Criticizing When You Are Not in the Arena

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

I had a troubling conversation with a retired CNO who is critical of her successor. What is happening in that health system today would never have happened on my watch, she said confidently. She talked with me about all the retention strategies that she had put in place to ensure the turnover happening today would not occur. What if I told you, I asked her, that your old health system is doing all of that, and it is no longer working. She found it hard to believe that tried and true leadership strategies might not be effective in the current turbulent environment. I wondered whether she had ever faced the kind of dilemmas that senior nurse leaders report today, such as:

You arrive in the morning, and there are 30 patients on hold in the ED for admission with no beds in your facility or any other hospital in your immediate area.
You think you have successfully negotiated a travel contract to supplement your core staffing and then learn that the agency can not backfill any of your vacancies.
Two of your most experienced and valued nurse managers resign telling you that their mental health is seriously jeopardized.
Your school nurses are physically threatened by parents when they try to enforce mask mandates and quarantine rules.
None of your local nursing homes can accept patients in transfer because of severe staffing shortages.
You approve panic buttons for the badges of your nurses because so many have been assaulted by patients.
Your critical care nurse manager has a shouting match with a family member who accused the critical care staff of lying about a COVID diagnosis.
You meet with a group of your new graduate residents who tell you that they no longer see hospital nursing as a viable career option.

Brene Brown, in her book, Dare to Lead, discusses the problem of criticizing others when you are not in the challenging arena that they may be in. She cites the following quote from Theodore Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again…..who at the best knows that in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

Today, nurse leaders continue to show up even when they don’t know if they can either predict or control outcomes. Many tell me that they are searching for a path forward when it is in no way straightforward. Now is not the time for any of us to criticize from the sidelines when we are not in the arena. The easiest strategy in turmoil is to look for someone to blame. Our nurse leaders need our support and our prayers during this difficult time.

Read to Lead

Brown, B. (2018). Dare to Lead: Brave Work, Tough Conversations, Whole Hearts. New York: Random House Books.

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