Healthy Relationships in the Workplace - Essay Example

"Healthy Relationships in the Workplace" is a delightful example of a paper on the health system.
Achor (2012) points out that "Training your brain to be positive is not so different from training your muscles at the gym" (p. 100). Thinking positively leads to happiness and as Achor (2012) additionally notes, having a positive state of mind in the workplace elevates productivity levels, originality, and employee involvement. This paper outlines two leadership strategies I could implement to build healthy relationships among staff members in my organization, and positive psychology strategies I could employ to increase the ratio of positive to negative interactions.  

Leadership strategies

In my organization, the is a stressful relationship between nurses and physicians. Nurses do not feel that physicians within the facility appreciate their work and contributions to healthcare delivery. Nurses in my organization have recently started to report cases of physicians failing to incorporate their evaluations in the formulation of patients' care plans, and some of them have even claimed physicians do not listen to them and in fact, take them for granted. This has greatly demoralized the nurses and I fear that this will have adverse implications if not handled expeditiously.   

There are a number of leadership strategies I could implement to build healthy relationships between nurses and physicians in my organization. One of the strategies as cited by Laureate Education Inc (2006) is the development and nurturing of positive working relationships through teaching the physicians and the nurses the skills involved in creating positive relationships. Focusing on the strengths of each of the nurses and physicians and helping them to understand how they can use their strengths to form better relationships with others will promote happiness in the workplace and hence improvement in their engagement levels. The second strategy I could implement is social support. Social support denotes individual feelings that other people care about their feelings and are ready to offer a helping hand in times of difficulties. For instance, I could encourage the physicians and nurses to greet each other and smile every time they meet on the corridors (Achor, 2012). In doing so, all the physicians and nurses will be happy and hence are more likely to engage in positive relationships.  

Positive psychology strategies

I could also employ positive psychology strategies to increase positive interactions in my workplace. Firstly, I would be practical and as well offer constant or regular support to the nurses and physicians in terms of ensuring they use their strengths in accomplishing their objectives. Being practical as Muha and Manion (2010) points out is imperative in the achievement of "Optimal functioning" (p. 53). The second positive psychology strategy I would employ is in relation to passion. Making the physicians and nurses ardent, eager, and increase their commitment to fostering a positive relationship would go a long way in improving their relationship in the workplace (Muha and Manion, 2010). In achieving this, I would involve them in formulating their engagement and collaboration action plan. Allowing them to choose how to go about it could improve their commitment to achieving a positive relationship.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, positive relationships among employees in health facilities, for instance between nurses and physicians, can be fostered through a strength-based leadership approach whereby employees are trained on how they can learn the skills of positive engagement and secondly, through social support. Other than leadership strategies, positive psychology strategies can also be employed in such a situation and they include elevating the eagerness and commitment of those involved through engaging them in finding solutions, and also giving them support, and being proactive or practical.