| Course | NURS 6201 Leadership in Nursing and Healthcare |
|---|---|
| Week | Week 4 |
| Paper type | Conflict case analysis |
| Length | About 590 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Walden University |
| Program | Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NURS 6201 Week 4
Team Conflict Case Analysis: A Team Leader Who Rechecks Everything and a Practical Nurse Who Stopped Reporting
Student Name
College of Nursing, Walden University
NURS 6201: Leadership in Nursing and Healthcare
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Team Conflict Case Analysis: A Team Leader Who Rechecks Everything and a Practical Nurse Who Stopped Reporting
The Case
Two weeks into team nursing on our composite medical-surgical unit, one team pairs a senior registered nurse, newly leading a team, with an experienced licensed practical nurse who transferred from a long-term care facility. Three exchanges show the conflict.
At the bedside, the registered nurse repeated a full set of vital signs that the practical nurse had taken and charted twenty minutes earlier, in front of the patient.
At the station, when the practical nurse asked why, the registered nurse said, "Because I'm the one whose license is on the line."
The next day, a patient's respiratory rate rose from 18 to 26 at 1000. The practical nurse charted it but did not tell the team leader, who learned of it at 1100 during her own rounds.
Reading the Conflict
Thomas and Kilmann place conflict behavior on two axes: how hard a person pushes for what they need, which they call assertiveness, and how hard they work to meet the other party's needs, which they call cooperativeness (Kilmann & Thomas, 1977). Crossing the two axes yields five modes, from competing and collaborating through compromising to accommodating and avoiding (Thomas, 1992).
The registered nurse is competing: high on assertiveness, low on cooperativeness. From inside her role, it makes sense. She has been told she is accountable for her team's patients, she has never delegated care before, and she does not yet know this practical nurse's skills. Rechecking everything is her way of managing accountability she did not ask for.
The practical nurse is avoiding: low on both. From inside her role, that also makes sense. Her competence was questioned in front of a patient, and reporting a change invites another public recheck. Withdrawing protects her, but it also means a deteriorating patient reached the team leader an hour late.
Who Moves First
The team leader moves first. Both behaviors contribute, but they are not symmetrical. Delegation accountability belongs to the registered nurse: under national guidelines, the delegating nurse is responsible for assessing the delegatee's competence, communicating clearly and supervising appropriately (National Council of State Boards of Nursing, 2016). Public rechecking is not supervision; it is a failure to communicate what she needs to know and why. The practical nurse's withdrawal is a response to how accountability has been exercised. If the team leader changes her approach, the practical nurse's reason to avoid disappears. If only the practical nurse changes, the cause remains.
A good first step for the team leader is a private conversation at the start of the next shared shift: acknowledging that the recheck in the patient's room was wrong, asking the practical nurse which assessments she is comfortable owning, and agreeing on which changes must be reported immediately and how.
The Manager's Part
My role as manager is narrow, and I intend to keep it that way. Mediating between two personalities would take the problem away from the people who need to solve it. What I can do is clarify the structure both are working within: which data collection and focused assessments practical nurses own under our team model, which assessments remain with the registered nurse, and what counts as a change requiring immediate report. An integrative review of conflict in healthcare teams found that unclear roles and responsibilities are among the common sources of interpersonal conflict (Almost et al., 2016). Clear roles will not guarantee a good working relationship, but unclear roles make a poor one likely.
References
Almost, J., Wolff, A. C., Stewart-Pyne, A., McCormick, L. G., Strachan, D., & D'Souza, C. (2016). Managing and mitigating conflict in healthcare teams: An integrative review. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 72(7), 1490-1505. https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.12903
Kilmann, R. H., & Thomas, K. W. (1977). Developing a forced-choice measure of conflict-handling behavior: The "MODE" instrument. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 37(2), 309-325. https://doi.org/10.1177/001316447703700204
National Council of State Boards of Nursing. (2016). National guidelines for nursing delegation. Journal of Nursing Regulation, 7(1), 5-14. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2155-8256(16)31035-3
Thomas, K. W. (1992). Conflict and conflict management: Reflections and update. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13(3), 265-274. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030130307
Reading the NURS 6201 Week 4 instructions
Week 4 of NURS 6201 commonly asks for an analysis of a team conflict case. You describe the conflict, diagnose it with a framework, decide who should act first and why, and define the manager's role. Faculty penalize recommendations such as better communication that skip the diagnosis. Cite the framework and delegation guidance in APA 7. Thomas-Kilmann is common but not the only option. A short assigned scenario can be expanded with reasonable detail. Keeping the manager's role small can be a deliberate choice. NURS 6201 faculty want the three exchanges summarized, each person's conflict mode named, the role ambiguity explained and the first mover justified.
