Interpersonal Nursing Team Conflicts (Term Paper Sample)

Interpersonal Nursing Team Conflicts
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Abstract
Conflicts are inevitable in a team setting. Interpersonal team conflict occurs among team members. Some of the causes of team conflict include different opinions, personality clashes, miscommunication, working schedules, underlying stress, and tension among others. In nursing career, if interpersonal nursing team conflicts are not resolved in the best way, they can lead to poor delivery of services to patients, poor working relationship among nursing team, and stress to the concerned parties. Various methods can be used to resolve interpersonal nursing team conflicts. They include collaboration, competition, accommodation, and avoidance. This research paper looks at the interpersonal nursing team conflicts with special interest in their causes, effect, and suggests ways of resolving them.
Keywords: Interpersonal conflict, nursing team
Interpersonal Nursing Team Conflicts
Introduction
Today, working in teams is common as workers join virtually, cross functionally and autonomously. A team is a small group comprising mostly of 3 to 10 members who distinguish themselves mutually as a group and they have some common goals and objectives. When one or more members of the group differ with each other, Intra-group conflict is said to emerge. Managing a team is a difficult task, which involves high organization stakes and expectations, enormous financial undertakings, involving various stakeholders and the capacity to handle diversified teams and members in a professional way.
The nursing profession is a career that involves dealing with a number of complex, burdening and demanding situations. This is due to the workload, emotional demands, and working in shifts (Wlodarczyk & Lazarewicz, 2011, p.847). To have a smooth and a conducive working environment, nursing is founded on joint relationships and interactions with both clients and fellow workers. In the operating rooms and boardrooms, staffs are expected to work jointly in teams in order to realize their common goals and objectives (Greer et al, 2012, p.935). However, when more than one professional observes issues from a dissimilar point of view or there are differences caused by one’s opinion, interests, beliefs and background, conflict may arise. Although many regard conflict as a negative issue, experience in conflict resolution can lead to positive results for nurses, their workmates, and clients. However, if it is not managed effectively it can hamper a nurse’s capability to deliver quality services to the patients and can escalate into cruelty and abuse. Therefore, nurses are required to be aware of the processes in which conflicts can rise.
By nature, conflict is a typical state, which can be either positive or negative. When conflicts are used for individual gain or are directed to harm another member of the team, it acts as a destructive force. For the purpose of this paper, conflict can be defined as the condition arising from differing opinions and/or disagreements in interests between two or more members of a team. In a typical team setting, reasons for the occurrence of differences between members are two-fold. First, there exists interpersonal diversity in every aspect such as age, sex, race, educational level and expertise, opinions, beliefs and cultural backgrounds. Second, affiliation of members in terms of positions, roles, and status can lead to their differences.
There is need for researchers to analyze the scope of interpersonal nursing team conflicts and come up with suggestions and solutions on how to handle and manage these conflicts and alleviate their adverse effects and at the same time harnessing benefits from them. This paper analyses the scope of interpersonal nursing team conflicts with special focus on the nature of nursing team conflicts, their causes, their impact, and possible resolutions to this nursing leadership problem.
Background Information
Interpersonal conflicts at the workplace arise when two or more persons in a team or group with common perspectives, goals, and objectives fall short of sharing similar views thereby having diversified interests, and interferes with accomplishment of set goals and objectives by other members of the group. It could also occur because of issues unrelated to tasks such as demographic and group differences. The conflicting parties are incapable or reluctant to accomplish the expectations of one another. Conflicts differ in their nature due to the issues concerned, the character and relationship between the parties, the circumstance, the methods used to wage the conflict, and results. These elements among others determine the degree of constructiveness or destructiveness of the conflict.
Types of conflicts
Constructive conflict arises when interdependent parties express their differences without being hostile to each other and both parties are committed to resolve their differences. In this case, the benefits that arise from the conflict exceed the expenses. Productive and equally valuable shared decisions are generated. In constructive conflicts, the method is equally important to the outcome. The parties involved in the conflict come together to redefine and enhance their relationship for mutual benefits. In constructive conflict, the goals of both parties are elastic and both parties believe they can triumph. Whenever interdependent parties have opposing views and opinions, they try to find a universal link between them and use it to reach a common decision. In this case, the involved parties acknowledge the disagreements and willing to compromise. There is a sound flow of negotiations willingness to transform. In the place of work, constructive conflict brings about open communication in the team and leads to superior ideas and decisions. The relationship between the employees themselves and their seniors is enhanced.
Destructive conflicts arise when interdependent parties are engaged in actions and/or behaviors resulting in increased aggression rather than resolving their differences. In this case, a conflict amplifies in scale and tends to turn out to be self-perpetuating. The outcomes are destructive whenever they are used unilaterally without regarding the interest of the other parties involved. The conflicting parties become inflexible and assume that the other parties involved must experience defeat. Conflicting parties surrender to individual attacks, bullying and a universal character of antagonism. Destructive conflict overlooks the actual issues between the disagreeing parties. It occurs due to power struggle whereby one party is resolute to win with particular personal gain. Poor conflict resolution limits optimistic interaction and gives way to destructive conflict. The source of destructive conflict is the feeling of inadequacy and desperation. Destructive conflict promotes inequity power discrepancy and spoils relationships. This kind of conflict can lead to absenteeism of the affected parties. The parties affected pessimistically lose focus, their productivity is reduced, and their self-esteem may go down considerably.
Disruptive conflict occurs when an individual cares about his/her egos, and have desire to dominate on others. Work may halt as parties in a team seek to protect themselves from the manipulative desires of the disruptor. This kind of attack is characterized by rigidity and domination attitudes. The sole goal of the disruptor is to fragment a team with an agenda of controlling the team.
Analysis of the Causes of Conflicts
Conflict may arise from a number of factors, and for effective resolution and management, understanding these factors is critical. Alleged breaching of faith and trust can lead to differences between parties. Individuals in a team trust and have faith in other members of the team. When that trust and confidence is infringed, it can generate emotional responses that can escalate into conflict. A good relationship is founded on trust, which enhances confidence and security. Another cause of conflicts between parties is the existence of unresolved differences. Differences between individuals are normal but when they are not resolved, bitterness remains in force. In case of another disagreement, memories of unresolved disagreements explode with force. Therefore, it is essential to resolve differences between parties as soon as they arise and curb their continuation (Singh & Antony, 2006, p.3). Poor communication is another cause of conflicts. The capability to communicate is a common skill that is used to pass information between team members. When the exchanged information is not clear and is inconsistent, disagreement may occur. Wrong delivery of information sometimes leads to erroneous activities and if no one is willing to be accountable, conflict will emerge.
Clashing of personality is another source of conflicts in groups. Every individual is different from one another. Personality differences are brought about by natural sets and they define the strength of an individual but they can be a source of disagreements in teams. Individual values and beliefs help them to distinguish what is wrong and what is right and make the right decision. These beliefs are developed from cultural backgrounds and life experiences and they shape the behavior of an individual. The different values and beliefs between individuals in a team can result in conflict if not managed properly. Stress and tension among workmates that are caused by demands that sometime go beyond individual capacity to deal with them (Guidroz, Wang & Perez, 2012, p.70 ). Working in an environment that is not conducive can result in conflicts between parties. When individuals are not aware of the future and resources are scarce, conflict is inevitable. A threat to the status of an individual can cause disagreements. The status of ...