Written assignmentConflict resolution

Healthcare facility as an administrator

Management watched this happen and did nothing, and there is no policy to fall back on. Both facts are in the scenario, and both change what a good answer looks like.

Editorial process

Last reviewed · August 25, 2026

Written by

Maren Caldwell

MSN, RN, CNE

Medical-surgical nursing, pharmacology and NCLEX preparation

Reviewed by

Dr. Tessa Redmond

DNP, RN, CNE

Evidence-based practice and clinical education

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Interpret the task
Assignment instructions
Deliverables
Proposed outline
Research plan
Reference shortlist
Final review

Two facts in the scenario change the whole assignment

Two details in the scenario are doing more work than the conflict itself. The supervisor and other management staff knew and chose not to intervene, which means non-intervention has been modelled from above and is now part of what employees expect; and the organisation has no conflict resolution policy, which is why the same supervisor could decline to act without breaching anything. So a submission that applies a resolution model to the two groups and stops has fixed an instance and left the conditions that produced it untouched. You are new, with no relationship capital, being handed this as a first assignment by the supervisor who avoided it, and that position is worth naming in the analysis because it constrains what you can realistically do first. Naming that position is not an excuse; it is what makes your proposed first move credible. The supervisor who avoided this is the person now grading your response to it.

On the model itself, choose one and apply it rather than surveying three. Thomas-Kilmann is a reasonable choice here because its five modes map onto what the parties are actually doing: two camps in an us-versus-them posture are competing and avoiding at once, and naming that beats calling it a personality clash. Interest-based approaches then give you the intervention, since positions have hardened into group identity while the underlying interests, workload, scheduling, recognition, may be far less opposed than they now look. In health care add the argument the scenario invites: unresolved team conflict degrades communication and handoff, and that is a patient safety exposure rather than a morale issue. Then write the policy the organisation lacks, with a defined escalation route, timelines, a confidentiality boundary and a named owner, so the next occurrence has somewhere to go. A policy that only works while you are personally watching is not a policy.

Likely learning objectives

Read management non-intervention as a cause rather than a background detail.
Apply one conflict model precisely instead of surveying several.
Distinguish hardened positions from underlying interests.
Connect unresolved team conflict to patient safety.

Assignment instructions

Read the full question

Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.

Conflict in the workplace might be inevitable, as employees have different personalities, goals, and opinions. Learning how to handle conflicts efficiently is the key to preventing it from hindering employees’ professional growth. This week, you will identify and apply an appropriate conflict resolution model to solve a real-life workplace conflict scenario. Imagine that you were newly hired at a healthcare facility as an administrator. In your first few days at work, you came to learn that there was a major conflict occurring between employees and they had formed two opposing groups. Each side did not get along with the other and they had banded together in an “us vs. them” mentality. Furthermore, the employees involved were resistant to solving any issues and the supervisor, along with other management staff, was aware of the problem but chose not to intervene. In your first week at work, you realize that the organization has no conflict resolution policy. After bringing it to your supervisor’s notice he makes it your first assignment. In a 2-3 page paper present an executive summary of a conflict resolution plan explaining the key steps that will be implemented to help the current conflicting parties to reach a peaceful resolution. Your assignment must be written in stan

Course-wide instructions that accompany this question

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes. Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages. Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor. The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

What this conflict assignment requires

01Identification of an appropriate conflict resolution model.
02Application of that model to the scenario's two opposing employee groups.
03A response to the absence of any conflict resolution policy in the organisation.
04An approach that accounts for management's prior decision not to intervene.
05Support from course sources.