Conflict Resolution Strategies in Professional Nursing Leadership

Overview of Conflict Resolution Approaches

Various approaches to conflict resolution are available to organizational supervisors. Conflict management strategies differ significantly in their assumptions, costs, and long-term effectiveness. Avoidance may be useful where the immediate demands of the organization preclude even the most justified demands of individuals. Likewise, smoothing may be useful where specific complaints are too minor to justify immediate supervisory resolution. Accommodating is useful both where a particular individual has an especially strong argument and where the consequences of the alternative could be more damaging to the organization — or its strategic objectives — than accommodation. In principle, accommodation is the basis for awarding raises and other benefits deserved by employees who are competent enough to command those same rewards from competing organizations.

Competing is generally not a viable long-term approach to resolving conflicts because it undermines teamwork and unity. Its value is largely restricted to isolated short-term applications and to teams assembled for short-term projects rather than long-term relationships. Compromising is an effective approach where the individuals involved in a conflict have roughly equally strong arguments or equally valid claims to their desired outcomes. It is also useful where there is comparatively little basis for an objective resolution on the merits of the respective arguments.

Finally, collaboration is often the best conflict resolution approach because it can incorporate elements of compromise and is most conducive to resolving the underlying tensions that trigger specific conflicts. Most importantly, collaboration is most consistent with establishing and maintaining the professional rapport and mutual respect that are essential to effective working relationships and professional environments.

Choosing Collaboration as the Primary Strategy

The most appropriate conflict resolution strategy for this vocational conflict is collaboration, although it should only be invoked after first addressing the threshold issue of professional responsibility — specifically, the relative unimportance of petty grievances within the larger framework of professional nursing. Collaboration is the most appropriate strategy primarily because effective teamwork is essential to the quality of medical care and an absolute requirement for nursing units to function together effectively.

Ideally, members of a nursing unit should understand that everyone has unique personal circumstances and preferences, but that medical professionals involved in life-and-death decisions simply cannot afford to lose sight of their primary professional responsibilities — especially over comparatively minor concerns. This "preamble" to resolving the specific conflict at issue is crucial because, without it, similar conflicts are likely to recur. By addressing the underlying self-centeredness and relative pettiness driving this particular conflict, the supervisor can dramatically reduce the likelihood of recurrence. Conversely, if the supervisor proceeds directly to conflict resolution without addressing these attitudes, he or she will almost certainly be required to mediate the same issue the very next time similar circumstances arise.

In that regard, the entire nursing unit should be reminded that everyone is expected to work together as a team rather than as separate individuals. At the most fundamental level, that requires all team members to consider the positions and concerns of their coworkers, as well as the concept of objective fairness. One of the most important tools within the collaborative approach to conflict resolution is the ability to imagine oneself in another person's position before forming a strong opinion about who is right in a given situation.