Benchmark – Effective Approaches in Leadership and Management
A leader’s effectiveness is based on various organizational conditions and personal and interpersonal behaviors. Leadership and management effectiveness creates a high degree of commitment and motivation for employees and gives employees a desire to work with high performance (Sonmez Cakir & Adiguzel, 2020). The purpose of this paper is to explore bullying in nursing practice and the various measures taken by nursing leaders and managers to address the issue.
Selected Issue
Workplace bullying is a common serious issue in nursing practice. The American Nurses Association (ANA) describes bullying as recurring, unwelcomed, harmful actions aimed at humiliating, offending, and causing distress in the recipient. It is usually not about a single incidence but a pattern of constant undesirable behaviors directed towards one or more nursing staff. Worker-on-worker bullying is one type of bullying, which entails behaviors occurring among employees with the perpetrator being a current or past employee of the workplace (Al-Ghabeesh & Qattom, 2019). The perpetrator of lateral bullying exhibits verbal or psychological bullying and, less frequently, physical abuse. This is the most common type of workplace bullying faced by nurses.
Bullying has adverse effects at the individual and organizational levels. Incidents of bullying not only have a negative impact on nurses’ wellbeing but also on their ability to provide quality patient care. At the individual level, bullying is associated with increased work-related health problems like stress, depression, anxiety, sleep problems, and irritability among nurses (Al-Ghabeesh & Qattom, 2019). Effects of bullying at the organizational level include reduced nurses’ productivity and increased absenteeism and sick leaves. This eventually leads to substantial costs for the organization since it is forced to pay for nurses on sick leave. Furthermore, organizations are forced to hire temporary nurses or pay for overtime to replace nurses on sick leave (Al-Ghabeesh & Qattom, 2019). Bullying also leads to an increased turnover rate of qualified nurses leading to a decline in the quality and safety of patient care.
Demonstrating Professional Standards of Practice in This Situation
Professional standards of practice should be applied to identify areas needing improvement in nursing practice and how to improve the work environment for nurses to assure them of safety. Besides, they are important in ensuring healthcare organizations have policies to protect nurses from bullying. Professional standards of practice should be demonstrated by nurses and employers taking a moral, ethical, and legal responsibility to create a healthy and safe working environment for nurses, all healthcare employees, and consumers (Karatuna et al., 2020). Besides, nurses should create an ethical environment and a culture of kindness and civility. They should treat their colleagues, co-workers, students, and others with respect and dignity. Furthermore, professional standards of practice should be exhibited by implementing the best practice strategies founded on evidence to prevent and mitigate bullying, incivility, and workplace violence (Karatuna et al., 2020). This would promote nurses’ safety, health, and wellness and ensure the best care outcomes across health care settings.
Differing Roles of Nursing Leaders and Nursing Managers
Nurse leaders and managers have a priority role in addressing the problem of nurse-to-nurse bullying in their organizations. Nurse leaders need to understand the connection between nurse-to-nurse bullying and the economic costs of nurse turnover. Thus, they have a crucial role in communicating to the nurses that bullying behavior should be replaced with respect. They also communicate to the perpetrators of bullying that they will receive help, which creates a safe working environment for nurses (Hampton et al., 2019). Nurse leaders educate nurses on how to eliminate workplace bullying by helping them understand the approaches to take and not to take when confronted by a bully. In addition, nurse leaders engage nurses in policy development, enabling them to take responsibility and ownership of their working environment (Hampton et al., 2019). Furthermore, nurse leaders take part in celebrating positive, bully-free work environments that decrease bullying behaviors.
On the other hand, nurse managers play a major role in preventing and correcting workplace bullying to retain as many nurses as possible. They participate in addressing bullying in their organizations to foster participation, commitment, trust, and open communication with front-line nursing workers (Hampton et al., 2019). Moreover, nurse managers establish an ombudsperson within the organization to whom nurses can report incidences of bullying without fear of criticism. They also address bullying by fostering teamwork and team building among nurses in their organizations which promotes flexibility and sensitivity to others’ needs.
Additional Aspects Managers and Leaders Would Need To Initiate To Ensure Professionalism
Nursing managers and leaders can initiate anti-bullying programs in the workplace and encourage nurses’ participation to educate them on the principles of bullying avoidance. The programs can include bullying assessment, legal obligations, anti-bullying prevention policies, developing preventive measures, and reporting and investigating. In addition, managers and leaders should develop workplace policies that target positive behavior and help create a work environment that treats nurses with respect, dignity, and fairness (Sonmez Cakir & Adiguzel, 2020). Furthermore, when implementing measures to eliminate bullying, nurse managers and leaders should seek to create a culture of change requiring an understanding of bullying and its consequences (Hampton et al., 2019). In addition, they should endeavor to establish guidelines for acceptable work behavior and employee interaction in the workplace.
Leadership Style That Would Best Address Bullying
Leadership style is not an ultimate factor of incivility, but leader behaviors affect the degree of bullying among nurses. Transformational leadership would be the best to address workplace bullying since it has the strongest association with low levels of incivility. It focuses on interpersonal relationships between leaders and employees, and team members are usually engaged, highly motivated, and empowered (Kaiser, 2018). Empowerment plays a major role in nurse-to-nurse bullying and incivility. Disempowering work settings create conditions for incivility, with nurses reacting negatively to a lack of needed support and resources to carry out their work. Furthermore, empowerment acts against the factors that create a sense of oppression in an organization (Kaiser, 2018). Therefore, transformational leadership style that focuses on empowerment would create a positive interpersonal work environment, reducing bullying.
Conclusion
The acts of aggression in bullying, verbal, psychological, or physical, are unacceptable, whether perpetrated by patients or colleagues. Nurse-to-nurse bullying drains nurses of energy and productivity and puts their health and wellbeing at risk, affecting the organization due to high absenteeism and turnover. Nurse leaders and managers should create an ethical environment and a culture of kindness and civility in the workplace. Transformational leadership can best address bullying since it seeks to empower employees, resulting in a positive interpersonal work environment.
References
Al-Ghabeesh, S. H., & Qattom, H. (2019). Workplace bullying and its preventive measures and productivity among emergency department nurses. Israel journal of health policy research, 8(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4268-x
Hampton, D., Tharp-Barrie, K., & Kay Rayens, M. (2019). Experience of nursing leaders with workplace bullying and how to best cope. Journal of nursing management, 27(3), 517–526. https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.12706
Kaiser, J. A. (2018). The relationship between leadership style and nurse‐to‐nurse incivility: turning the lens inward. Journal of Nursing Management, 25(2), 110-118. https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.12447
Karatuna, I., Jönsson, S., & Muhonen, T. (2020). Workplace bullying in the nursing profession: A cross-cultural scoping review. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 111, 103628. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2020.103628
Sonmez Cakir, F., & Adiguzel, Z. (2020). Analysis of Leader Effectiveness in Organization and Knowledge Sharing Behavior on Employees and Organization. SAGE Open. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244020914634
