Emotional Intelligence in Nursing - Essay Example

"Emotional Intelligence in Nursing" is a worthy example of a paper on care.
It is imperative for an effective leader or manager to be emotionally sensitive and literate. In other words, leaders and managers ought to be competent in terms of emotional intelligence. This paper offers a description of a situation in which a nursing administrator did not demonstrate emotional intelligence when managing a situation. Subsequently, this paper elucidates how this may have impacted the outcome of the situation. Additionally, this paper also describes how I would handle the situation differently based on my own identified emotional intelligence strengths.

Emmerling and Boyatzis (2012) defines emotional intelligence competency as "The ability to recognize, understand, and use emotional information about oneself that leads to or causes effective or superior performance" (p. 8). At times, nursing administrators may fail to demonstrate emotional intelligence. As an example, a nurse mother passed and the nurse manager forced the nurse to come back to work and deal with patients with the same disease process as the nurse mother who passed away.

According to Codier et-al (2010), emotional intelligence relates directly to work performance, management efficiency, prevention of work-related stress, level of contentment, as well as prevention of divergences in the workplace. One of the aspects of nursing related to the outcome after the nurse was forced to deal with patients presenting themselves with conditions analogous to the mother is nursing intuition. Intuition can be regarded as a sixth sense in nursing whereby nurses are able to combine their pragmatic skills, facts, knowledge, and comprehension of issues in practice (Codier et-al, 2010). The fact that the patients reminded the nurse of the mother made it impossible for her to use common sense and instinct in problem-solving. The level of commitment of the nurse was also affected. Groves and Vance (2009) assert that nurses working in institutions where administrators portray high levels of emotional intelligence experience less anguish or sorrow. This subsequently elevates their levels of trustworthiness and dedication in their work hence improved performance. In this case, the nurse manager forced the nurse to return to work and deal with patients presenting cases similar to the nurse mother hence demonstrating a low level of emotional intelligence. As a consequence, there is a likelihood that the nurse was less dedicated in her work hence poor performance.

Based on my own identified emotional intelligence strengths, I would handle the situation differently. Reflecting on how individual emotions would affect his or her ability to perform would be imperative. I would consider the standpoint and perception of the nurse in relation to going back to work and deal with patients' problems analogous to the mother in order to decide the course of action. Such behaviors of considering other people's feelings are characteristics of the transformational type of leadership (Horton-Deutsch and Sherwood, 2008). I would also strive to identify or recognize the nurse's feelings in relation to the mother's death in a bid to help her manage them. Managing feelings effectively would help the nurse be in control of her feelings and hence focus on the delivery of services.

 In a nutshell, nursing leaders demonstrating high levels of emotional intelligence are able to motivate their employees to be more dedicated and trustworthy and hence an increase in productivity. High levels of emotional intelligence mean that employees' feelings and emotions are considered in every aspect of business operations and as a result, employees feel valued. This helps alleviate stress within the workplace and gives them a feeling of contentment or satisfaction with their work.