The Relationship Between Nurse Leaders’ Conflict Management Styles and Staff Morale in Healthcare Settings
Abstract
This research investigated the relationship between nurse leaders’ conflict management styles and staff morale in a hospital-based healthcare setting in the Philippines, using a case from Balagtas, Bulacan as a representative example. It is founded on Dual Concern Theory, which states that conflict management styles are dependent on self-concern and concern for others. A descriptive correlational design was employed to collect data from 50 nurses using the Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory-II and the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index. The findings revealed that collaboration and compromising were the most frequently used conflict management styles, which were associated with higher staff morale: particularly in terms of leadership support, resource adequacy, and quality of care indicators. Statistical analysis using Spearman's rank correlation demonstrated a moderate positive relationship (rho = 0.35, p = 0.013) between nurse leaders’ conflict management styles and staff morale. Results showed that both listening and team-oriented methods created trust, involvement, and satisfaction, while avoidance or competing methods were less effective. The study demonstrated that training programs for nurse leaders' conflict resolution skills must emphasize collaboration and compromise to promote team cohesion and increased job satisfaction. Considerable attention is valuable for such stakeholders as the hospital managers and even the policymakers, who function in parallel to the study setting, which is a secondary-level health care facility in Balagtas, Bulacan. The study might be focused on one institution, but the influence of conflict management styles on staff morale is likely to reflect fundamental insights in other healthcare settings as well. Thus, staff adaptive leadership workshops, along with targeted organizational policy frameworks pertaining to workplace dynamics aimed at improving morale and organizational productivity, could be developed for these contexts. Comprehensive studies should be conducted utilizing a greater number of participants from different healthcare institutions and regions.
