BSN 4th Year Finals Reviewer: NCM 119 - Nursing Leadership and Management

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the core leadership theories, management styles, conflict handling modes, controlling and quality assurance processes, and change strategies outlined in the NCM 119 Nursing Leadership and Management Finals Reviewer.

Charismatic Theory of Leadership

A leadership theory introduced by Max Weber that emphasizes the leader's exceptional personal qualities, vision, and ability to inspire devotion, enthusiasm, and motivation among followers rather than relying solely on formal authority.

Autocratic Leadership

An authoritarian leadership style characterized by centralized decision-making, where the leader retains total authority, expects immediate compliance, and provides little to no staff input; best utilized in crisis situations such as Code Blue and triage.

Democratic Leadership

A participative leadership style where decision-making is shared through open communication and collaborative staff input, while the leader retains final accountability; ideal for unit governance, policy updates, and process improvements.

Laissez-Faire Leadership

A delegative leadership style featuring minimal guidance or direct supervision, granting high autonomy to individual team members to direct their duties; best suited for highly experienced nurses, APRNs, and research teams.

Likert's Four Systems Approach

A management theory developed by Rensis Likert describing organizational leadership across four levels—ranging from highly authoritative to fully collaborative—based on communication, motivation, trust, and staff participation.

Exploitative Authoritative System

A management system where leaders exert rigid control, make all decisions without staff participation, demonstrate low trust, and motivate employees through fear, threats, and punishment.

Benevolent Authoritative System

A management style where the leader maintains decision-making control but motivates staff through paternalistic kindness and rewards rather than fear; staff typically share only positive news and hesitate to raise concerns.

Consultative System

A management system where managers seek out, listen to, and consider staff opinions and suggestions, but the final decision-making authority remains with upper management.

Participative System

The most satisfying management system for employees, characterized by complete trust between leadership and staff, where decisions are reached collaboratively through teamwork and open discussion.

Conflict

The competitive or opposing action of incompatibles, manifesting as an internal or external struggle resulting from differing ideas, values, or beliefs.

Rationalistic Fallacy

The erroneous assumption in leadership literature that providing leaders with leadership concepts is sufficient for success without acknowledging the need for active conflict management.

Fatalistic Attitude

A flawed mindset in which leaders perceive conflict as a permanently unresolvable situation rather than actively focusing on factors that can be addressed and modified.

Intrapersonal Conflict

A conflict occurring within an individual's own mind, often presenting as inner struggles or difficulty making personal decisions.

Interpersonal Conflict

A conflict occurring between two individuals who possess differing goals, values, or relational approaches.

Intragroup Conflict

A conflict occurring between members within the same unit, group, or nursing team.

Intergroup Conflict

A conflict occurring between two distinct groups or departments within an organization, such as a disagreement between an emergency room team and an inpatient ward team.

Conflict Management

The process of minimizing the negative outcomes of conflict while maximizing positive, productive outcomes for teams and organizations.

Avoiding Mode

A conflict-handling mode characterized by low assertiveness and low cooperation, wherein a leader withdraws or sidesteps an issue in hopes that it will resolve itself, resulting in a lose-lose scenario.

Accommodating Mode

A conflict-handling mode of low assertiveness and high cooperation where an individual neglects their own concerns to satisfy others' desires and maintain team harmony.

Competing Mode

A high assertiveness and low cooperation conflict-handling mode where an individual pursues their own agenda at the expense of others by utilizing authority or power.

Compromising Mode

A conflict-handling mode marked by moderate assertiveness and moderate cooperation, where each party yields something to achieve a mutually acceptable, partial resolution.

Collaborating Mode

A conflict-handling mode featuring high assertiveness and high cooperation, where all parties work together to integrate viewpoints and attain an optimal win-win outcome.

Directing

The managerial function of issuing assignments, instructions, and guidance to ensure that staff clearly understand what is to be done, when, how, and why.

Delegation

The process of transferring responsibility and authority for the performance of a task from one individual to another while retaining ultimate accountability.

Supervision

The active guidance, direction, and evaluation of personnel to help them execute their work more effectively and ensure adherence to standards.

Coordination

The administrative process of synchronizing schedules, establishing interdepartmental linkages, and delineating departmental responsibilities to achieve organizational efficiency.

Unit Dose Drug Distribution System (UDDS)

A pharmacy-coordinated distribution system that packages and dispenses medications in ready-to-administer single-unit forms containing no more than a 24-hour supply per patient.

Grapevine

An informal communication network where information spreads informally from person to person, providing rapid dissemination but carrying a high risk of message distortion.

Downward Communication

The transmission of messages flowing from upper leadership down to lower organizational levels, such as policy manuals, directives, and administrative memos.

Upward Communication

The transmission of messages traveling from lower operational levels to higher management, exemplified by incident reports and staff feedback.

Horizontal Communication

The exchange of information across lateral or peer channels at the same organizational hierarchy, such as change-of-shift nurse endorsements.

Smoothing

A conflict intervention technique wherein an individual minimizes differences and attempts to reduce the emotional intensity of the dispute to foster cooperation.

Gantt Chart

A project management tool that visually displays multiple tasks, their schedules, and timeframes to track project progress over time.

Decision Tree

A graphic decision-making model that visually maps alternatives, probabilistic chance events, and their anticipated outcomes.

Critical Path Method (CPM)

A project management technique in nursing administration that sequences key care activities, establishes time standards, and optimizes the duration of hospital stays and clinical workflows.

Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)

A graphic planning method that maps out the sequential activities of a project to determine the time required for completion, highlighting critical paths while eliminating unnecessary tasks.

Controlling

The management function dedicated to monitoring, measuring, and regulating activities and expenditures to verify that performance conforms to established plans and standards.

Benchmarking

A continuous quality improvement process in which an organization identifies, studies, and adopts best practices from industry leaders to enhance its own performance.

Total Quality Management (TQM)

A management philosophy established by Dr. W. Edwards Deming that emphasizes continuous quality improvement, problem prevention, and doing things right the first time, every time.

Nursing Audit

An official evaluation method designed to inspect clinical documentation and assess the quality of nursing care rendered against predetermined standards.

Halo Error

An evaluation bias where a supervisor allows one or more positive traits or accomplishments of an employee to overshadow errors, resulting in an inflated appraisal.

Horn Error

An evaluation bias where a supervisor allows a single poor performance or mistake to overshadow overall competence, resulting in an unfairly low rating.

Central Tendency Error

A performance appraisal rating error where the evaluator rates all employees near the midpoint or average, failing to differentiate high and low performers.

Leniency Error

A rating error that occurs when an evaluator consistently awards high or lenient 'mercy ratings' to avoid conflict or demotivation.

FOCUS-PDCA Model

A systematic quality improvement methodology comprising: Find a process, Organize a team, Clarify knowledge, Understand variation, Select improvement, followed by the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle.

Progressive Discipline

A structured disciplinary process that escalates corrective measures in four standard steps: informal verbal reprimand, formal written reprimand, unpaid suspension, and termination.

Empirical-Rational Strategy

A change management strategy grounded in the premise that individuals are rational and will adopt change once it is demonstrated to be logical and personally beneficial.

Normative-Re-educative Strategy

A change strategy assuming that human behavior is guided by social norms and cultural values, relying on group dynamics, peer relationships, and education to facilitate change.

Power-Coercive Strategy

A change strategy that forces compliance through legitimate authority, institutional power, legal sanctions, strikes, or collective bargaining.