Institutional and Group Dynamics - Coursework Example

al and Group Dynamics Introduction This work based learning project seeks to provide a review of placement experience that was undertaken in the PACE Health Community which is as Londons leading charity promoting the mental health and emotional well-being of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. In this project, there was the examination of the institutional and group dynamics and how persons in the community interact efficiently with the patients to deliver mental health and emotional well-being of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Furthermore, this project will look into the findings and recommendations for improving the work-based experience in the professional sense. The feedback developed from this review indicates that there are effective skills and experiences which are required in order to complete achieve complete success (Borzekowski, & Robinson, 2001). This project focuses on PACE Health Community which was the location selected for the placement experience. The rationale for this work experience is because it is solely focuses on my course degree which is nursing. Thus, it looks into the mental and emotional development of marginalized LGBT community due to discrimination and stigma they face in the society. The reason this location was selected, was because I believed this would be an ideal location for me to progress my understanding in the nursing field and develop my knowledge as a nurse, similarly after undergoing an FA online course of equality and diversity, I believed this would fit in well with my work based experience period reason being that the LGBT community I was working with was predominantly not native English speakers. This can also be applied to a real life work setting as it influences ways in working with a diverse range of people through the use of leadership skills (Bargal, 2000). The training was successfully conducted where institutional and group dynamics were looked into perspective. Different aspects of institutional and group dynamics were essential in reviewing this work based experience since it incorporated the relationships of the people working in the community (Duck, & Fielding, 2003). The observation of the content of this project presents the occurrence which was observed during three distinct times; First observation- during the organizational team meeting - where paper work and risk management of clients was being discussed. Second observation - another team meeting, new client audit paper work was being introduced. Lastly, the third observation- in reception area. The observation of the institutional and group dynamics was reflected as follows. Open Systems and Primary Task Get help they need in the society and therefore, it was observed that a definition of a specific primary task was difficult since they are obliged to help any LGBT person anywhere any time as long as they needed help. Theirs was a permeable organization where the leadership allowed for diffusion of ideas into the system to aid in improving the community since change is very common in this community. The lack of a precise definition of a primary task causes anxiety and conflict between different groups in the community. This also puts the community at a conflicting position with the hospital. As a result, the management’s role in the Open systems approach is to manage the boundary of the community with other conflicting agents in order to avoid anxiety. Power and authority in the community is vested on the management. Observation of the PACE Health Community also reveals that the management is very critical of the form of power exercised by the community and the group’s leadership. Leadership takes different forms depending on the leadership level of a person in the community. This is because the community has endeavored to ensure that the leadership of the community motivates rather than threatens the achievement of the nurses. The different forms of power expressed in this case include the expertise power, charismatic power, referent power and commitment to the purpose of the community. The management of the community is much diversified and incorporates different styles according to the needs of the situation. As such, it is imperative to say that the leadership style utilized in this community is situational life cycle leadership. I believe situational life cycle leadership approach is the most appropriate approach because it is flexible in its undertaking and allows followers to play an active role. Different levels of deficiency are handled differently which produces desired results. This leadership style allows for diversity in the work context as the nurses are allowed to use their knowledge and skills interchangeably to get tasks accomplished in the best way possible. The rationale for its application in the community is because the attention is required especially when dealing with a minority group and in that case, situational leaders are able to change their approach depending on tasks, their relationship with the people interacting with him and the needs relate to the context (Smith W. & Warnock J., 1989). Situational life cycle leadership approach is the most important approach in the field of social work and especially nursing. The Situational life cycle leadership approach holds that there is not one single leadership approach that fits all applications. Implementation of situational leadership approach therefore requires a leader to master the applicability of different styles which are appropriate to a given situation. This is done by analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of different styles so as to apply them discriminatively. A situational leader in this case must first analyze their priorities and then their followers’ willingness and ability to undertake tasks which will help them decide the most appropriate style to be applied (Vroom & Jago, 2007). The main purpose of using situational followers in the PACE Health Community is to actively involve followers to provide their competencies in task delivery by motivating them to develop their competencies and commitments. Bureaucracy as a Social Defense Bureaucratic processes were applied in the community due to the dynamic nature of the LGBT community and the approaches which need to be changed from time to time to incorporate the contemporary trends. As a result, the nurses had to change from playing passive roles in the management where they used to take orders and follow rules and there was introduction of creativity and initiative taking. This move was driven by the need for urgent help for the patients where no time can be spared to wait for rules or orders as the nurses feel responsible for the concerns of the patients. This culture prevented most of the punishing cultures where delegation of task would otherwise cause the nurses with the least powers to suffer most from the authority. Working without Social Defense in the community was guided by examination of the nurses to whom the tasks will be delegated to. This is because the level of anxiety, envy and competition was very common in the community as nurses strive to outwit the performance of each other. This causes conflict and undesirable working environment where the nurses cause a tense atmosphere in the community. Managing teams and groups in an institution requires effective communication in order to avoid task and relationship conflicts and enable the employees to appreciate diversity and equality in the work environment. Observation of community reveals that the level of conflict is higher than expected but the community is made up of employees from a heterogeneous culture which leads to relationship conflicts. The community strives to keep the level of relationship conflicts as low as possible. Since the groups and the teams are made up of few nurses, there are few employees thus relationship conflict is capable of consuming entire groups in spite of conflict being between only two people (Sandra, C., 2009). The most important strengths, skills and achievements of ensuring effective institutional and group dynamics and avoiding anxiety and conflicts are understanding and patience. Many