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Expert spotlight: Strengthen communication and relationships with staff

Nurse Leader Weekly, December 8, 2008

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This week, expert Patrick R. Coonan, EdD, RN, dean and professor at Adelphi University School of Nursing in Garden City, NY, shares some tips for enhancing communication with staff.

Q: Do you have any advice that can help new nurse managers improve communication and develop relationships with staff?

A: Communication is an interpersonal process, which means that becoming an effective communicator is not achieved by simply watching your language and cleaning up your delivery, it is also a matter of improving the manner in which you relate to people. One of the most important steps to becoming a good communicator is developing an awareness of your own limitations and issues. The following tips can help you address your communication limitations and strengthen relationships with staff:

• Pay attention to how much or how little you hear of what people say. For example, do you tend to tune people out if they strike you the wrong way? How about if they are different from you?
• Take careful notes of the problems staff come to you with and think about the nature of them. Are they clinical or technical or do they involve misunderstandings between individuals and groups? Evaluate how many questions staff asked that were technical or clinical in nature and how many involved interpersonal relationship issues somewhere in your unit or facility on a daily or weekly basis.

Editor's note: Do you have a question for our experts? Email your queries to editor Keri Mucci at kmucci@hcpro.com and see your name in print next week! In the meantime, head over to our Web site and view a growing collection of advice from our experts.

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