Abstract:
This descriptive correlational research was to determine the ability of head nurses in 3 selected factors including exemplary leadership, communication skills, and conflict management; and to examine relationship among those factors and their ability in prediction. The sample
consisted of 144 head nurses in hospitals under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Public Health in the Eastern region. The instruments used included the exemplary leadership questionnaire, communication skill questionnaire, and conflict management questionnaire. Cronbachs reliability coefficient were .92, .87, and .73, respectively. Percentage, mean, standard deviation, correlation coefficient of Pearson, and multiple regression were used to analyze the data. The findings were as follow:
Level of exemplary leadership, communication skills, and the conflict management of head nurses were at the high level. Communication skills and exemplary leadership were moderate positively correlated with conflict management (r = .69 and .66 respectively) at the
significant level of .001. The communication skills and exemplary leadership were accounted for 52.7 percent of conflict management. Based on the findings, nurse administrators should provide opportunities for head
nurses to gain knowledge and skill training to increase communication skills and ability of exemplary leadership so that head nurses will be able to deal with conflict properly.