Sullivan, Effective Leadership and Management, 8/e
Chapter 8
Question 1
Type: MCSA
The nurse manager is challenged to find an innovative way to adequately staff the unit and provide quality nursing
care. Which ability would be most useful to the nurse in this situation?
1. Creativity
2. Problem solving
3. Brainstorming
4. Decision making
Client Need: Safe Effective Care Environment
Client Need Sub: Management of Care
Nursing/Integrated Concepts: Nursing Process: Implementation
Learning Outcome: 8-2: Describe ways to foster creativity.
Question 2
Type: MCSA
A nursing task force has been created to determine whether a new model of differentiated practice would be more
effective than the current model. The task force analyzes data as a basis to examine alternatives. Which activity
does this represent?
1. Group problem solving
2. Critical thinking
Sullivan, Effective Leadership and Management, 8/e Test Bank
3. Groupthink
4. Satisficing
Rationale 3: Problem solving begins with collecting the facts, which provides clues to the scope and solution of
the problem.
Rationale 4: Information cannot be sorted into an orderly arrangement until it has been collected.
Global Rationale:
Cognitive Level: Applying
Client Need: Safe Effective Care Environment
Client Need Sub: Management of Care
Nursing/Integrated Concepts: Nursing Process: Implementation
Learning Outcome: 8-3 Develop a plan to improve your decision-making and problem-solving skills.
Question 4
Type: MCMA
Currently clients on a unit are bathed in the morning between 8:00 am and 11:00 am. The nursing staff is
contemplating changing that routine to bathing clients in the evening between 7:00 pm and 9:00 pm. Which
statement reflects an underlying assumption that might affect the staff’s ability to think critically about this
change?
Note: Credit will be given only if all correct choices and no incorrect choices are selected.
Standard Text: Select all that apply.
1. “The day shift just wants to shift work onto the evening shift.”
2. “Everyone likes to bathe right before bed.”
3. “I read a research article that reported that clients sleep better if they have been bathed right before bedtime.”
4. “The physician staff will be upset if we change our morning routine.”
5. “If we let them change this, they will want to make lots of other changes, too.”
Rationale 5: This is an assumption.
Global Rationale:
Cognitive Level: Analyzing
Client Need: Safe Effective Care Environment
Client Need Sub: Management of Care
Nursing/Integrated Concepts: Nursing Process: Planning
Learning Outcome: 8-1: Discuss how to use the critical-thinking process.
Question 5
Type: MCMA
A nurse manager’s supervisor reports that many staff members have complained about the manager’s rigidity.
What situations reflect this rigidity?
Note: Credit will be given only if all correct choices and no incorrect choices are selected.
Standard Text: Select all that apply.
1. The manager has historically used trial and error as a decision-making strategy.
2. The manager takes unnecessary risks when staffing the unit.
3. The manager is not concerned when staff members arrive late to work.
4. The manager uses old ways of thinking to solve the day-to-day issues of the unit.
5. The manager does not consider the advice of the unit comanager when making a decision.
Cognitive Level: Analyzing
Client Need: Safe Effective Care Environment
Client Need Sub: Management of Care
Nursing/Integrated Concepts: Nursing Process: Assessment
Learning Outcome: 8-5: Recognize stumbling blocks to making decisions and solving problems.
Question 6
Type: MCSA
The nurse manager has scheduled a series of meetings with employees to solve a unit problem. The manager
purposefully created a 2-week gap in the meetings to allow which portion of the creative process to occur?
1. Farsight
2. Verification
3. Preparation
4. Incubation
Client Need: Safe Effective Care Environment
Client Need Sub: Management of Care
Nursing/Integrated Concepts: Nursing Process: Planning
Learning Outcome: 8-4: Compare and contrast individual and collective decision-making processes in various
situations.
Question 7
Type: MCMA
Which statement by the formal leader of a nursing unit reflects the personality required to energize the staff and
promote creativity?
Sullivan, Effective Leadership and Management, 8/e Test Bank
Note: Credit will be given only if all correct choices and no incorrect choices are selected.
Standard Text: Select all that apply.
1. “I would like to change the format we use for shift report, but I’m afraid it would upset staff members who
have been here a long time.”
2. “This is the decision I have made, and there is no room for discussion.”
3. “I would like to thank everyone for your hard work and dedication while we have been short staffed.”
4. “I am certain that our new assignment system is going to make the workload more equitable.”
5. “I know this week has been rough. I feel a little like sandpaper myself.”
4. Assign client care debate topics to teams of three or four students.
Global Rationale:
Cognitive Level: Analyzing
Client Need: Safe Effective Care Environment
Client Need Sub: Management of Care
Nursing/Integrated Concepts: Nursing Process: Implementation
Learning Outcome: 8-6: Foster innovation in your work and that of others.
Question 10
Type: MCSA
The nurse manager generally uses a stepwise method to arrive at decisions that are logical and that serve to
maximize the achievement of the desired objective. Which decision-making model does this manager use?
1. Political decision-making model
2. Experimentation process
3. Rational decision-making model
4. Trial-and-error method
Client Need: Safe Effective Care Environment
Client Need Sub: Management of Care
Nursing/Integrated Concepts: Nursing Process: Assessment
Learning Outcome: 8-4: Compare and contrast individual and collective decision-making processes in various
situations.
Question 11
Type: MCMA
Sullivan, Effective Leadership and Management, 8/e Test Bank
Although the postoperative assessment of a client reveals no abnormalities, the nurse believes the client’s
condition is deteriorating and orders frequent vital signs. This intervention was made on the basis of which type of
problem solving?
Note: Credit will be given only if all correct choices and no incorrect choices are selected.
Standard Text: Select all that apply.
1. Experimentation
2. Intuition
3. Satisficing
4. Past experience
5. Trial-and-error method
The nurse is using critical thinking skills to decide which of several options is the best. Which question is most
important for the nurse to take into consideration?
1. Are there different situational effects or contexts to be considered?
2. How has the problem usually been handled?
3. What is the easiest and least expensive alternative?
4. Can the problem be solved using the nursing process?