When The Bully Is Your Charge Nurse - Emerging Nurse Leader

By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN

What do I do when the bully on my unit is an experienced charge nurse? This question came from a new manager. The charge nurse in question had been on the unit “forever.” She had a great relationship with the previous manager who described her as the nurse “who keeps everything together under even the most stressful of situations in the ER.” This part is true reported the new manager. She is very technically competent and well organized. The manager’s dilemma was that at one level, she desperately needed this nurse to help her manage the busy ER. Yet, she knew that there were just too many staff complaints about her bullying tactics to ignore the behavior.

While not all staff complaints about leadership bullying may be grounded in fact, we cannot deny that there are charge nurses who are bullies. Sometimes, they demonstrate bullying behavior when the manager is present but often they don’t. Charge nurse bullies have the potential to cause significant emotional damage and stress to staff. They are toxic to healthy work environments and often are at the root of high staff turnover. I told the new manager, she had no choice but to confront the problems directly. Individual staff often feel powerless to confront the bully. She should visit HR and review exit interview information and turnover data. She also needed to document specific behaviors that were either reported by others or observed by her.

These could include some or all of the following:

Very controlling with a need to be informed about every decision and action taken by staff.
Making belittling comments or criticizing staff in front of others.
Not sharing important information with staff in an effort to maintain power and control.
Jumping to conclusions in situations without hearing all sides of a story.
Showing favoritism and/or intentionally isolating or freezing out certain staff members instead of being inclusive.
Making snide or abrupt remarks.
Refusing to be available in situations where staff clearly need assistance.
Engaging in acts of sabotage that deliberately set up certain staff members for a negative situation.
Raising eyebrows, rolling eyes or making faces in response to questions from staff.
Failing to respect the privacy of staff when giving feedback.
Taking credit for the achievements of others without giving recognition.
Breaking confidences and gossiping about staff members to other staff.

This manager should expect pushback when she talks with the charge nurse. She may want to practice the conversation in advance with her supervisor. The manager should focus on specific behaviors and not “attitude”. She might want to begin with an observation that it might not be your intent, but this is the way that your actions or behaviors are perceived by team members. She will need to avoid getting sidetracked if the charge nurse observes that this was never a problem until she became the manager. There needs to be a corrective plan for the charge nurse but the manager will also need to look at the culture.

When a team has a history of bullying, there will need to be a culture change. Part of that change is promoting a new set of shared values and goals with staff that promotes staff empowerment. communication, collaboration, and life-long learning. A culture of zero-tolerance bullying is the most effective leadership strategy to prevent its occurrence. It is essential that the problem is labeled. Staff needs to be educated about the behaviors that constitute bullying to help break the silence. It takes courage to have these conversations but they are essential.

Read to Lead

Brown, T. (February 11th, 2010). When the Nurse is a Bully. New York Times Blog.

Longo, J.,& Sherman, R.O. (2007). Leveling horizontal violence. Nursing Management, 38(3), 34-37; 50-51.

Coming Very Soon