By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN
Most nurse leaders are ready for 2021 to be over. In many ways, it has been a more challenging year than 2020, when the pandemic began. The good news has been that we have effective vaccines. The not-so-good news is that a significant percentage of the population won’t get vaccinated and now seem entrenched in their beliefs. Covid variants continue to evolve and will hopefully become less virulent over time.
The pandemic has been a very sustained experience now going on two years. During 2020, most healthcare settings kept their teams together, and while turnover grew (many older, more vulnerable nurses chose to retire) it was nothing like today. COVID in 2020 came in waves across the country, so it was easier to find travel staff to fill in the gaps. 2021 was a much different experience. In 2021, it became clear to nurses that although we had a vaccine, a significant number of people were not going to take it, and COVID could be with us for a very long time. Nurses became less optimistic and reported mental health and wellbeing challenges much higher. Moral distress among nurses grew, and turnover in even the best organizations skyrocketed.
It all begins to make sense through the lens of a healthcare disaster. We know when people experience disasters, there are different emotional phases. The heroic phase is long gone – we are now in a state of profound disillusionment both at a global level and definitely within the nursing profession. The next phase on the journey is a reconstruction of a new beginning which most of us hope will start in early 2022.
One way to re-energize your team is to develop some new goals for 2022. Most nurse leaders have been in a “heads down” mode for two years. We can’t begin the process of developing goals without reflecting on where we are and what might need to change to move forward. Harvard Professor Amy Edmondson talks about the value of pursuing this collective learning as a way of moving forward in spite of uncertainty. Some key questions worth asking right now include the following:
- What core beliefs have changed for us as a team that we need to look at differently moving forward?
- What losses have we experienced that we need to let go of to move forward?
- What have we learned about ourselves as leaders through this experience?
- What should our priorities be as we plan for a new beginning?
- What did we once believe to be true about the nursing workforce that may no longer be true, and how should we plan for the changes we see?
- If nurse tenure will only be one to two years on teams moving forward, how does that change the role of the leader?
- How can we help our staff reach a higher state of wellbeing in 2022?
- What can we do to accommodate more flexible scheduling and work rules?
- What might make sense to do in our environment to redesign care delivery?
- How can we support one another so our leadership team emerges from this experience with optimism about the future?
It is doubtful that sweeping initiatives will move us to a new beginning but rather a series of small innovations and decisions to lead differently in 2022. As Cy Wakeman wisely observes, “Your circumstances are not the reason you can’t succeed; they are the reality in which you must succeed.”
© emergingrnleader.com 2021
Our Most Popular Right Now – Become the Boss No One Wants to Leave Nurse Retention in Turbulent Times
Give your leadership team the gift of a highly rated webinar – Nursing Leadership in 2022: Rebooting after a Life-Quake A Nursing Leadership Reboot Workshop.
Read the Nurse Leader Coach – Available at Amazon and Other Book Sellers.
Recommended Book by the Association of Critical Care Nurses – The Nuts and Bolts of Nursing Leadership: Your Toolkit for Success
LinkedIn
Instagram