Conflict management and leadership styles

Conflict is a natural occurrence in human interactions and the product of actual or perceived differences in objectives, values, ideas, attitudes, opinions, feelings, expectations and/or behaviours between two parties (Rahim 2011, Chan et al 2014). Conflict can also be internal to one person, but in the learning context conflict is understood as occurring between two parties. In learning environments, conflict may occur among students, between students and teachers and/or between students and the institution (Fakhry and El Hassan 2011). A nursing student’s inability to manage conflicts with their peers and/or teachers can be one reason why they may experience issues academically (Abou Hashish et al 2015). Students who cannot manage conflict effectively may experience increased levels of tension and absenteeism, interpersonal relationship issues and decreased academic performance, while unresolved conflict can also adversely affect the learning environment, teachers and peers (Kantek and Gezer 2009).

A person’s conflict management style encompasses their attitudes, reactions and behaviours when faced with a conflict (Fakhry and El Hassan 2011). Rahim (1983) developed one of the most commonly used conceptualisations of conflict management styles, outlining five styles:

According to Rahim (2011), conflict management can be supported by effective leadership. Adopting the appropriate leadership style can inspire others and encourage critical and innovative thinking, which is fundamental to overcome obstacles and manage conflict (Rahim 2011). Leadership style has a significant role in influencing other people’s perceptions, attitudes and behaviours to achieve a common goal (Kaimenyi 2014). The classic leadership style framework that is commonly referred to is that of Lewin et al (1939), which encompasses three styles:

Design and setting

A descriptive correlational study was conducted at the College of Nursing-Jeddah, which is affiliated to King Saud bin Abdul-Aziz University for Health Sciences, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Participants

A convenience sample of 316 third-year and fourth-year nursing students in the 2019-2020 academic year was used. This exceeded the minimum sample size of 169 generated by the Raosoft sample size calculator. Third-year students are in the fifth or sixth academic level and fourth-year students are in the seventh or eighth academic level. First-year and second-year students were not invited to participate since they have no clinical placement experience. Of the 316 students approached, 266 agreed to participate, yielding a response rate of 84%. Among those 266 students, 16 participated in a pre-testing of the data collection tools and the remaining 250 completed the study questionnaire.

Data collection tools

Data were collected using a questionnaire composed of three parts:

The first part of the questionnaire included questions regarding participants’ age, academic level, whether they had previously experienced conflict with teachers and/or peers, the environment where they had previously experienced conflict (classroom, clinical setting or both) and how successful they felt in managing conflict.

The LSQ is designed to measure the autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire leadership styles. It contains 18 items, with six items for each style. Each item is rated on a five-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 for ‘strongly disagree’ to 5 for ‘strongly agree’) and a mean score is calculated for each item, following which a mean score out of 5 is calculated for each leadership style. In this study, the authors determined which leadership styles were the most prevalent and least prevalent among participants by comparing the mean scores for each leadership style. The LSQ has been shown to be valid and reliable, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.80 (Dorgham and Al Mahmoud 2013). For the present study, internal consistency analysis yielded a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.89.

The ROCI-II (Rahim 1983, 2011) is designed to measure Rahim’s (1983) five conflict management styles. It comprises 28 items that are distributed as follows: six items on the avoiding style; six items on the obliging style; four items on the compromising style; seven items on the integrating style; and five items on the dominating style. Each item is rated on a five-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 for ‘strongly disagree’ to 5 for ‘strongly agree’) and a mean score is calculated for each item, following which a mean score out of 5 is calculated for each conflict management style. The conflict management style with the highest score is considered to be the most prevalent. The ROCI-II has been tested in nursing studies for validity and internal reliability and has been shown to be reliable, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.852 (Abou Hashish et al 2015). For the present study, internal consistency analysis yielded a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.90.

A pre-testing of the data collection tools was performed with 16 of the 266 students who had agreed to participate. No changes were made to the data collection tools following the pre-testing.

Data collection and analysis

The questionnaire was distributed on paper to the 250 students and all of them completed and returned it. Students had to complete the questionnaire in their free time. Completion took approximately 25 minutes. Data collection took place within a period of four weeks in the spring semester of the academic year 2019-2020.

The data were analysed using SPSS version 22 and tested for normal distribution using the Shapiro-Wilk test. Descriptive statistics were used to summarise the results, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare means and Pearson’s correlation and regression analysis were used to assess the relationship between variables. The level of P-value significance was ≤0.05.

Ethical considerations

The study received approval from the university’s institutional review board and from the college’s administrators. The authors explained the purpose of the study to potential participants and informed them that participation was voluntary, with no negative consequences in terms of their academic achievements or grades if they decided not to participate or to withdrew from the study. The authors obtained participants’ informed consent and ensured their confidentiality was preserved by using codes rather than names. All data were securely stored and could only be accessed by the research team.

