Barbara Norris

Posted by Winnie Melda on October 17th, 2018

Introduction

 Effective leadership is about managing staff and superiors and ensuring that each is working effectively to enable the organization to meet its goals.  Barbara Norris is facing a diversity of problems in the General Surgery Unit.  The department has the lowest levels of employee satisfaction; there is a culture of confrontation, blaming and favoritism.  The staff is dissatisfied and unmotivated thus affecting performance and patient satisfaction levels.  Barbara thus has three relationship issues that she must resolve.  First, she must resolve the lack of motivation among employees as well as the lack of teamwork spirit.  Second, Norris must resolve the interpersonal and intergroup conflict in the unit.  She also needs to revise the unit’s performance review procedures.

Body

 Barbara Norris must strive to improve teamwork and employee morale so as to enhance relationships. The junior employees feel like they are not part of the team since the senior nurses do not acknowledge their effort.  On the other hand, the senior nurses perceive the junior nurses as incompetent and unable to perform their responsibility.  Barbara needs to establish clear-cut duties for every junior and senior staff in the unit.  The task of redefining roles will ensure that every staff has a clear understanding of the role they are to execute in the unit.

 Additionally, role redefining will ensure that there is not overlap of responsibilities across staff. Barbara must engage her staff when redefining the roles so as to minimize the risk of conflict and resistance especially when the staff feels they have been assigned role that is either beneath or above them.  Role redefinition is also essential in enhancing teamwork and thus improving employee-employee relationship as well as the employee-superior relationship. When undertaking a project or team activity, each team members must have a clearly defined role before the start of the project.  Team leaders must work with the rest of the team to outline the needed skill sets as well as chart the way forward (Shahid, 2013).  The team leader must delineate responsibilities according to their ability.  Teamwork also entails consulting with the team members so as to determine the feasibility of the assigned tasks.

 Barbara Norris must also establish an effective communication system that will enhance communication and subsequent relations among employees.  Effective communication will also enhance the ability of employees to make inquiries and receive feedback from their seniors (Zaffanne, 2011).  The existence of strong employee relationships in the healthcare sectors is critical to patient safety and satisfaction. An open and transparent communication mechanism will allow the senior and junior staff to discuss and resolve conflicts.  Effective communication will also improve relationships between the nurses and the attending physicians.  The effective nurse-physician relationship is vital as it influences the quality of care that the patients with receive.  Physicians review patients and provide care plans to the nurses.  The nurses are expected to review the care plans and implement them as provided by nurses.  In some instance, nurses may require clarification from the physicians. Effective communication ensures that the nurse and physicians discuss patients and agree on the management plan. 

Barbara also needs to establish an effective performance review system.  Effective performance appraisal systems ensure that the employee gets a clear understanding of his performance against the expectation of the organization. Effective performance review systems enhance employee-superior relationships as the employee, and his superiors can discuss his performance and chart the way forward.  Barbara can adopt a performance review strategy that enables her to analyze each of her employees against set performance standards.  For instance, the adoption of face to face performance reviews will enable the superiors at the General Surgery Unit to have a candid discussion with the subordinates about their performance.  The superior and the employee will discuss ways to improve performance while at the same time acknowledging where the employee has managed to surpass set targets.  Barbara must ensure that targets are set early enough so that the employee is already aware of the organization’s expectation of him.   The familiarity with goals expectation enhances relationships in the organization (Knight, 2011).  In the case of the General Surgery Unit, Barbara will notice a decline in complaints and blame games associated with underperformance.  The presence of clearly set goals keeps employees focused on their responsibility, and each will strive to meet and even surpass their set goals.

Conclusion

 Barbara Norris’ general surgery unit is faced with numerous challenges that can impede relationships.  As a healthcare facility, Barbara needs to ensure that her unit operates smoothly and that the existing relationships foster teamwork and enhance productivity.  Barbara needs to boost her employee’s teamwork spirit and overall employee morale.  The adoption of an effective communication system would also ensure that conflict and any matters arising are raised and addressed within the shortest time.  The quick resolution of conflicts ensures that relationships with the unit are not affected negatively.  Barbara also needs to adopt an effective and fair appraisal system that will ensure performing nurses are recognized while those that are underperforming are guided on how to improve.


Reference

Knight, R. (2011). Delivering and effective performance review. Harvard business review

Shahid, A. (2013). Power and culture of teamwork. Journal of global business and economics research. Vol.2 (3): 50-70

Zaffanne, R. (2011). Communication, commitment, and trust: exploring the triad. International journal of business management.  Vol. 6(6)

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at Melda Research in best nursing writing services if you need a similar paper you can place your order for custom nursing papers.

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Winnie Melda

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Winnie Melda
Joined: December 7th, 2017
Articles Posted: 364

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