By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN
Transitioning to a new manager role has never been more challenging than in today’s environment. I was reminded of this last week when Dr. Joyce Batcheller and I did the Nuts and Bolts of Nursing Leadership in partnership with New England ONL. Over one hundred nurse managers attended the program, and many had less than one year of leadership experience. Here are 10 of the biggest challenges today for these new leaders:
- Achieving Work-Life Balance – with 24/7 responsibility and large spans of control, new leaders struggle with how to best manage their time. They need help learning to set hard boundaries on their work schedules and determine what activities to spend time on and what to delegate to others.
- Developing Emotional Intelligence – nurses, patients, and families today are often very negative and reactive. It is challenging for new leaders to maintain perspective and not take criticism personally. Self-awareness and social awareness are key skills, as is being able to identify what is controllable and what is not.
- Giving Performance Feedback – nurse managers today lead a diverse workforce that often does not take feedback well. They need help with strategies to establish a culture of feedback on their units. We have found that new leaders find the Situation – Behavior – Impact – Way Forward framework a handy guide for giving feedback.
- Communicating with Different Generations – most health systems use email as their formal method of communication, but Generation Z and Millennials would rather text or use social media. New leaders struggle with how to most effectively get communication out to a diverse staff and ensure they read it. Most also acknowledge their need to improve their listening skills because staff sometimes want to vent about their emotions.
- Navigating Team Conflict – the political and cultural divisiveness seen in society today has permeated the work environment. New leaders are often conflict-avoidant and don’t take action until problems have morphed into a crisis. Conflict on teams is unavoidable and the new paradigm is the leaders need to develop meditation skills.
- Managing Crucial Conversations – some conversations are just hard ones , especially for new leaders who have been promoted from within. New leaders need help with planning conversations so they are constructive.
- Accommodating Staff Scheduling Requests – nurses are in the driver’s seat with the extreme staffing shortages today and know it. Many new leaders concede that they often feel conflicted when asked to flex scheduling that is sometimes not in the best interest of patient care. They need help with critically thinking through when to say yes and when to say the request cannot be accommodated.
- Dealing with Incivility and Bullying – incivility and bullying are significant in many healthcare environments today. It can be very challenging to confront these behaviors. New leaders need help with scripting these conversations and promoting cultural change.
- Empowering Staff versus Fixing Problems – it is very tempting for new leaders to want to become superheroes on their units versus coaching staff to solve problems. New leaders need help become more Yoda and much less Superman. A failure to empower staff to solve problems can lead to leader burnout.
- Promoting More Effective Teamwork – core teams fell apart during the COVID pandemic and new team members may not understand the concept of team backup. New leaders want to promote more effective teamwork but often don’t know how to begin to rebuild a sense of community and team connections.
New nurse leaders are happy when they hear that leadership is a journey versus a destination. They will always have challenges in their role although at the beginning, it can feel overwhelming. I continue to marvel at how powerful leader to leader learning can be. In this turbulent world, we can often feel very alone. When nurse leaders hear other colleagues express the same frustrations they feel – there is an enormous sense of relieve. We need to promote more of these conversations among leaders especially during these difficult times.
© emergingrnleader.com 2022
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