Leadership by Resentment: From Resentment to Redemption - Essay Example

Resentment can happen at any workplace including healthcare institutions. Resentful employees, for instance, nurses can create lower staff morale and undermine organizational goals. Resentful employees, especially those who have an influence over others at the workplace can rally others to undermine organizational objectives by making them feel unwanted or treated badly by the organization or its leadership. Resentment can originate from different sources, for instance, perceived or real lack of recognition or promotion, overwhelming responsibilities, and simple jealousy. Whichever the reason for resentment is, managers must be the drivers of positive change and strive to achieve trust that can be achieved through clear communication (Capriles, 2012).

As an assistant manager at the Med/ Tele Unit in my institution, I have several strategies to transform feelings of resentment into a force of leading. The first strategy is to acknowledge that resentment exists in workplaces. Without acknowledging that a problem exists, it is difficult to deal with the problem because as a leader, one feels that the problem is nonexistent. Acknowledging that the problem exists will ensure that I come up with ways to address it. Secondly, I will document any behavior displayed by the resentful employees through active listening and observation. Despite the fact that my goal is to lead through positive strategies, documentation of the employees’ behaviors could be advantageous in the case of resentment. Often, complaints have aspects of request in them. The idea here is to ensure that, as the manager, I record the specific issues that make them employees resentful so that I can be able to investigate such issues and solve them amicably.

Another important issue that I could address to ensure that the feelings of resentment are transformed into a force of leading is creating a workplace environment that supports success and high achievement in the workplace. Creating a better environment includes establishing clear and effective communication mechanisms between managers and employees (nurses), establishing clear job responsibilities and roles of nurses to avoid confusion, and also coming up with mechanisms that clearly show how employees can be promoted or how they can report their complaints. This will ensure that employees understand what is required of them at the place of work and avoid petty issues (Capriles, 2012).

Another important aspect will be establishing clear punishment measures for employees who act unethically while at work. Resentment can come from illegitimate reasons, such as jealousy. This is unethical and should be dealt with. Employees must understand that such behaviors are punishable to prevent them from engaging in such acts. A leader must act as an example to the employees and I will do this by acting tough on employees who show such unethical behaviors at work (DelHousaye & Brewer, 2004).

Finally, as a servant leader, I will ensure that the employees feel that they are valued at the workplace by helping them develop professionally through motivation, encouragement, and addressing their problems at work so that they work harmoniously.