How the NURS 6201 Week 4 example is put together
The case opens with three exchanges reported as they happened: a repeated vital-sign check at the bedside, a sharp remark at the nurses' station, and a change in a patient's breathing that reached the team leader an hour late. Thomas-Kilmann's two dimensions, assertiveness and cooperativeness, then place the registered nurse in competing and the practical nurse in avoiding, and the analysis explains why each mode makes sense from inside that role. The central argument follows: the team leader moves first, because delegation accountability is hers and the practical nurse's withdrawal is a response to how it has been exercised. The manager's part is described last and kept narrow, clarifying which assessments the practical nurse owns under the model rather than mediating between two personalities.
NURS 6201 Week 4 rubric: what earns full marks
Recommending a team meeting and better communication is where most conflict cases lose the analysis share, because the diagnosis has been skipped on the way to a remedy. Credit in this week concentrates on the framework applied to specific behavior, so Thomas-Kilmann modes attached to reported exchanges outscore a paragraph explaining all five. Balance is read closely; a case in which one nurse is simply difficult loses under professional judgment whatever evidence is assembled against her. The question of who moves first is where many sections place their analysis criterion, and an answer grounded in delegation accountability defends more easily than one grounded in seniority. Sources on conflict within nursing teams are expected. Where scope of practice arises, precision about unit policy counts for more than confident claims about licensure.
NURS 6201 Week 4 help from the desk
Conflict cases lose the most when they recommend a team meeting without diagnosing the conflict. Name each person's mode. Another common gap is ignoring role confusion in a new care model. Address scope. Writers also have the manager solve everything. Let the team leader act first. Avoid blaming the practical nurse. Explain her silence. Cite delegation rules. Close with what the team leader says first. Writers also forget the patient risk when changes go unreported. Name it. Another frequent slip is a resolution with no follow-up. Plan a check in a week. Keep the manager's role clear.
Get a NURS 6201 Week 4 example written to your instructions
Send the case your section posted, or the kind of conflict it lets you choose, along with the prompt and rubric, and an analysis of that conflict is returned. The first custom example is free, 24 to 48 hours. Neither nurse in the sample ever existed, and a real colleague's conduct is never the subject of anything the desk drafts.
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NURS 6201 Week 4 questions, answered
What if the assigned case is only a short scenario?
Then the analysis works from what the scenario states and marks every inference as an inference. The sample invents three exchanges because it builds its own case, and a posted scenario does not permit that. Adding facts your prompt never gave is one of the quieter ways to lose accuracy marks, even when the additions make the conflict easier to analyze.
Is Thomas-Kilmann the only acceptable framework?
No, though it suits a two-person conflict well because it describes behavior without judging character. Some sections assign a different model or leave the choice to you. Whichever framework you use, apply it to specific exchanges and to both parties equally; a framework applied only to the person the author disagrees with reads as a verdict presented as analysis.
Why is the manager's role kept so small?
Because the prompt usually asks about the two roles in conflict and who moves first, not about the manager's skills. In the sample the manager contributes one clarification about which assessments the practical nurse owns. Papers that turn the manager into the hero of the case often lose the analysis the question was asking for in the first place.
Where can I find a free NURS 6201 Week 4 sample paper?
The rechecking team leader case is reproduced here with three exchanges, the Thomas-Kilmann reading, who moves first and the manager's small part.
Who moves first in the NURS 6201 Week 4 conflict?
The team leader, who holds more power and the clearer duty to delegate well, with the manager only clarifying scope.