Huston_Leadership Roles and Management Functions in Nursing,

Unit V Roles and Functions in Staffing

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Overcoming Motivational Deficiencies Sometimes, difficulties in socialization or resocialization occur because an employee lacks the motivation to overcome the educational and personal challenges inherent in learning a new role. A planned program should be implemented to correct the deficiencies by using positive and negative sanctions. Positive Sanctions Positive sanctions can be used as an interactional or educational process of socialization. If deliberately planned, they become educational. However, sanctions given informally through the group process or reference group use the social interaction process. The refer ence group sets behavior norms and then applies sanctions to ensure that new members adopt these norms before acceptance into the group. These informal sanctions offer an extremely powerful tool for socialization and resocialization in the workplace. Managers should become aware of what role behavior they reward and what new employee behavior the senior staff is rewarding. Negative Sanctions Negative sanctions , like rewards, provide cues that enable people to evaluate their performance consciously and to modify behavior when needed. For positive or negative sanctions to be effective, they must result in the role learner internalizing the values of the organization. Negative sanctions are often applied in very subtle and covert ways. Making fun of a new graduate’s awkwardness with certain skills or belittling a new employee’s desire to use nursing care plans are examples of inappropriate, negative sanctions that may be used by group members to mold individual behavior to group norms. These actions constitute bullying and should never be condoned. This is not to say, however, that negative sanc tions should never be used. New employees should be told when their behavior is not an acceptable part of their role. However, the sanctions used should be constructive and not destructive. Meeting the Educational Needs of a Diverse Staff In the 21st century, nurse-leaders should expect to work with a more diverse workforce. According to Huston (2023b), there are many types of diversity in the workforce although most organizations consciously focus on ethnicity, gender, and generational differences. How ever, increased attention must also be given to diversity in sexual orientation and identity. Cur rent literature on diversity often fails to address the 4% of the population self-identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer (LGBTQ) (Cole, 2020). In addition, LGBTQ and intersex (LGBTQI + ) people experience high rates of discrimination in health care set tings worldwide, which have been linked to poor health outcomes and delays in seeking care (Sherman et al., 2021). Creating an organization that celebrates a diverse workforce rather than merely accept ing it is a leadership role and requires well-planned learning activities. There should also be opportunities for small groups so that personnel can begin recognizing their own biases and prejudices. The manager should know what the group norms are, be observant of sanctions used by the group to make newcomers conform and intervene if group norms are not appropriate.