Taking a Leap into the Unknown - Emerging Nurse Leader

By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, FAAN

I was recently speaking with a colleague who was telling me about unique role that she has been offered with a well known health care delivery services company. It is one of those new job titles that we are beginning to see in healthcare – Vice President of the Patient Experience. She had not yet committed to the position so I asked her what was stopping her. “It is really a leap into the unknown” –she observed. We know in the next decade that the key factor in health care delivery success will be our ability to successfully engage our customers and even more important – to keep them engaged. This is new territory for this talented young nurse leader whose background has been clinical and leadership roles in acute care facilities.

Without question, this is an incredible opportunity and yet this young leader is not alone in her fear of taking a leap into the unknown. Five factors that stop us can include the following:

1. There is safety in what we know and risk in what we don’t know.

2. We have an instinctual resistance to change – particularly large scale change.

3. It can be difficult to think about creative possibilities when confronted with an unpainted canvas without structure.

4. Putting ourselves out there into something new makes us vulnerable.

5. Feeling we are not yet ready for that next step.

James Cameron, the well known film director, once observed that “there are many talented people who haven’t fulfilled their dreams because they over thought it, and were unwilling to take that leap of faith.” This is an important observation because at the root of our willingness to leap into the unknown is our willingness to overcome our own fears. If you take the time to ask yourself what the worst thing that can happen if you fail, you may find that it is not much of a risk at all. I am currently reading an interesting book Act Like a Leader, Think like a Leader by Herminia Ibarra, a professor at the INSEAD Leadership Executive Program. She contends that we sometimes overestimate the value of leadership development and underestimate what you gain from direct experiences and experimentation when outside our comfort zone.

In the next decade, many of you will have incredible new and exciting opportunities presented to you that you may not feel ready for and yet – you may be the best person for the job. Resist fighting your fear of the unknown and instead consider the possibilities of what could happen if you just say yes.

Read to Lead

Ibarra, H. (2015). Act like a leader, think like a leader. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.