicted with a wide
variety of age associated complications, such as neurodegenerative diseases like dementia,
Alzheimer’s Parkinson’s, immobility associated musculoskeletal disorders such as osteoarthritis
and metabolic deficits such as diabetes and cardiovascular complications. I am employed as an
enrolled nurse since the last 1 month in this comprehensive aged care community setting. As an
enrolled nurse employed in a aged care community setting I am required to adhere to certain
competencies and standards established by the Nursing Council of Zealand, of which the most
essential being competency 1.3, which requires to me to consult the Registered Nurse (RN) for
performing delegated nursing tasks as per competency (Nursing Council of New Zealand 2019).
Hence, I engage in my nursing professional practice as instructed by my reporting RN. During
my enrollment, I was also introduced to two more enrolled nurses, who were also reporting
under the same RN. Together as a nursing team, we actively assist our RN in managing the care
of the patients she cater to. These include tasks pertaining to the scope of enrolled nurse practice,
such as assessments, medication administration, provision of patient assistance - all as per the
instructions of the RN. Additional responsibilities as per the competency standards included
communicating with the RN for any doubts considering her tenured clinical and professional
expertise and health literacy along with being aware of the concepts of patient centered care and
whanau for cultural competency (Nursing Council of New Zealand 2019).

3CLINICAL LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
Event
The event occurred on an day when our reporting RN was absent due to personal
commitments. When me and my nursing peers arrived at our workstation, we were informed by
another RN that we will be required to work on our own as per handover instructions of the
patients our attended till date, with assistance from other experienced nursing supervisors. The
RN to whom we were supposed to report to for the day, instructed us to assist in bathing an
elderly female patient, Mrs. X, who is 70 years old, of indigenous background and is suffering
from Stage 5 dementia. While I was quite eager and enthusiastic to proceed with the task, my
teammates demonstrated fear and doubt and were unsure of themselves in assisting me in the job.
Hence, without reporting to the RN, I proceed with the task alone and began to assist the patient,
without delving much into a conversation with her. Halfway through the process, the patient
began to scream at me followed by incessant crying and bawling. Hearing the noise, the RN and
my teammates rushed over and after looking at the situation, expressed disgust, anger and her
hatred towards working with nursing students like us. While she left the scenario abruptly, me
and my teammates, through the administration of conflict resolution and strategies of leadership
and management, successfully calmed the patient and proceed to care for her and communicate
later with the RN. Such strategies will be emphasized in the succeeding sections.
Measures
One of the first measures which had to be administered was patient centered
communication, empathy and gentle persuasion. The practice of patient centered approach
involves directly encouraging the patient to express his or her opinion and as a result participate
directly in the clinical decision making process in the regulation of the nursing care plan (Liang
et al., 2017). Empathy and gentle persuasion involves comprehending a situation through the