Health care providers play a critical role in promoting population health and well-being, and they should always work to the best of their capacity. However, many workplace issues impede health care workers from delivering the desired levels of care. Such issues can stem from managerial policies, everyday interactions, and work-related elements, mainly dissatisfaction. Mostly, issues affecting health care professionals’ well-being affect the quality of care and patient safety adversely. Nurse leaders and nurse managers can use their skills and influence to address issues as they emerge. This paper describes bullying and its impacts, standards applied in rectifying the problem, roles of nursing leaders and managers, and the appropriate leadership style in addressing bullying.
Workplace bullying is among the widespread negative behaviors in health care organizations affecting workplace relationships and productivity adversely. Poor employee management, excessive workloads, stress, and lack of autonomy are leading causes of bullying in health care settings. According to Murphy (2021), bullying denotes repeated, emotionally or physically abusive, threatening behavior targeted to a specific person or a group. The targeted individuals or groups have vulnerabilities related to roles, influence in the organization, ability, or personal attributes. Bullies usually intend to control, undermine or harm their targets.
Like other uncivil behaviors, bullying affects the quality of care and patient safety profoundly. According to Al-Ghabeesh and Qattom (2019), bullying is common in emergency units since nurses in such settings are highly vulnerable because of job stressors and working in a demanding work environment. Bullying affects nurses’ mental, emotional, and physical well-being. Exemplifying the issue with hospitals in Amman, Jordan, Al-Ghabeesh and Qattom (2019) noted that bullying declines nurses’ productivity, emotional well-being, and the desire to work. Over time, they feel detached from the workplace as the desire to leave their jobs increases.
Regardless of the setting, the quality of care and patient safety depends on health care providers’ well-being. The discomfort that bullying brings reduces nurses’ concentration and commitment. Al Omar et al. (2019) accentuated that bullying decreases nurses’ ability to respond to cognitive demands and communicate since they work while worried. In such a state, nurses cannot make correct decisions and the probability of erring increases. They cannot also examine patients and address their problems holistically. Patients may be misdiagnosed and mistreated. Considering that bullied nurses rarely engage in self-care or collaborate interprofessionally, their motivation and competence level reduce progressively. The issue is not limited to the emergency setting. Other health care settings can experience the same, implying the need for evidence-based interventions.
Bullying is a challenging issue to address since it can be directed to any person in the workplace. Rectifying the problem requires a multifaceted approach characterized by ethical conduct, engagement, and critical thinking. It is crucial for health care leaders and managers to lead by example. Here, the implication is that leaders and managers cannot promote the required practice without modeling acceptable behaviors. Engagement is also crucial in rectifying bullying. The victims should be actively engaged when assessing the root of the problem and everyday experiences. Favoritism should be discouraged, and leaders should be genuinely interested in assisting the victims of bullying and increasing their comfort in the workplace. All issues should be solved professionally while including all concerned parties.
Leadership and management are usually used interchangeably, but they have significant differences. Nursing leaders inspire employees to work towards a shared vision (Weiss et al., 2019). They ensure that things are done and targets met by motivating teams. Accordingly, nursing leaders address workplace bullying by engaging teams and inspiring them to change. It is an approach characterized by recognizing that everyone should be involved in driving organizational change. Conversely, nursing managers achieve their targets by directing (Weiss et al., 2019). They use their positions to give directions on what should be done. Unlike leadership, where employees act as partn
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