The Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Nursing

The provided text focuses on the importance of emotional intelligence in nursing settings. It presents various studies and research that emphasize the role of emotional intelligence in ensuring high patient safety and satisfaction, as well as reducing turnover among nurses. The assignment also discusses strategies for developing emotional intelligence among nurse managers, such as emotional rescue and transformational leadership.

NRS3222- Leadership and Management Concepts for Health
Professionals
Emotional intelligence in nursing manager
Aysha Ebraheem Alkhouri, FC1200138
Semester 2, 2017-2018
Referencing Style: APA 6th edition
Due Date: 11th_April_2018
Word Count: 1715
Instructor’s :Dr.Briliya, Dr.Omar

Contents
Introduction;........................................................................................................................3
Background;.........................................................................................................................3
Importance of emotional intelligence in nursing leadership;..............................................4
E I and managerial pyramid;................................................................................................5
Impact of emotional intelligence;........................................................................................6
Lack of emotional intelligence;...........................................................................................7
How to develop the skills of emotional intelligence;..........................................................7
Conclusion;..........................................................................................................................7
References:..........................................................................................................................9

Introduction;
Emotional intelligence can be defined as the ability by which a
working professional is able to identify as well as manage his own
emotions as well as emotions of others (Tyczkowski et al., 2015). Three
important skills are needed by individuals to develop emotional
intelligence in workplace. These are the development of emotional
awareness, the ability to manage emotions successfully and the
capability to harness proper emotions thereby applying them to
different tasks like proper thinking, problem solving as well as decision-
making (Nigtingale et al., 2018) . Emotional intelligence helps
individuals to regulate their own emotions as well as cheering up or
helping people in calming down and many others. In the field of
nursing as well, emotional intelligence is of great benefit as it helps in
maintain a workplace where there are fewer conflicts, more
understanding and smooth workflow among all the staff members
(Spano-Azekely et al., 2016). This in turn will have a positive impact
not only on the bonds among the employees but will also have positive
outcomes on the health of patients. This assignment will therefore be
based on the impact of emotional intelligence on nursing profession
and how they are helping in the undisrupted workflow of healthcare
organizations. It will show the importance of emotional importance on
nursing leadership, its impact on nursing leadership, level of pyramid
that requires the skill, strength and weakness of emotional
intelligence, ways to develop emotional intelligence and others.
Background;
Goleman has developed a model of emotional intelligence that
has five important components. The first important component that
every working professional should develop in them is self-awareness.
Researchers are of the opinion that individuals who have high level of

self-awareness can easily understand their own strengths as well as
weakness. It also involves how individual actions of professionals affect
others (Chang et al., 2017). It has been seen in different research
studies that those individuals who have emotional self-awareness are
highly receptive and can learn from different types of constrictive
criticism in comparisons to those who do not have emotional self-
awareness. Another important component of emotional intelligence as
stated by Goleman is self-regulation. Researchers have stated that it is
indeed an important trait as this trait helps individuals to develop the
capability of exercise restraint as well as control their expressions of
their emotions (Tyczkowski et al., 2015). Motivation is yet another
factor that helps individuals to work beyond their capability to bring
out positive outcomes for clients or for their organizations. Researchers
are of the opinion that those working professionals who are self-
motivated as well as resilient and have inner ambition tend to be more
dedicated for their work in comparison to others who are influenced by
different outside forces such as money and prestige (Powell et al.,
2015). When persons are driven be self-motivation and ambition, they
will tend to work beyond their expectation and will have an inner thirst
for success in their career. Moreover, empathy is yet another
component. A person who is empathetic will have higher level of
compassion and will be able to connect emotionally with others. They
can genuinely respond to concerns of other people that help in
developing bonds and relationships that have positive relationship with
productivity (Karimi et al., 2014). Social skills are the fifth component
by which employees can develop and build trust with other people.
Such people are also seen to gain respect from other in the workplace
that thereby help in developing a collaborative environment to work.

Importance of emotional intelligence in nursing leadership;
There is a huge importance of emotional intelligence for the
nursing leaders in healthcare sectors. The nursing profession expects
the nursing professionals to develop themselves with skills by which
they can interact with patients, medical fraternity as well as healthcare
staffs successfully. Development of nurse patient relationship can be
considered as one of the main perspective of healthcare services
(Foster et al., 2015). This interaction among the different members is
not simply conversation but involves different nursing perceptions,
understanding of the emotions of patients and team members and
proper utilization of the different perceptions for proper management
of different patient situations for providing effective patient care.
Therefore, researchers have stated that the concept of emotional
intelligence in the domain of nursing has become successful not only
on social level but also on the professional level. With the help of
emotional intelligence, nursing professionals can ensure development
of emotional capabilities by which they develop care plans for the
patients that include respecting patient’s preferences and inhibitions
without causing their own cultural biasness in their actions and body
language. Nurses can successfully oblige to the emotional, social as
well as spiritual needs of patients with proper use of strengths of their
emotional capabilities and skills (Al-Hamdam et al., 2017). With the
development of bio-psycho-social model of care in the present
generation that overrides the concept of only biological determiners
affecting health, emotional intelligence has become important attribute
for nurses. This is mainly because nurses need to analyze the
psychosocial as well as social determinants of the patients’ health and
in order to gather the information, nurses need to communicate and
establish bonds and trust with the patients. Therefore, the five skills of
emotional intelligence are of the extremely importance helping nursing

