Leading Nurses Who Don't Plan to Stay Forever

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

I recently spoke with a distraught nurse manager. She had just lost a stellar nurse who had been in her department for only 24 months. She said, “Our team poured so much mentoring into him as a new perioperative nurse, and now he’s leaving for a travel contract. From one perspective, I understand where he is coming from – he has so much student loan debt to repay. On the other hand, this has impacted our team morale even though I know we did nothing wrong. How can I build a strong perioperative team in the future if no one stays?”

In 2026, we will continue to see a fundamental shift in the “psychological contract” between employers and employees. Our younger Gen Z nurses aren’t looking for a lifetime home; they are looking for a “Tour of Duty.” If we continue to view a two-year tenure as a “failure” of retention, we will spend our entire leadership careers feeling frustrated and defeated. Instead, we must learn to lead for the time we do have.

A Shift in Mindset: From Retention to Contribution

Traditionally, we’ve measured our success as leaders by our turnover rate. While that still matters, we need a new metric. If a nurse gives you two years of high engagement, excellent clinical care, and a positive attitude, that is a win. Our goal is no longer to “trap” people into staying; it’s to make our unit the best possible place for them to grow while they are with us.

Leading a Team in Flux

Much like the NCAA football coaches who recently took their teams to the playoffs, sometimes not knowing who would actually be playing or who would put themselves in the transfer portal, managing a team in flux requires a different set of leadership muscles. Some new strategies to adopt include the following:

1. Be Transparent from Day One

During the interview, don’t ask, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” They don’t know, and honestly, neither do we. Instead, ask: “What skills do you want to master in the next two years, and how can this unit help you get there?” When you align their personal growth with the unit’s needs, you get a higher level of commitment.

2. Accelerate Competency Development

If nurses are staying for shorter periods, we cannot afford long, drawn-out onboarding processes that don’t produce results. We need to use our 2026 tools—AI-driven simulations, virtual reality, and intensive “skills bursts”—to get them comfortable and competent faster. We need them “mission-ready” in months, not years.

3. Build a “Knowledge-Sharing” Culture

In a high-turnover environment, “tribal knowledge” is dangerous. If only one nurse knows how to troubleshoot the new telemetry monitors and she leaves, you’re in trouble. That is why you must standardize as much as possible and ensure that your unit’s brain lives in your systems, not just in the heads of seasoned nurses.

4. Offboard with Grace

When a nurse tells you they are leaving for grad school, traveling, or a new specialty, celebrate it. If you treat their departure as a betrayal, you ensure they will never come back. If you treat it as a “graduation,” you build an alumni network. In 2026, many of your best hires will be “boomerang nurses”—those who left to see if the grass was greener and realized they missed your leadership. Your goal should be to make nurses who leave the unit or department net promoters of your organization in their new environments.

Thinking Differently as Nurse Leaders

We have to stop looking at onboarding costs as a “loss” if the nurse leaves at the two-year mark. Instead, think of it as a reinvestment in the profession. If every leader were to commit to producing high-quality, clinically sound nurses, the entire ecosystem would improve. Our job as leaders is to provide a transformational experience. We want that nurse to look back five years from now and say, “I only stayed on that unit for two years, but I learned more from that manager than anyone else in my career.”

To effectively lead through these challenges and others, nurse leaders need new tools and strategies. Let me help you as I have helped hundreds of organizations over the past five years. Book a workshop or keynote for your team by contacting me at roseosherman@outlook.com

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