Chanaphol Sriruecha
Khon Kaen University, Thailand
Title: Leadership soft skills and conflict management of sub-district health promoting hospital directors in Khon Kaen Province, Thailand
Biography
Biography: Chanaphol Sriruecha
Abstract
Statement of the Problem: Sub-district health promoting hospital (SDHPH) in Thailand has primary role in providing integrated primary care services to individual, family, and community. Normally its staff consists of a director, a nurse practitioner, a public health officer, a public health technician, a dental health technician and a Thai traditional medicine giving health service to averagely 5,000 populations. The personnel have different background in terms of family, education and work responsibility that possibly lead to conflict at work. The implementation of the director may probably encounter the conflict anywhere and could affect the organizational productivity and image. Conflict management is, therefore, a vital role and challenge for a leader to manage by using the strong leadership, knowledge, capability, learning experience, life skill, flexibility, information skills and conflict management skill. Leaders must have both task skills and leadership soft skills in order to achieve organizational goals. Therefore, leadership soft skills are necessary for conflict management and work success. The purpose of this study is to determine the influence of leadership soft skills to the conflict management of the SDHPH director in Khon Kaen province.
Methodology & Theoretical Orientation: The samples of 180 directors were interviewed by self-administered questionnaire and focus group discussion. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics i.e. Pearson’s product moment correlation and stepwise multiple regressions were used. Findings: Leadership soft skills and conflict management were found at high level. The overall leadership soft skills had moderate positive relationship with conflict management significantly (r=0.681, p-value <0.001). Leadership soft skills in presentation and coaching could jointly predict conflict management for 46.4 percent. The lack of proper participation from the subordinates and problem of skills in teamwork management and coaching were also found.
Conclusion & Significance: Leadership soft skills had positive relationship with conflict management significantly, especially presentation and coaching skills. Recommendations are made for developing presentation and coaching skills, as well as the teamwork management of the director.