conflicts result from feelings of anxiety and guilt among the nurses, envious attacks, referral-on among others. By being patient and understanding, many instances of anxiety can be avoided. The nurseries are motivated to collaborate with each other, learn to reduce their anxiety, accept role differences and combat primitive feelings so that they are able to work together irrespective of their feelings (Duchon, & Plowman, 2005). Self-assigned Impossible Task The methods of handling work pressure and anxiety in the community was influenced by the motivation of the nurses to join this profession. Most nurses joined the nursing profession for different reasons. Some of them joined because they needed to resolve their internal conflicts, other joined because they were passionate about caring for people while others had no intrinsic motivation. This was the departing point at which the organizational defenses of the nurses and other workers at the community contributed towards the goals on the community. Self-assigned impossible task reflects the ideals and ideologies of the workers. In this case, they are motivated to achieve the best possible outcomes despite the difficulties and the challenges in the working environment. The nurses are very much demotivated by failure and would go a length way into ensuring they do not fail to deliver the intended results. In this case, there are minimal cases of anxiety and conflicts as the workers are consolidated by a common goal which is to achieve the goals of the organization. Tasks performed by different workers in some of the groups were very ineffective as they concentrated more in satisfying their own internal needs as opposed to working towards accomplishing the tasks at hand. This was so in cases where the groups had no scientific curiosity about the issues under their scrutiny. As such, the nurses are very much inclined in their confront zones as little is done to adapt to changes or to be creative and learn from experience as to change the outcomes of the future endeavors. Employees are motivated to avoid relationship conflicts by being courteous and nice towards each other. Different forms of relationship conflicts in the community have the capability of diminishing employees’ work ethics. Furthermore, the tense environments created by relationship conflicts discourage better performance as the employees won’t maximize their full potential. Unattended conflicts have a tendency to instill a culture of relationship conflicts in the community. The best thing for the performance of the community would be for the managers and executives to concentrate more on motivating employees by enhancing effective communication which will enable them to cool their differences in a more logical and rational way (Deutsch, & Coleman, 2000). Social Systems as a Defense against Anxiety Social defense systems were common in most cases in the community where anxiety and stress in the task performed by the workers. The defense mechanisms are mostly unconscious among the nurses as they strive to bridge the boundaries created by collusive relationship with other workers. This leads to nurses disregarding their roles of friendly caregivers and there were more instances where the nurses referred to the patients by their room names or other referent names despite knowing their names and disregarding them. This is an instance of denying the significance of individuality. This is a response against anxiety as the nurses seek to market their identity as the symbol of conformity in the community as the patients play passive role. Although there was less instance of formation of Social defense systems in PACE Health Community, there were covert cases where the nurses refused to identify with the personality of the patients. This is a hindrance to the care and assurance needed by the patients. In times of crisis in the community, the nurses and other social workers tended to detach themselves form the nurse-patient relationship and they would handle more than twenty patients at a moment which led them to create great categorization of the patients. While it is seen as an adaptation in the times of crisis, it leads to soiled relationship and thus negative energy in the community. Observation of the performance of the community and the interaction between the patients and the nurses was a clear indication that there were instances of Social defense systems. This can be seen where nurses engaged in irresponsible delegation of task which means that they did not care about the outcomes of such engagement only that the tasks be completed. Social defense systems in PACE Health Community can be attributed to result from individual nurses and social workers as opposed to the community itself. Thus, it forces most nurses into regression where they feel inadequate. Most such cases are handled in the community by delimitating task and relationship collusion. Work and Reparation Anxiety in the community is further threatened by the other’s success in the work. Most workers resort to stress and feeling of anxiety when they feel that they are not as successful as others in the same group. As such, there are increased instances of judging others in terms of what they are doing wrong. This cases feelings of vulnerability and dependency as more distinct boundaries are formed between the workers. This can be aids to be a clear indication of soiled relationships between different staff members. There are notable instances of intense relationship conflicts in the community between different workers which can be traced to s outside the community. Due to the fact that the community has many employees in a centralized locality, their relationship is more personal and thus, extends outside the community and thus external conflicts are extended from outside the community. The management of the community has tried to persuade their employees to avoid mixing outside issues with work issues but relationship conflicts have continued to be. Observation of nurses and other social workers in the community agree that conflicts have very negative energy as conflicts between two employees causes the other employees around them to become stressed out which causes the working atmosphere to then become tense and unpleasant. Intensified conflicts results into an overworked staff and it can be translated into their clients too. Shame is viewed as one of the ways in which relationships can be fixed in the community after they have been ruined. This is because feelings of shame come with repentance and a desire to change. A feeling of shame also enable san employee to protect others from getting hurt become of their deeds. Another important feeling in this case is guilt as it also helps repair relationship sours. This helps in building trust between conflicting workers and they are thus able to work together without harming each other’s work. This work based learning project indicates the groups and institutional dynamics which are depicted in the community. This research agrees with the form of leadership and power exercised in the management of groups and the entire organization at large. The project also analyzes the skills and competencies which are required in order to effective manage group wok while minimizing task and relationship conflicts (Brown, 2006). Bibliography Bargal, D. 2000. The manager as leader. In R. Patti (Ed.), The handbook of social welfare management (pp. 303–319). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Brown, M. T. 2006. Corporate integrity: Rethinking organizational ethics and leadership. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Deutsch, M. and Coleman, P. (eds.). The handbook of conflict resolution: Theory and practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000. Duchon, D., & Plowman, D. 2005. Nurturing the spirit at work: Impact on work unit performance. Leadership Quarterly, 16(5), 807-833. Duck, J., & Fielding, K. 2003. Leaders and their treatment of subgroups: Implications for the evaluations of the leader and the superordinate group. European Journal of Social Psychology, 33, 387-401. Sandra, Collins. 2009. Managing Conflict and Workplace Relationships. 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