Clinical Leadership: Application and Conflict Resolution in Hospitals

This essay delves into the critical role of clinical leadership in nursing, emphasizing its importance in enhancing patient care and resolving conflicts within healthcare settings. The essay begins by defining clinical leadership and outlining its key attributes, such as emotional intelligence, communication skills, and dedication to excellence. It then highlights the significance of clinical leadership in fostering teamwork, promoting positive growth, ensuring proper organization, and encouraging success within a hospital environment. A central component of the essay is a detailed case study describing a conflict situation involving a nurse violating hospital policy. The author, a charge nurse, utilizes transformational leadership principles to address the issue, focusing on open communication, understanding the root causes of the problem, and motivating the nurse to improve performance. The essay concludes with recommendations for preventing similar situations and reinforces the overall value of effective clinical leadership in the provision of quality medical services and patient support. The author also shares the positive outcomes of their leadership approach and suggests improvements like increased CCTV coverage and reward systems to promote better teamwork. Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students.

Running head: CLINICAL LEADERSHIP 1
CLINICAL LEADERSHIP
Name of Student
Institution Affiliation

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Clinical Leadership
Introduction
Essentially, the field of medicine and nursing is dynamic and more recently a lot of focus
is on the quality of medical service offered to customers. Nursing is a field that involves high-
pressure situations which require quick decision-making. Clinical leadership ensures that the
most appropriate decisions are made in such circumstances. There several definitions of clinical
leadership but generally refers to policy drivers, and the less distinct aspects of service and role
developments that enhance patient care, (Chávez & Yoder, 2015). Clinical leadership plays a
very critical role in improving the quality of medical service offered by medical practitioners.
There are several attributes that nurses should possess to be good clinical leaders who can
handle the various situations that arise at the place of work. These attributes include emotional
intelligence, professionalism, mentorship, respect, professional socialization, communication
skills, dedication to excellence, critical thinking, integrity, emotional intelligence and many
more, (Huber, 2017). This essay discusses the importance of clinical leadership and describes a
situation where the concept of clinical leadership has been applied. Clinical leadership is very
important in solving the various conflict situations that are likely to happen among nurses in
providing healthcare services.
Importance of Clinical Leadership
Clinical leadership is essential in nursing and serves many functions in the general
hospital setup. The importance of clinical leadership includes nurturing teamwork, enhancing
positive growth, a proper organization as well as encouraging success, (Daly, Jackson, Mannix,
& Hutchinson, 2014). Strong clinical leadership skills nurture teamwork through helping nurses
and other staff to work together as a team. The nurses in the leadership positions enhance strong

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cooperation by promoting good communication among team members, promote collaboration
and maintain the spirit of teamwork. Initiating and maintaining good communication is very
crucial in improving the quality of service offered. Good communication between doctor and
nurses as well as between nurses and patient ensures smooth operation in the hospital as well as
improve customer satisfaction. All this is achieved through good clinical skills where nurses and
doctors are informed about the value of clear communication as well as frameworks put in place
to promote communication. Teamwork ensures the nurses, doctors, and other staff work as a unit
and this easily helps in achieving the organizational goals efficiently and effectively.
Clinical leadership also leads to positive growth since good nurse leaders have the ability
to assess their work processes and make the necessary adjustments critically. Nurse leaders can
analyze the operation processes in the hospital, and if the operation is below the desired
threshold standard, they initiate mechanisms that restore normalcy or even push the operations to
the next level. Good nurse leaders also cultivate the culture of regular self-evaluation of the team
members in orders to determine their weaknesses and strengths to improve the productivity of
every individual. Improvement of individual productivity in an organization leads to positive
growth of the organization by improving the general productivity.
For any nursing team to be effective in delivering their services to patients a proper
organization must be present. In essence, lack of proper organization leads to chaos and
ambiguity of responsibility among nurses and other staff members. Such chaos is not wanted in
the contemporary healthcare that is very fast-paced and demanding. A good nurse leader will
ensure that there is a good organization structure among the nurses and unit of command and
authority. This will ensure that all the nurses and staff work towards achieving a common
objective diligently. A good nurse leader will also be able to ensure the organization structure is

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well executed, identify any organizational weakness and problems and come up with creative
ways to solve the problems. This may involve overseeing patient care, creating and updating
monthly shift schedules as well as assigning special duties to some of the nurse team members.
Good clinical leadership also encourages success since it creates a conducive
environment where the nurses and other staff are enthusiastic and passionate about the service
they offer. Good nurse leaders lead by example by providing high-quality services and
illustrating all the good attribute of a professional nurse. They should motivate the other team
members so that they emulate the same and even exceed the expectations. Good clinical
leadership helps the nurse to meet the required standards of nursing professionalism as well as
promote creativity among the team members. Motivation is very important in ensuring that the
nurses work well. Good leaders should be there to encourage and give support to the nurses
going through a hard time as well as praise those doing extraordinary exertion. All this will
ensure that the team succeeds in meeting their goals effectively and efficiently.
The Conflict Situation
The conflict situation arises in a reputable public tertiary hospital that has over 1500
beds, and several work policies have been formulated by the administrators to ensure smooth
operations of the hospital. One of the most important policies in the hospital is the night shift
policy which forbids any staff from sleeping while on duty. All the nurses and other staff are
completely aware of this policy, but despite the implementation of the policy, I got information
that one of the nurses frequently slept on her night shifts. The nurse was violating the important
policy and neglecting her duty by sleeping at the examining room and the nurse station.
I am a charge nurse in the hospital, and I am responsible for supervision and supporting a
nursing staff as well as provide nursing services to a limited number of patients. I am in charge

