Emotional intelligence in nursing leadership and conflict resolution

Emotional Intelligence

Role of Emotional Intelligence in Nursing Leadership

Leadership

The cumulative term that defines the competitive advantage of an organization in the prevailing era is leadership. An organization may succeed in erecting spacious buildings, and getting multiple resources, but it takes people to run an organization, hence human resource is the most important asset that gives a logical meaning to acquired resources of an organization. But yet the directions of actions are demonstrated by individuals who have a high built in ability to organize the subordinates in a democratic rather than an autocratic manner-leader.

But with the invasion of contemporary organizational culture and customs the importance of emotional intelligence is taking roots to nurse leadership. Leadership is the adjective unique to innovation and organizational dynamics, the following paper tends to shed light on the importance of emotional intelligence in nursing leadership.

Importance of Leadership for an Organization

The term leader and manager were often used interchangeably but now the organizations tend to acknowledge the fact that all leaders can be managers, but all managers cannot be leaders. A manager is a person who infuses a sense of responsibility among the subordinates and motivates them to achieve a particular target. But on the other hand a leader is an individual who has a capacity of guiding people and inspiring them towards the achievement of a particular task. Organizations nowadays are more inclined to recruit individuals that have leadership skills (Clark, 2003, p. 142).

Leadership is particularly important for an organization because in order to survive in the today's world of competition. The management of the organizations irrespective of its size and nature need to have an effective staff or the workforce, a motivated and disciplined workforce is an asset.

Contemporary organization implies to the firms configurations and allocating appropriate duties, strategies, resources, supervision, power, responsibilities, and incentives in order to meet the needs of the target market and in turn generate profitability for the management and the organizational members.

As a matter of stated and well acknowledged reality the contemporary organizations have experienced change in the two preceding decades. And as a result of this changed caused mainly due to the enhancement of telecommunication, the fact becomes more obvious that a strong and well affiliated leadership is required to catalyze the change process besides maintaining the stability of the organization.

Importance of Emotional Intelligence for Proactive Leadership

Pro-activity is an adjective unique to effective leadership. A need and importance of a proactive leader becomes obvious in contemporary organization because changing and maintaining the decorum of the organization are sensitive issues for contemporary organization. A proactive leader is the one who has a complete awareness of the consequences of the action he is taking and yet is enthusiastic enough to cater the tensed environment by taking appropriate decision at the right time. As for a contemporary organization the proactive leadership is an asset.

The importance of emotional intelligence in nursing leadership as well as proactive leadership is an appropriation of the organization dynamics. The management of the contemporary organizations is equally equipped with the importance of the suitable application of the emotional intelligence and its timely application organization wide. (Shooter, Sibthorp & Paisley, 2009).

An effective and proactive leadership serves as a backbone of contemporary organization that need to have certain backup systems to encourage change and at the same time detect the environmental forces before time in order to avoid abrupt and unplanned changes.

Sustaining Momentum in Contemporary Organization

Changing with the changing culture and environment is the key to maintaining the momentum of a contemporary organization. But the role of emotionally intelligent leadership and management is still important to cater the momentum in contemporary organizations. But yet role of effective and proactive emotionally intelligent leadership and management may take a new form to cater this criterion. In order to sustain the momentum the management and the emotionally intelligent leadership and management first needs to develop it. Change and its consequences might be uncertain at times so this is the utmost responsibility of the management and emotionally intelligent leadership and management to take into confidence the organizational members are likely to be directly affected by the change process. So in order to accomplish the task the emotionally intelligent leadership and management has to be very efficient in dealing with the employees.

The initial function of the emotionally intelligent leadership and management in order to maintain the momentum is to; preserve the employees' self-respect, they also need to counter the employees' ambiguities appropriately and with compassion, they need to engage employees' to an extent in problem solving and decision making process, offering help and resources to the employees.

The basic reason why it is important to sustain momentum among the organizational members of contemporary organization is to develop a long and strong work relationship with the organizational members, because as a matter of fact the rate of turnout is the highest in the contemporary organizations and the only reported reason for high turnout is the rapid changes in the organization (Maggart, 2004, p. 23).Hence by analyzing various aspects of contemporary organization and the importance of proactive emotionally intelligent leadership and management the fact becomes obvious that, contemporary organizations are prone to changes and it is for this reason that the researches support the importance of sustaining a proactive emotionally intelligent leadership and management and sustain the required amount of momentum to reduce the organization turnout and maintaining appropriate employee employer and emotionally intelligent leadership and management relation.

The implicit attributes of the managerial learning and development can be observed in many successful contemporary organizations. Wal-Mart Stores is a functional live example of how the leaning and developmental activities boosted the corporate standing of the organization. Wal-Mart Stores ranked first in the annual ranking of the world's largest corporations, 2010. It was previously ranked third but the vivid shift of the organization to the first rank speaks volume of the managerial expertise the company implements. This globally expanded organization has a diverse workforce of about 2100000 workers in U.S. (Handford & Coetsee, 2003).

Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

Continuing Professional Development is a unique attribute that encourages the professionals of an organization to enhance their skills by engaging themselves in training and development activities. The contemporary organizations seem well versed with the importance of human resource development in an organization it is for this reason that the organization engage its employees in development programs. The basic difference between training and development is that; the managers are inducted to training so that they can fulfill their current job effectively whereas the potential managers and employees are inducted to development programs because the management identify them as the potential players who are likely to be chosen for some more tricky jobs for fulfilling the vision and mission of an organization (Imada, Doyle, Brock & Goddard, 2002).

Continuing Professional Development now includes a proper and executive level drills that help the prospect positions of an organization to learn the emotional intelligence to nurse leadership. The fact amplifies to a great importance that emotional intelligence nurse leadership in a persuasive manner and at the same time induces a sense of good will within the organizational members and the available human resources. It is also noted that emotionally intelligent leaders are more efficient in dealing with the conflicts and the decision making dilemmas faced within the organization.

The significance of this activity cannot be denied because CPD helps an organization in fulfilling its future plans and these development programs in turn can reduce the turnover and above all it will establish appropriate employee employer relationship.

Organizational Models Supporting the Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Nursing Leadership

Experiential Learning Theory

John Dewy and Kurt Levin postulated the Experiential Learning Theory. The theory caters four major aspects of learning. The theory presents a fine balance of experience, observations, conceptualization, and experimentation. The cycle begins with the experience the management gathers under certain circumstances, observations is when the management tends to search for the fundamentals of the experience this stage than leads to the phase of abstraction on conceptualization where the action plan in response to an observation is generated and finally the management takes the final action and the plan is implemented. Apparently this brings an end to the Kolb's cycle of experiential learning, but the effective management also looks after the consequences of the implementation of the action plan. These types of actions are usually implemented in controlled environment, so as to counter negative consequences before the implementation of the plan organization wide (Schneider & Smith, 2004, p. 59).

The importance of experiential learning cannot be denied because the environmental uncertainty is not always a predicted or surveyed one. For many organizations the management has a predefined code of solving the structured problems but the condition worsens when the problem is an unstructured one. The use of experiential learning theory is therefore used by contemporary organizations at a wide scale.

The Experiential Learning Theory advocates the management learning styles and profile. But the fact cannot be denied that the organizational hierarchy and management need to handle this tool with care. Because Kolb's cyclic process may fail to adhere to all types of problem. The management need to practice and lean effective techniques of conducting the periodic market surveys and design backup policies and action plans relevant to different situations.

The Reflective Practitioner Model

Donald Schon proposed his understanding to enhance the process and practices of learning. The core concept that runs behind the reflective practitioner model is the ability of the managements and professionals to go beyond their existing state to enhance the horizons or required knowledge. In organizational context this type of learning is extremely beneficial for the managers and management. This particular organizational model has much to do with the structured and unstructured decision making. Schon is of the idea that the reflective practices are a cumulative sum of organizations past experiences, culture, and the adaptability to the changing environment (Delgado, 2002, p. 269).

The functional or dysfunctional guidance from the past experience of an organization is the determinant of its progress or failure. The reason why the role of management has been emphasized in the reflective practitioner model is because the managers are the specialized individuals that facilitate organizations motives to accomplishment. The management is the decision making body and it is really important for the management to utilize an organization's experience and adhere its function of productivity enrichment and optimization of managerial roles (Delgado, 2002, p. 269).

Conflict Resolution

The distance between the organization's present state and desired state can be effectively overcome by means of developing a day-to-day action plan. The importance of managerial skills and flexible management cannot be denied for this task as well. This is regarded as the strategic managerial function, where by a manager is designated to disperse the related tasks among the subordinates. Action planning is the formulation of a comprehensive statement that portrays what is the required by the management against the given inputs (Feldman & Greenberg, 2005, p. 230).

The effective use of this tool has been observed in Wal-Mart, it is actually a contemporary organization so it is required by the organizational mangers and management to adhere to the action plans and direct the activities of the subordinates towards the achievement of the organizational plans.

Self and Professional Development

The effective and efficient utilization of managerial tools and decision making requires polished and experienced managerial expertise. Development is regarded as the focal point that has the power to converge the energies of the management and employees together towards the achievement of organizational goals. The strength of the management in an organization is depicted by the outcomes of the staff members. This advocates the point that the managers also need to be developed.

