Management and Leadership Skills

Introduction

Management and leadership skills in nursing and other healthcare professions are becoming a more and more widely spoken of subject, as they are essential skills for everyday practice in delivering care (Gopee and Galloway, 2009). Effective management requires the nurse to be able to draw on evidence based knowledge and experience to develop the ability to manage competently during practice. Skills without knowledge, appropriate attitude and understanding will not equate to competency (Watson, 2002).

This piece of work will critically explore the theories about management and leadership in health care. At the beginning it will provide a base understanding of both topics and accountability importance. It will then concentrate on management of conflict, which could be seen in the clinical setting scenario from my current placement area. It will demonstrate how the use of conflict management theories can be helpful and how I behaved in the role of a manager. Also different leadership styles involved during this conflict situation will be analysed with use of evidence-based literature.

To address the subject of confidentiality as per the Nursing & Midwifery Council guidelines (NMC, 2008), no names or exact location of the hospital placement will be mentioned.

Conflict management and leadership

Murray and Dicroce (2003) suggest that management is a process that uses resources to achieve specific goals effectively; basic management functions including planning, organising, coordinating, directing and controlling. The term of manager can be appointed to the person to plan, organise, coordinate, supervise, negotiate, evaluate and use resources available in the best way possible to achieve the best service. Alternativ...

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...ively, nurses should not only have sufficient evidence-based knowledge and skills, but also a caring and compassionate attitude.

This essay presented a scenario, which at first, may have seemed to be trivial. However, it offered a clear presentation of conflict between two members of staff, manager and staff nurse, with me being a learner manager trying to resolve the issue.

I have developed knowledge about conflict management theory, especially the importance of trying to achieve a win-win situation between the two different leadership styles, to be precise, autocratic and democratic. It was not an easy task to manage a conflict situation as a learner, but acquiring this new knowledge and experience has helped me to build my confidence and identify not only my strengths, but also weaknesses, which I am going to work on in the future as a newly qualified nurse.