Participants’ characteristics

The mean age of the 250 participants who completed the questionnaire was 22 years (range=19-26 years, standard deviation (SD) 1.40). Among the participants, 42 (17%) were in the fifth academic level, 52 (21%) were in the sixth academic level, 56 (22%) were in the seventh academic level and 100 (40%) were in the eighth academic level.

Almost 60% of participants (n=147, 59%) had previously experienced conflict with teachers and/or peers. Of the 147 participants who had previously experienced conflict, all (n=147, 100%) had experienced conflict in the classroom, 33 (22%) had experienced conflict in the clinical setting and 70 (48%) had experienced conflict in both settings.

Of the 147 participants who had previously experienced conflict, 52 (35%) felt successful, 74 (50%) felt partially successful and 21 (14%) felt unsuccessful in managing conflict.

Leadership and conflict management styles

The overall mean score for leadership styles was 3.49 out of 5 (SD 0.42). The leadership style with the highest mean score was the democratic style (3.75, SD 0.61), followed by the autocratic style (3.41, SD 0.54) then the laissez-faire style (3.29, SD 0.49).

For conflict management styles, the overall mean score was 3.47 out of 5 (SD 0.37). Of the five conflict management styles, the integrating style had the highest mean score (3.74, SD 0.52) followed by the compromising style (3.50, SD 0.65), the avoiding style (3.45, SD 0.54), then the dominating and obliging styles with 3.30 each (SD 0.58 and 0.39 respectively).

Correlations between leadership and conflict management styles

Table 1 shows significant positive correlations between the leadership styles and conflict management styles (r=0.473, P<0.001) of participants. The autocratic leadership style had significant correlations with all five conflict management styles (P<0.007 for the dominating style and P<0.001 for the integrating, obliging, compromising and avoiding styles). The democratic leadership style had significant correlations with all conflict management styles (P<0.001) except the dominating style (P=.981). The laissez-faire leadership style had significant correlations with the avoiding (P<0.001) and obliging (P<0.007) conflict management styles.

The regression analysis showed that leadership styles as independent variables could significantly predict 30% of the variance in conflict management styles. Both the democratic and the autocratic leadership style had a significant effect on this prediction value. Table 2 shows the multivariate linear regression for overall conflict management styles in relation to leadership styles.

Table 2.

Multivariate linear regression for overall conflict management styles in relation to leadership styles

Relationships between participants’ characteristics and leadership and conflict management styles

A significant relationship was found between participants’ academic level and their leadership and conflict management styles. Senior students (eighth academic level) had the highest mean score for the autocratic leadership style (F=6.51, P=0.001). Conversely, junior students (fifth academic level) had the highest mean score for the democratic leadership style (F=37.73, P<0.001). The integrating conflict management style had the highest mean among junior students (F=16.96, P<0.001) while the compromising conflict management style had the highest mean among senior students (F=6.42, P<0.001).

A significant relationship was also found between participants’ conflict environment (that is, the setting where they had experienced conflict) and their leadership and conflict management styles, as well as between how successful participants felt in managing conflict and their leadership and conflict management styles:

Leadership and conflict management styles

Participants in this study appeared to favour the democratic leadership style, followed by the autocratic and laissez-faire styles. This may be because valuing relationships with others and sharing decision-making among the team are taught as core values in nurse education. This is supported by Azaare and Gross (2011), who stated that nursing is a people-oriented profession that emphasises humanism, which is likely to influence leadership style. Similarly, Al Amiri et al (2019) noted that nursing students tended to adopt the democratic leadership style more often than the laissez-faire and autocratic leadership styles. Furthermore, Strong et al (2013) found that university students tended to favour relationship-oriented leadership rather than task-oriented leadership. Mathew (2014) concluded that improving the quality of nurse education may improve students’ leadership skills and prepare them to select a suitable leadership style and to become effective nurse leaders. Therefore, the acquisition of leadership skills and styles should begin during undergraduate nurse education (Fuster Linares et al 2020).

In terms of conflict management styles, the integrating style was the most common among the participants, followed by the compromising, avoiding, dominating and obliging styles. This may be because nursing students tend to address issues honestly and openly, often seeking collaborative approaches that benefit all those involved. This assertion is supported by Labrague and McEnroe-Petitte (2017), who noted that when faced with conflict, nursing students tended to collaborate with the other party to achieve a solution. Similarly, Kantek and Gezer (2009) and Chan et al (2014) reported the integrating style of conflict management was the most used by nursing students, while the dominating and avoiding styles were the least used. In Fakhry and El Hassan’s (2011) study, nursing students most valued the collaborative (integrating) strategy. Few studies have reported that nursing students tend to use negative conflict management styles such as the avoiding (Pines et al 2012, Hartman and Crume 2014) and dominating (Waite and McKinney 2014) styles.

