Impact of Lateral Violence on Team Performance in Nursing: A Review

This project investigates lateral violence within nursing teams, examining its impact on team performance, communication styles, and leadership. The assignment identifies lateral violence as a significant barrier, exploring various forms such as novice-against-seasoned and seasoned-against-novice interactions, and their implications for team dynamics. The project reviews factors like poor communication, lack of awareness, and inadequate resources as contributors to lateral violence. Recommendations include encouraging teamwork through brainstorming and goal-setting, involving HR for mediation, establishing clear codes of conduct, developing processes for managing disruptive behavior, providing mentoring and coaching, and educating nurses and nurse leaders. The project emphasizes the importance of shared leadership and a collaborative culture to foster effective teamwork and improve patient care, while highlighting the need for conflict resolution training and interventions to address the cycle of bullying and promote a supportive work environment. The project aims to demonstrate an understanding of teamwork, healthcare, and communication by considering the barriers and facilitators influencing team performance, with a specific focus on lateral violence.

LATERAL VIOLENCE IN NURSING

Abstract/Introduction/summary:
In this poster, the main question addressed is: “What are
the barriers and facilitators that influence team perform.
Specifically, leadership style, communication style, and
team cohesions are considered when demonstrating
lateral violence between nurse, patient and family.
Recommendations to make a team to improve its
performances are made.
Results and Discussion:
Lateral violence is described as acts which take
place between colleagues (distinguished acts from
those perpetrated by people in authority). It
encompass withholding information, gossiping and
scapegoating (Castronovo, Pullizzi & Evans,
2016). The Australian nurses have vowed to
mitigate this violence through correct info for
families and patients, respectful communication
and consideration for safety of other staff (Embree
& White, 2010). Attempts to tackle this matter,
and urge workplaces to embrace a zero policy
tolerance; lateral violence endures. The major
reason cited in literature for endurance of lateral
violence among the members of staff remains idle
management lack of awareness of this violence’s
prevalence (Griffin & Clark, 2014). Another central
reason for this endurance is the general
unawareness by the members of staff of the
existing resource useful in tackling lateral violence
(Embree & White, 2010). As a result of these
deficits, a lateral-violence education “toolbox” has
been created. It entails online resources which
nurses can implement in a broad array of context to
boost team performance.
Additional Text/Explanation/Dot Point:
Recommendations to improve team performance:
Encourage Teamwork: Lateral violence is likely to be a matter
where nurses have not forged bonds with colleagues.
Encouraging brainstorming in the unit meeting assists nurses
develops a rapport. Moreover, establishing goals as a group
alongside praising members of the team when achieve goals
make working as a team increasingly appealing (Embree &
White, 2010).
Involving HR: HR department members are trained
professionally to mediate workplace hostility. Moreover,
lateral violence victims feel increasingly comfortable
deliberating on incidents with an aim of third party rather than
a person within their department (Embree & White, 2010).
Establish code of Conduct: This will define disruptive behavior
to be avoided by all members. It will clearly communicate that
a bullying culture alongside inactivity must never exist. The
code must apply in all scenarios to ensure zero tolerance of
lateral violence to avoid possible breach (Almost et al., 2016).
Developing process of managing disruptive behavior: Having a
clear process and channel to handle breaches in code of
conduct allow workers to be aware of how to report such
behavior (Embree & White, 2010).
Providing mentoring and coaching: This is an effective method
of intervention, and provides flexibility alongside correct
response to disruptive behavior (Embree & White, 2010).
Medical staff and employees must be treated fairly while
upholding individual accountability for performance. Both swift
disciplinary action and withholding discipline where necessary
are essential. Coaching explains how future conduct will be
monitored and make consequences for extra breaches clear
(Roberts, 2015).
Educating Nurses and Nurse Leaders: Additional educators are
essential to ensure that lateral violence issue is brought to
nursing (Castronovo, Pullizzi & Evans, 2016). The seasoned
nurse to ensure that this issue is never overlooked as it can
due to its prevalence. This education will apply evidence-based
interventions in education alongside practice to address the
lateral violence.
Background Information/Purpose/Rationale:
Being capable of leading a team remains as significant as being a
team member (Embree & White, 2010). A number of barriers
and facilitators affect the effectiveness of a team work in nursing.
Such factors as lateral violence, poor communication, and peer
pressure and over-work or lack of adequate skills impedes
effectiveness of a team. Facilitators of effective team include
effective leadership, healthy workplace, and level of emotional
intelligence (Wahi & Iheduru-Anderson, 2017). This poster has
effectively considered what can make a team to meet its goals. It
is decided that patients must be included as a team member and
that conflicts in a team would be solved through meetings that
finds the root cause of the problem and taming the cause as a
team without putting blames on other people (Embree & White,
2010). A student nurse is also important to be supported in the
team by giving the policy documents, assigning their mentors or
supervisors and making him feel free to consult and ask questions
(Nemeth et al., 2017). This posters holds that the most
characteristic of effective teamwork is that which adopts a shared
leadership and collaborative culture. This is because everyone
feels appreciated and hence always ready to give their best input.
These issue have been associated with successfulness in the
interviews for New Graduate positon and increasingly assisting
New Graduates to works as an integral part of the healthcare
team hence leaving them free to be able to fully enjoy their
working life. This assignment, therefore, will help me
demonstrate my understanding of the teamwork, healthcare,
style of communication by considering the poster question: What
are the barriers and facilitators influencing team perform?
Specifically, this poster focuses on lateral violence as a barrier to
team performance.
Communication Styles:
-Developing communication skills through active listening,
self-awareness of communication style alongside
acknowledging personal barriers (beliefs, values and
attitude)
-Learning to ask questions-the more questions ask, the
more info your brain has to draw from. This mitigates
chances of miscommunication. This also help clarify info
but also practice active listening.
-checking your understanding-using questioning skills
help check with others before making assumption about
their behavior
-creating engaging conversations-enable team members
to refine and retain information. Also practice self-

