Nursing Leadership 2.0 - Emerging Nurse Leader

By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, FAAN

The legendary leadership coach, Marshall Goldsmith, titled his best selling business book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. The book outlines the type of behaviors that often derail leaders as they move up the ladder. The ultimate message is that as a leader, you need to evolve and become better. The current crisis has made this need even more critical. To use a computer technology metaphor, too many leaders get stuck in Version 1.0 of their leadership and never reboot themselves to accommodate themselves to their changing environments. In the book, The Right Stuff: How Brilliant Careers are Made, business professor Carter Cast presents some practical advice on how to do this.

Increase your learning agility – leaders with learning agility are reflective. They are not only aware of their own biases, assumptions, and problem-solving techniques, but they are willing to change when needed. They continuously refresh and reinvest in themselves through reading, observation, and listening to others. They quickly identify when they have a skill gap that happens over time and seeks out the training to close the gap. Korn Ferry, a talent development firm, identifies learning agility as a critical competency that separates those who get promoted from those who don’t. This competency has proven to be essential during COVID-19.
Understand the nuances of career transition – Cast contends that very few leaders take the time to discover what skills are required when they assume a new position or assignment. With every career move, job requirements do change. He recommends that a great question to ask as you transition into a new role is, What will I have accomplished in two or three years to make you say that I did a great job in this role? From that conversation, he advises that you should develop 3-5 deliverable goals with performance metrics to support them. Wise leaders also take the time to seek advice from other leaders who have had similar transitions to discover the challenges and what to watch out for.
Become more approachable – Cast advises that to be successful in new roles, leaders need to avoid what he describes as “striking a pose.” Striking a pose often involves emotionally distancing those who work with you or building a moat. Approachability is essential in leadership if you are to learn the truth in organizations. A wise nurse leader who supervises 150+ nurses in multiple units once told me that her favorite question to avoid this is to ask, What don’t I know is going on in this unit but should?”
Push yourself outside your comfort zone – our brains don’t like change, so leaders often find themselves over time, relying on the tried and true, and being unwilling to try new things. Inertia is a powerful force. To avoid them, Cast recommends that leaders ask themselves every week what they have learned in their role that they did not know before. A second good habit is to take on an assignment or adopt new technology that will push you out of your comfort zone and force you to learn something new.
Fight against perfectionism – Continually gathering more data before you move on will slow down the process of moving to 2.0 in your leadership. Today’s environment requires faster decision making. Cast points out that wise leaders deconstruct risks by asking what the worse thing that could happen if I make this decision is and then decide if it is an acceptable risk. There are times when you just need to “put a bow on it,” as one leader recently told me.
Expand your constituency base – Cast warns that too many leaders become reliant on a boss or mentor to guide their careers. When that person leaves, they often find themselves on an uneven footing in organizations. While mentorship is good, it can be risky to move into new positions just to work for this leader. You need to have a broad range of colleagues both within and outside the organization.

Too many leaders don’t realize that to do this reboot, you need to shift focus from doing great technical or clinical work to focusing on managing relationships. As one moves up the career ladder, you also need to change your mindset from wanting certainty to becoming more comfortable with ambiguity. The ability to adapt over time is the key or linchpin to future leadership success.

Read to Lead

Cast, C. (2018). The right and wrong stuff: How brilliant careers are made. New York: Hatchett Publishers.

Virtual Workshops for Nurse Leaders are now available. Learn more at Virtual Workshops

Read Rose Sherman’s book – The Nurse Leader Coach: Become the Boss No One Wants to Leave