leaders to be competent in their communication skills, management of
work pressures, effectively leading multi-disciplinary teams,
management of conflict resolutions , effective maintenance of ethical
guidelines and others (Prufetta, 2017). Nurse leaders need to know
that every patient are unique and their approach of treatment should
be different accordingly on the need of the patients therefore, nurses
need to be flexible with their emotions when they will be handling
various issues of lives of patients. They also need to have varied levels
of understanding and withstanding capabilities for active self-
introspection of events, psychological understanding of patients,
assessment of events and many others. Therefore, emotional
intelligence helps them to handle all the activities if ways by which
they bring out successful results (Burnett &Pettijohn, 2015).
E I and managerial pyramid;
According to the managerial pyramid, leaders or managers can
be subdivided into several sections with the topmost manager in
nursing being called the chief nursing officer. This is the followed by
the departmental managers and then the nurse managers. Following
them are the charge nurses and the floor nurses who do not come in
managerial positions. Among the levels of managers, nurse managers
are the main level of hierarchy who requires the highest level of
emotional intelligence (Codier et al., 2014). They contribute to the
respective departments by leading and managing the huge number of
nurses on the floor (where they have to not only look and monitor the
health of the patient and the activities of nurses but) and solving solve
nursing personnel issues, planning work shifts of nurses, ensuring
adequate nursing, educating staffs and liaising with physicians and
nurses. Therefore, they are the persons who need to have high level of

emotional intelligence for proper management of the huge staffs and
other members of higher authorities besides patients.
Impact of emotional intelligence;
Leaders are individuals who undertake the responsibility of
motivating his team members and communicating with them in ways
by which they can guide the members towards the zenith of success
and thereby meeting organization mission and vision. In the field of
nursing profession, clinical nurse leaders are assigned the duty of
designing, implementing as well as evaluating the care of the client by
effective coordination, delegation and supervision of the care
conducted by the subordinates of the healthcare team. In the modern
generation, transformational leadership is preferred in most
organizations where the leaders need to possess not only high
standards if professionalism and ever-ending diligence but have
exceptional communicational skills and effective interpersonal skills
(Fujino et al., 2015). Nurses also need to have the capabilities of
developing strong bonds with employees based on trust and mutual
understanding. In this way only, leaders can help their embers not to
be affected by workload but in turn motivate them to work beyond
their abilities for the humanity. Leaders also need to have empathetic
disposition not only with the patients but also with the team members
and handle their concerns, issues and problems with genuine emotions
and compassion. This makes employees feel loved and respected by
organization that reduces job stress and turnover in organizations
(Taylor et al., 2015). Moreover, leaders who are having good sense of
humor and can apply such skills in difficult situations can help
employees mitigate stressful situations and overcome crucial barriers
with elements of fun and humor. All these would be only possible when
the leaders are able to develop emotional intelligence successfully.

Lack of emotional intelligence;
Healthcare leaders who do not have emotional intelligence are
seen to fail miserably in ‘connecting’ with their team members that
result in development of emotional distance between the leaders and
subordinates. This emotional distance result in development of
detachment of the employees with the leaders by which the
achievement of the goals become difficult and collaborative work
output cannot be received. Nursing subordinates feel helpless when
they cannot discuss their emotional turmoil, crisis period and concerns
with their leaders or managers. This results in poor work satisfaction
and hence increased turnover (Prufeta, 2017). Nurses are easily burnt
out for which they may make different types of errors in patient
treatment affecting the latter’s’ lives. Bonds and trust are never
developed for which both productivity and smooth workflow get
affected.
How to develop the skills of emotional intelligence;
Nurse leaders can develop their emotional intelligence by
working with therapists or counselors and learning to manage their
expectations for effective controlling of feelings or rejection as well as
anger. They can also use stress reduction techniques to decrease
stress, cultivating more understanding of their own emotions and
learning assertive communication techniques (Powell, Mabry & Mixer,
2015). They also need to develop strong listening skills and increase
emotional intelligence. They can also go through evidence-based
papers to develop their skills of emotional intelligence.

Conclusion;
From the above discussion, it becomes quite clear that emotional
intelligence is an integral part of nursing mangers and leaders that
help them to maintain their subordinates effectively. Leaders have
high emotional intelligence when they have high self-awareness, self-
regulation, social skills, motivation, empathy and communication. All
these attributes are extremely important for developing trust among
the members of the team. Proper development of relationships can be
ensured when leaders communicate with members with empathy and
compassion. They feel respected and job satisfaction is high. Nurse can
overcome pressures and turnover is reduced. All these factors not only
ensure smooth workflow but also ensure high patient safety and
patient satisfaction. This helps in meeting organizational mission
effectively.

References:
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Correlating Emotional intelligence and job performance among
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No. 1, pp. 12-20).
Burnett, M., &Pettijohn, C. (2015). Investigating the efficacy of mind-
body therapies and emotional intelligence on worker stress in an
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Chang, B. P., Vacanti, J. C., Michaud, Y., Flanagan, H., &Urman, R. D.
(2017). Emotional intelligence in the operating room: analysis
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