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Conclusion:
Despite the enduring lateral violence; various
recommendations have been found to improve team
performance.
 As with case of bullying, the bullied tend to convert to
the bullies. Creating policies to tackle lateral violence
alongside workshops that teach excellent means of
handling disputes are desired stepping stone towards
ending the cycle.
 Changing the behavior and attitudes of some of the
veteran nurse especially those who believe they are
merely showing tough love to the nurses-might
remain easy. Developing mentorship whereby
seasoned nurses mentor novice ones can assist in
combating the problem (Embree & White, 2010).
Where seasoned nurses are invested in successes of
novice ones, they could be more probably to urge and
motivate them, instead of tearing the down hence
boosting team performance
 Provision of conflict resolution training to nurse
managers will also boos team performing. Confronting
a bully is never always easy, even when you are her or
his supervisor (Embree & White, 2010).
 Learning effective communication strategies: Skilled
communication is attributable to a healthy workplace
positive outcome and collaboration. Nurses must
evaluate their individual communications skills to
guarantee proper communication with others. It is
easy to lose sight of essential communications skills in
a confrontational context.
Results/Discussion:
Lateral violence comes in many kinds. It can either be subtle or overt. This makes lateral violence extremely challenging
sometimes to acknowledge and difficult to tackle. It is usually assumed that novice nurses, in nursing, are often the focus of
lateral violence. This implies that the course/direction of violence is from the more experienced nurses towards the less
experience ones. However, this is never what has been observed in practice. Lateral violence further takes place outside
hospital in academic setting that is quite disturbing because educator set examples for the nursing students and this will
influence their eventual team performance (Vahedian-Azimi et al. 2017).
Forms of Lateral Violence:
Novice against Seasoned: In the ED for instance, nurses with 20 years’ experience always work alongside those with first
year-experience. The less experienced nurses always form a clique and commence ganging up on seasoned nurses. They will
then complain to the management that experienced nurses are slow and their practice obsolete. These arguments are,
however, unfounded. Following their complaints’ probe and dismissed, the novice ones start subtle acts of lateral violence.
Besides eye rolling alongside gossiping, they will always ridicule the appearance alongside personal beliefs of experienced
nurses (Embree & White, 2010). This will then lead to suspension of coverage of work breaks and patient care. This has a
negative effect on the effectiveness of the team performance and not only hurt the patients alone but also the staff
members in terms of personal and professional development (Castronovo, Pullizzi & Evans, 2016).
Seasoned against Novice: As highlighted overhead; lateral violence also happens in the opposing direction. For many years,
complaints have endured that nurses “eat their young’ and hence commit violence against novice nurses. For example, in
surgical unit of enormous hospital a novice nurse can sometimes, be assigned up to 4 patients which is typical load for such a
unit. Seasoned nurses overwork the novice ones and sometimes refuse to help the despite request for help. This makes
novice nurses to stay on duty for extended hours past scheduled shift and hence receiving poor reviews ( Embree & White,
2010).
Implication: Thus it is apparent that lateral violence can affect everyone and hence reduce team performance due to lack of
team work or team building. It can either be overtly critical of the worker or could even humiliate the colleague nurse public.
Indeed, sometimes it can lead to ignoring or exclusion of another nurse which is not quite damaging not only to the excluded
nurse by also to the entire team performance. Such behavior also entail withholding information essential for a nurse to
perform his job, leading to severer suffering by patients (Castronovo, Pullizzi & Evans, 2016). It is never promising to
work in unit with high tensions because after the recurrent of incidents, the victims of bullying might start to experience
depression or even PTSD syndrome thus adversely affecting the team and job performance. Lateral violence thus affects
everyone including the bystander who will also feel stressed when the workplace becomes dominated by bullying. Thus, will
without a doubt, affects the team performance in a negative way.