Correlations between leadership and conflict management styles

In this study, participants’ leadership styles were significantly correlated with their conflict management styles. The autocratic leadership style had a significant correlation with all five conflict management styles. The democratic leadership style had a significant correlation with all conflict management styles except the dominating style. The laissez-faire leadership style had a significant correlation with the avoiding and obliging conflict management styles. The regression analysis supported these correlations by showing a significant predictive power of leadership styles, specifically the democratic and autocratic styles, on 30% of the variance in conflict management styles.

It may be that nursing students who favour the democratic or autocratic leadership styles tend to use all the different conflict management styles. In contrast, nursing students who favour a laissez-faire leadership style may be more likely to wish to evade conflict and therefore tend to adopt the avoiding or obliging conflict management styles.

The results of this study confirm that leadership and conflict management are linked, and that an individual’s leadership style can affect their choice of conflict management style (Rahim 2011). According to Erzen and Armağan (2015), leadership has a significant effect on conflict management. Farhangian (2014) found that the laissez-faire leadership style had a positive correlation with the avoiding conflict management style and a negative correlation with the integrating conflict management style. Kaimenyi (2014) identified that the dominating conflict management style appeared closely related to the autocratic leadership style. However, Garza (2018) and Rubio and Picardo (2017) found no significant association between leadership and conflict management styles.

Links with participants’ characteristics

In this study, participants’ academic level, conflict environment and how successful they felt in managing conflict had significant relationships with their leadership and conflict management styles.

Senior students tended to favour the autocratic leadership style and compromising conflict management style, while junior students tended to favour the democratic leadership style and integrating conflict management style. This may be because junior students might be concerned that conflict with their teachers and/or peers could affect their academic achievements. Another possible explanation could be that students may be confused about, or not adequately prepared to decide, which styles to use. At the College of Nursing-Jeddah, students only undergo a leadership and management course and shadow nurse managers at the eighth academic level, so senior students may be better equipped to understand the different styles and decide which ones to adopt.

Many authors support the idea that selecting the most suitable conflict management style depends on a variety of factors, such as: the conflict situation itself; its severity and urgency; the power and position of the conflicting parties; and the maturity and experience of the people involved (Kantek and Gezer 2009, Rahim 2011, Sehrawat and Sharma 2014, Labrague and McEnroe-Petitte 2017).

Not all researchers have found similar relationships between participants’ characteristics and their conflict management style. In a correlational study of 166 US baccalaureate nursing students, Pines et al (2012) found no difference between conflict management styles based on students’ experience of conflict. Pines et al (2014) also conducted a quasi-experimental study of 60 senior nursing students in the US enrolled in two upper-division courses, psychiatric-mental health nursing and leadership/management. They found no significant relationship between age and experience of conflict. Furthermore, Abou Hashish et al (2015) conducted a descriptive study of 475 nursing students in four academic years in Egypt and found no significant relationship between the conflict environment and the students’ conflict management styles.

Need for training and skills development

In their future careers as nurses and nurse leaders, nursing students will be in a position to positively influence clinical decision-making and therefore potentially improve patient outcomes. However, Fuster Linares et al (2020) highlighted that, although leadership skills are essential for clinical decision-making and conflict management, there is little evidence that nursing students and novice nurses have the necessary leadership skills.

Chan et al (2014) emphasised the need to use the leadership style appropriate to manage conflict in each situation. Effective leadership skills and constructive conflict management skills can be developed among nursing students through strategies such as role modelling, professional communication, expressing respect, effective listening, interactive and virtual learning, problem-based learning, team dynamics, open communication, shared problem-solving, debriefing and cultivating a sense of community (Chan et al 2014, Abou Hashish et al 2015, Abd-El Aliem and Abou Hashish 2021).

Communication, assertiveness and resilience-building are essential skills that need to be emphasised in nurse education (Abd-El Aliem and Abou Hashish 2021, Abou Hashish and Farghaly 2021, Alnajjar and Abou Hashish 2021). Awareness of conflict and learning how to manage conflict in the clinical setting can enhance nurse-patient relationships, improve nurses’ satisfaction at work and enhance the quality of patient care (Hartman and Crume 2014, Alnajjar and Abou Hashish 2021). Nurse educators have a crucial role in teaching and role modelling effective leadership and constructive conflict management skills for students.

Limitations

The questionnaire was self-completed by participants, which could have resulted in bias, since students may have expressed how they think they should behave as opposed to how they actually behave. The study was conducted in one nursing college in Saudi Arabia, which limits the generalisability of the results. In addition, the results could not be discussed in relation to previous research on the relationship between leadership and conflict management styles among nursing students due to the lack of research on this topic.

Future research

Research using a more rigorous approach is necessary to identify interventions that could enhance nursing students’ leadership and conflict management skills. In addition, larger sample sizes and multiple settings may yield more generalisable results. Observational and longitudinal studies could monitor students’ leadership and conflict management styles from enrolment to graduation. It could be interesting to investigate the influence of variables such as culture, learning environment, teachers’ leadership and conflict management styles, as well as students’ learning styles, personality and emotional or social intelligence.