Page 30 - Essentials of Nursing Leadership and Management, 5th Edition

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chapter 2 | Manager 17 CikguOnline
■ Conflict negotiation and resolution. Managers ■ Hiring and firing employees. Nurse managers
often find themselves resolving conflicts among decide either independently or participate in employ-
employees, patients, and administration. The ment and termination decisions for their units.
ineffective manager either lets people go ■ Planning for the future. The day-to-day opera-
unmanaged emotionally or mismanages feelings tion of most units is complex and time-consum-
in the workplace (Welch & Welch, 2008). ing, and nurse managers must also look ahead in
■ Employee development. Providing for the order to prepare themselves and their units for
continuing learning and upgrading of the skills future changes in budgets, organizational priori-
of employees is a managerial responsibility. ties, and patient populations.They need to look
■ Coaching. It is often said that employees are beyond the four walls of their own organization to
the organization’s most valuable asset (Shirey, become aware of what is happening to their com-
2007). This is one of the ways in which nurse petition and to the health-care system (Kelly &
managers can share their experience and exper- Nadler, 2007).
tise with the rest of the staff. The goal is to ■ Job analysis and redesign. In a time of extreme
nurture the growth and development of the cost sensitivity, nurse managers are often
employee (the “coachee”) to do a better job required to analyze and redesign the work of
through learning (McCauley & Van Velson, their units to make them as efficient as possible.
2004; Shirey, 2007).
Informational Activities
Some managers use a directive approach: “This is
how it’s done. Watch me.” or “Let me show you Nurse managers often find themselves in positions
how to do this.” Others prefer a nondirective within the organizational hierarchy in which they
approach: “Let’s try to figure out what’s wrong acquire much information that is not available to
here”(Hart & Waisman, 2005).“How do you think their staff. They also have much information about
we can improve our outcomes?” their staff that is not readily available to the admin-
You can probably see the parallel with demo- istration, placing them in a strategic position with-
cratic and autocratic leadership styles described in in the information web of any organization. The
Chapter 1. The decision whether to be directive effective manager uses this position for the benefit
(e.g., in an emergency) or nondirective (e.g., when of both the staff and the organization. The follow-
developing a long-term plan to improve infection ing are some examples:
control) will depend on the situation.
■ Spokesperson. Nurse managers often speak for
■ Rewards and punishments. Managers are in a administration when relaying information to
position to provide specific (e.g., salary increases, their staff members. Likewise, they often speak
time off) and general (e.g., praise, recognition) for staff members when relaying information to
rewards as well as punishments. administration. You could think of them as
clearinghouses, acting as gatherers and dissemi-
Decisional Activities nators of information to people above and below
them in the organizational hierarchy (Shirey,
Nurse managers are responsible for making many
Ebright, & McDaniel, 2008, p. 126).
decisions:
■ Monitoring. Nurse managers are also expert
■ Employee evaluation. Managers are responsible “sensors,” picking up early signs of problems
for conducting formal performance appraisals of before they grow too big (Shirey, Ebright, &
their staff members. Effective managers regularly McDaniel, 2008). They are expected to moni-
tell their staff how well they are doing and where tor the many and various activities of their
they need improvement (Welch & Welch, 2008). units or departments, including the number of
■ Resource allocation. In decentralized organiza- patients seen, average length of stay, infection
tions, nurse managers are often given a set amount rates, fall rates, and so forth. They also monitor
of money to run their units or departments and the staff (e.g., absentee rates, tardiness, unpro-
must allocate these resources wisely.This can be ductive time), the budget (e.g., money spent,
difficult when resources are very limited. money left to spend in comparison with money