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More discussion
Strategic planning of team building interventions alongside work environment essential for successful management of change are effective to building team performance.
Leadership Style:
A leader’s positive personality trait alongside a focus on association between behaviors and successful intervention drive is effective in reducing lateral violence. Leadership
behavior which is essential to healthy alongside productive work environment are further drivers of effective team performance. The supportive role behavior by a leader and
members of staff nurses remain additionally productive, encompassing the promotion of cohesion alongside teamwork professionals proceeded by being an effective
communicator, accessible as well as available (Chu & Evans, 2016). Also, there is a need for such supportive role behavior leadership to ensure effective group cohesion
promotion, teamwork and constructive conflict resolution. The most important attribute of the nurse as a leader and manager must be respect for staff alongside professional
proceeded by being an effective communicator, availability and accessibility (Castronovo, Pullizzi & Evans, 2016). The desired behavioral examples that improves performance
of a team by supporting effective and efficient team leadership entails facilitation of team problem solving alongside provision of performance anticipations together with
acceptable patterns of interaction (Wanda-Christie, 2014). The factors that have significant implications for nursing leadership alongside promotion of job retention include
dominant transformational leadership style alongside strong communication skills. Others include positive personality traits; institution-specific technical and interpersonal skills,
perceived support for leadership, encouraging autonomy of staff as well as shared government, cohesion of group and empowerment ( Riskin et al., 2015). The units witnessing
successful cultural change is attached to intentional presence of a nurse leader or manger to prevent lateral violence (Embree & White, 2010). The ability of the manager or
leader to articulate clearly trust alongside belief in potential for the unit cohesion improvement remains critical to improvement of team performance or reduction lateral
violence (Blair, 2013). Leaders of a unit with the repute for high anticipations alongside consistent follow-through provide increasing to be able to guide the unit to enhanced
awareness of the lateral violence and associated adverse impacts. On the other hand, units with weaker leadership, marred with occasional turnover in either staff or manager
description of absence of defined structure alongside accountability, further has leads to chaotic workplaces ( De Hoogh, Greer & Den Hartog, 2015). The nurse leadership must
have an ongoing team-building approach throughout nursing units to improve team performance. The nurse leader must articulate willingness to engage in the leading change.
Feelings of acceptance, openness, and learning together are also satisfying indicators of better leadership (Mikaelian & Stanley, 2016). The leader must be able to tailor group
cohesion session to effectively address role definitions alongside development of the shared vision.

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