A new director decides to reorganize the department you work in. This reorganization comes about without input from the employees and many of the nurses that you oversee are feeling resentful of the change.

As a nurse leader, identify factors that may lead to conflict and ways you can manage them.

Conflicts may have negative effects on the performance of the staff resulting in low productivity, morale, and high employee turnover. A competent leader should be able to handle conflicts with diplomacy, and tact.

It is important to establish a professional code of ethics, and ground rules as basis for disciplinary actions to be taken in case it is necessary. Disciplinary structure should be established to help guide the chain of command.

Everyone should know that certain behaviors are not permissible at work places, and resolutions of conflict should begin from lower levels in the chain of command. Leaders should have a sense of being cool in times of conflict, and if all is lost in a situation, the leader should leave and return at a later day when everything has cooled down (Ramsay, M. A. E. 2001).

Frequent conflicts are caused by lack of communication, personality differences, changes within the organization from ‘normal', lack of clarity of guidelines, and lack of clear jurisdiction.

Conflicts can be avoided, and when they are unavoidable they can be managed through conflict competence acquired skills. It is important to motivate staff to help in conflict resolution, and the environment for conflict resolution must be safe, and neutral for everyone participating.

When conflict is poorly managed, it results in disruption of patient care. There are benefits of conflict resolution which may include; improved understanding of roles, enhancement of group conflict resolution skills, and improved patient outcome (Overton, A. R., & Lowry, A. C., 2013).