Leadership, civility, and the 'No Jerks' rule.

Nursing organizations and hospitals are not immune from the ravages of incivility. Toxic behavior can range from the very serious bullying and sabotage of very destructive people to the annoying and hard to cope behavior of just plain jerks. When a unit does not have a clearly defined "No Jerk" rule and infrastructure to support healthy behavior, communication suffers and errors occur. Nurse leaders have the opportunity of changing the self-interest behavior of jerks in our communities of caring.