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of a surgical unit in the hospital, and the nurse involved in the conflict situation is a member of
this unit. In my position I am responsible for ensuring nurses offers high-quality patient care,
acting as an educational resource for all the other nurses as well as evaluate the performance of
nurses. As a charge nurse in the surgical department, I am the leader of this unit, and I am
supposed to perform administrative duties such as to direct the admission and general flow of
patients as well as assigning duties to nurses, (Scully, 2015). I should oversee the performance of
the nurses and other support staff to ensure that policies are well implemented so that the patients
receive quality healthcare services.
Once I had about the news of the nurse sleeping during her duty, I decided to take
several measures to seek immediate resolution of the situation. I selected an appropriate time and
scheduled a one-on-one talk with the nurse in my office to evaluate the trust and respect of the
nurse. I requested her if she could spare a couple of minutes and come to my office once she was
done with her duties and she agreed. The talk was casual, and I refrained from any form of
criticism in the discussion, (Mannix, Wilkes, & Daly, 2015). During the talk, I was very keen on
the thoughts of the nurse to recognize her concerns and needs as well as analyze how severe the
situation was. The talk aimed to identify the root cause of her problem without criticism, (Ennis,
Happell, & Reid‐Searl, 2015). I also informed her of the faith and trust I had on her and the high
expectations I had. The talk was a way of motivating her work hard and be committed to the
organization just as is expected of her and this will contribute towards the achievement of the
collective goal of providing patients with quality healthcare services.
The leadership style I demonstrated in this conflict situation is transformational
leadership. This leadership was initially proposed by James MacGregor Burns, and according to
his concept, this style of leadership involves a relationship between a leader and the subordinate

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that brings mutual motivation which results into value system congruence between them,
(Goswami, Nair, Beehr, & Grossenbacher, 2016). According to this type of leadership,
motivation is key to the success of any team and leaders should motivate their subordinate to
adjust their inspiration, opinions, and expectations in orders to achieve organizational goals,
(Démeh & Rosengren, 2015). Transformational leadership has four main components namely
strong motivation, personal consideration, ideal impact, and intellectual stimulation. These four
crucial elements of this leadership style are improving the productivity of employees in any
organization.
According to research done in various organizations all over the world, this style of
leadership greatly improves the satisfaction of the subordinate and their commitment towards
work. This style can be implemented in many organizations because of its impact on
organizational and individual outcomes. This leadership is practical and is being applied in many
institutions in the contemporary world. The theory is mainly focused on change, and the leaders
are expected to be the agents of change. The leaders use their personalities and attribute to
empower their subordinates and colleagues, support them to achieve their goals as well as
encourage them to strive towards the realization of organizational goals and objectives (Lewis,
Heitkemper, Harding, Kwong, & Roberts, 2016). This leadership requires establishing and
maintaining trust between the leaders and their subordinate through fair treatment and
encouraging independent decision-making. The leader should have good communication skills to
create a good interpersonal relationship with their subordinates to allow them to feel free to share
their ideas and opinions, (Heckemann, Schols, & Halfens, 2015). This leadership style also
requires leaders to strong self-confidence and a strong vision for the organization that the
subordinates can emulate.

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Outcomes
After talking with the nurse involved in the conflict I realized that she was experiencing
some personal family issues at home that was making her stress. I was able to advise her and
encouraged her to separate personal life with duties since almost everyone is fighting their secret
battles, but they don't let that affect their duties. I assured her of support during that time and
challenged her not to disappoint me based on the high expectations I had for her. This proved to
be very effective since in the days that followed I never had the same complaint from the other
nurses and I even called her to congratulate her for the good effort she was putting in providing
quality health services to the patients, (Lin, MacLennan, Hunt, & Cox, 2015). I realized that her
moral was very high and informed her of how proud I was to have her as a member of our team.
Recommendations
To avoid further similar scenarios from happening I suggest that there should be a good
interpersonal relationship between leaders and their subordinate. This nurse could not have
openly shared her problem with me if we did not have a good interpersonal relationship,
(Bender, 2016). Also, I suggest that the hospital should increase the CCTV coverage to include
the nursing station and examination rooms. The available CCTV coverage was mainly on the
main entrances and corridors. If the nurse was aware that there was CCTV cameras all over the
place could not have slept for some hours during her shift. The other recommendation is to put
monetary and social rewards that will encourage the team members in the unit to work hard to
achieve their full potential, and this will increase the overall productivity of the hospitals.
Considering all the above recommendations would ensure smooth operation of the hospital.

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Conclusion
Clinical leadership is a very crucial element in ensuring nurses provides quality medical
services and support to patients. Clinical leadership involves formulating policies and
implementing them well by performing administrative and managerial roles. Nursing is a field
that involves high-pressure situations which require quick decision-making. Clinical leadership
ensures that the most appropriate decisions are made in such situations. Clinical leadership is
very important in nursing and serves many functions in the general hospital setup. The
importance of clinical leadership includes nurturing teamwork, enhancing positive growth, a
proper organization as well as encouraging success. There are several leadership styles that
nurses in leadership positions can use to solve conflict situations that threaten the realization of
organizational goals. One of the leadership styles is transformational leadership which has been
discussed above and its application in the health care sector.

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