The significance of self as well as professional development of the mangers is the core issue that all the organizations aim to cater. Self development implies to all the efforts that needs to generate a sense of goodwill in the manger for the organization it works for. The organizations are in a healthy practice of hiring the appropriate individuals for the managerial position and later help these managers to develop their skills by giving them the authority to exercise their legitimate powers. This as a matter of fact is a crucial issue because the organization has to ensure that the manger exhibits Organizational Citizenship Behavior. A developed manager will take an ethical approach for the organizational affairs and will orchestrate the efforts of its subordinates in a democratic rather than an autocratic way. Apart from the importance of self development of a manager the professional development also plays a vital role for the organization. A professional and well developed management will form authentic criterion for treating and orchestrating the efforts of the subordinates in the right direction. In order to adhere and achieve the mission and vision of the organization the management needs development. This development can be either done by making the managers learn and evolve new practices or by training the managers with respect to the changing environment and marketplace fluctuations. All the developmental activities are concerned with the managerial expertise and employee welfare (Feldman & Greenberg, 2005, p. 200).

Image of the Management

The role and job responsibilities of a manger and the management may vary from organization to organization and from department to department. But the perceived image of the management is based on the four functions that are panning organizing leading and controlling. The reason why the organizations are keen towards the maintenance of the management image is mainly due to the importance of human resource of the organization. The image of the management and the employee loyalty and satisfactions comes one after the other. So it is generally advisable that the organizations must pay a significant heed to the image of the management. The image of the organization ensures the management and the managers are in a better position to analyze and predict that what attitude to adapt keeping in view the prevailing situation. This is how the management and the managers make sense. It is not necessary that the each time the organization takes an initiative and send the managers on the development programs but many a times the management and the managers themselves realizes the need of getting developed, this development can be either formal or informal depending on the degree of change incurred .

Role of Emotional Intelligence in Teams

Teams are specialized workgroups within an organization. A team is a collection of individuals who come together to achieve a particular objective. The contemporary organizations around the globe are well aware of the synergy that is resulted as a positive consequence of team work and is hereby cultivating the culture of team working in their organizations. The role of a manger and the management cannot be denied in the work groups and teams.

Depending on the nature of the jobs assigned the teams can take different forms and shape. But the core reality of the creation of a work team remains constant that is the effective task accomplishment. The team working and dynamics proposes that the synergy of the work teams is comparatively higher than the work groups and individuals. It is for this reason that the interactions that take place within a team are more formal and work oriented. But the fact needs to be acknowledged that the organization and the management none can defy the importance of informal interactions in a team. Owing to the fact the role of a manager amplifies in the team.

The two broad categories of the managerial expertise are the personal and the professional competence. Hence in planning, organizing, leading and controlling the managers can equally participate as a regular team member. But the fact needs consideration that a manger is a manager he should not try to be the opinion leader of the team and hampering the actual purpose of team. But he should rather encourage brainstorming and new idea development in the team members. By working in a team a manager can fulfill his need of developments as he will participate with his subordinates at an equal level.

Personality of a Leader and importance of Emotional Intelligence

A leader is an eminent entity that has been designated as the supervisor of a set of employees. His personality distinguishes in authority and skills. A leader is a formative block of an organizations hierarchy and is thereby regarded as an important personality in an organization. The personality of the leader is determined by his beliefs and behavior. The belief of the leader is depicted in his way of orchestrating his subordinates, which could either be democratic or autocratic.

On the other hand the variable that predicts the personality of a leader in an organization is the priority the leader gives to the organizational interest over the personal interest. It is expected from a leader that he or she will be ethical enough to justify their position s a leader in an organization. Because the very thing that defines their membership to an organization is the degree of the commitment they own for that organization. The ethical code of conduct the management follows and the degree of cohesiveness an employee has with the organizational orientation characterizes the organization they work in (Schneider & Smith, 2004, p. 59).

Organizational Diagnosis Models

Organizational development is the most significant attribute that leads the management of an organization towards the attainment of the organizational goals. But yet organizational development is a broad term that encompasses various practices and aspects. Organizational diagnosis is one of the functional aspects of organizational development that proposes a set of diagnostic tools to effectively evaluate the progress of an organization, presents the analysis of an organization current standing along with the strengths and weaknesses of the organizational structure.

Four Frame Model

The four frame model proposed by Bolman and Deal mainly encompasses the managerial expertise. The model explains four specified structural views that the management needs to consider. It mainly emphasizes on the importance of a 360 degree view of an organization by the management. Rather than relying on broad data the management needs to effectively analyze the four specified areas namely the structure, the political the human resource and the symbolic. The structural view deals mainly with the coordination within an organization, the relationships, structure, and the policies. The need to pay attention on the human resource of an organization is mainly to cater the need of the employees, establish healthy employee employer relationship and to promote a healthy environment so that the employees can exercise their skills to the best. The political frame is equally important to consider as the management should be vigilant that how the supervisors are exercising their powers over the subordinates. And the illegitimate politics should be eradicated. The final rather the most important frame is the symbolic frame. As a matter of fact the organizational members are bounded by an ethnocentric force created by the organizational culture and customs. This force has more binding energy than the organizational goals, so it is hereby required by the organization to effectively maintain the symbolic strength of organizational symbols and should ensure that these symbols do not lose their meaning for the members of the organization (Schneider & Smith, 2004, p. 59).