Strategies for Conflict Management in Clinical Nursing Settings

This report examines conflict management within clinical nursing settings, particularly focusing on the challenges faced by geriatric nurses. It highlights the importance of effective conflict resolution for maintaining a positive work environment and ensuring quality patient care. The report discusses the causes of conflicts, such as differing opinions, shift stress, and work pressure, and their negative impact on productivity and team cohesion. It then explores two key strategies for conflict resolution: the "Mastering Your Story" approach, which promotes empathy and understanding, and a strategy involving classifying the conflict's intensity and selecting appropriate communication methods like collaboration or compromise. The report emphasizes the need for nurse leaders to intervene in conflicts strategically, ultimately aiming to restore a peaceful working environment and improve overall team performance. The report is based on an assignment for the NSB305 Leading and Learning: Building Professional Capacity course.

Running Head: MANAGEMENT 0
conflict management

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In an organization many employees carrying different beliefs and perceptions work, the
organization can perform at best because of the employees performing effectively as a team to
accomplish organization’s objectives (Iedu, 2019). As every employee has their humanly aspect,
they get sometimes involved in altercation with other employees or organization’s management
thus leading to the decreased productivity so it becomes really important to manage conflicts to
avoid the wastage of any human potential, even Nursing which is a sacred professions of all
where the nurses have the primary motive to serve the patients, it also has to witness the
conflicts. The following essay will be discussing conflicts which arise in the clinical settings of a
Geriatrics nurse and the strategies to deal with it effectively.
Every workplace is not clear of conflicts, these altercations arise due to the differences in
the opinions of the employees, the difference which occurs causes the gap in the understanding
of the two thus leading to conflicting situations between the employees. The conflict is
unavoidable as every individual is unique and have their own beliefs. In the words of Mary
Parker Follett conflict has been defined as “the appearance of difference, difference of opinions,
of interest” (Ebrary, 2019) The geriatrics nurses in a clinical environment also face various
intra-professional conflicts, those conflicts include are related to shift stress, prioritization of the
tasks and on work pressure for example two nurses are working in a Geriatrics department, one
is working in a morning shift another one is doing a night shift both the nurses have to work in
harmony to accomplish their duties diligently, the nurse who is working at night has a careless
attitude and sometimes take a short nap thus neglecting her duty then on one day they had to tend
to a patient suffering from dyspnea who was in his seventies, the nurse at night got careless with
her duties and forgot to give him the medicine required to control the shortness of breath which
lead to the old man condition getting deteriorated the next day, the next day both the nurse got
reprimanded by their boss on which the bitter conflict arose between the two thus affecting their
future work relationship badly.
The conflicts are bad for the organization as it creates negativity in the work environment
where the productivity gets affected badly. In the above case the work relationship of the nurses
got badly affected and it would be tough for them to work harmoniously in the future. The
conflicts take way the mind of the nurse away from the real targets or goals to be achieved, it
lowers down their productivity as their mind get focused on all the negativity surrounding them (

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Mayhew, 2018). The conflicts decrease the group cohesion and makes them indifferent towards
each other. The fight, if continues for the long time could affect the patient’s health which might
lead to the boss reprimanding them thus affecting inter-professional relationship also and this
vicious cycle continues until the conflicts are resolved within the nursing teams.
In order to create a conflict free environment which is a must for good working of an
organization. It is important to intervene these conflicts with good strategies. Before solving any
conflicting situation between the geriatric’s nurses, it important to decide the exact nature of the
conflict which has occurred whether it has happened for the first time or has happened before
and whether the conflict is related to a task or personal issues. Once it gets decided then select a
strategy accordingly ( Cloke, 2011).
One of the strategies which can be used is “Mastering Your Story” strategy in a book
“Crucial Confrontations” which deals in looking at a conflicting situation from various vantage
points for example in the above situation, it is important to look at the situation from the
perceptive of both the nurses , the patient and the boss (Patterson, 2010). As it will help in
developing an empathetic element which will clear the misunderstandings between the group
members leading to increased group cohesion. The team members involved in the conflict will
develop the deep understanding that why a person has acted in a certain manner or why the
response was so harsh thus leading to the commitment of not doing it again in order to avoid any
future misunderstanding. This will increase the team cohesion thus resolving the conflicts
between the team members (Corporate Finance Institute, 2019).
Another strategy that can be used is firstly classifying the conflict on the level of intensity
scale and then using one of the approaches to resolve the issue which include collaboration,
accommodating, Forcing, Avoiding and compromising ( Overton & Lowry, 2013). In the level of
intensity scale there are five levels, the first level includes differences in the opinions and
perceptions, level second include misunderstandings when two people understand a similar
situation differently, level third include when there are disagreements between the people with
their view points, level fourth is Discord which includes the development of relationship issues
after a conflict and the last level is of polarization which is impossible to solve between the
parties. Then the second step is communication which could take form of collaboration,
compromise, avoiding and compromising. The strategy gives the clarity regarding the type of

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situation it is whether it is a discord, disagreement or polarization thus leading to a better
solution to the conflict. The second step which is communication helps in resolving all the
mental issues thus improving team cohesion of members in the team. In the situation which was
described above was of level 4 intensity as there were relationship issues after the conflict was
occurred which could be brought to terms with collaboration where both members could commit
to performing their duties diligently (Medcrave, 2019).
The conflicts in an organization are inevitable as it arises due to differences between
opinions of unique individuals in an organization so it becomes important to resolve the conflicts
to restore the peaceful working environment in an organization. As good relations among
teammates will lead to overall good productivity in an organization. As conflicts can not be
avoided it is important to select the strategies for intervention carefully as these can bring the
conflicting situation to agreements. Strategy such as “mastering your story” is the best way to
resolve the solution as it helps in understanding the situation from other person’s perspectives.
Other strategy such as categorizing the situation based on intensity is best way to bring the
solution of clarity.

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Bibliography
Cloke, K. (2011). Resolving Conflicts at Work. New York: Jossey-Bass.
Mayhew, R. (2018, October 25). Negative Effects of Conflict Within an Organization. Retrieved
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organization.html
Overton, A. R., & Lowry, A. C. (2013). Conflict Management: Difficult Conversations with
Difficult People. US National Library of Medicine, 26(4), 259-264.
Corporate Finance Institute. (2019, August 13). Team Cohesion. Retrieved from
corporatefinanceinstitute: https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/careers/soft-
skills/team-cohesion/
Ebrary. (2019, August 13). CONFLICT. Retrieved from ebrary:
https://ebrary.net/2852/management/conflict
Iedu. (2019, August 13). Conflict: Positive and Negative Effects of Conflict in Organizations.
Retrieved from iedu: https://iedunote.com/conflict
Medcrave. (2019, August 13). Impact of interpersonal conflict in health care . Retrieved from
medcraveonline: https://medcraveonline.com/NCOAJ/NCOAJ-02-00031.pdf
Patterson, K. (2010). Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated
Expectations, and Bad Behavior. New York: McGraw-Hill;.