By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN
A seasoned nurse leader recently asked me if it was just her perception or if things were shifting so quickly with the nursing workforce that many of her well-honed strategies no longer seemed to work. She began noticing a cultural shift in her team two years ago, but now it seemed more profound. I asked her about her team’s demographics, which few leaders seem to track.
As she looked at her staff profiles, she noted that the average age of her staff was now about 26, whereas in the past, it was closer to 36. She had onboarded 45 new graduates into her ED last year alone- a staggering number. Before COVID, she rarely, if ever, hired a new nurse with less than one year of experience.
This leader now sees the power of the magic third in her team’s culture. More than half of her staff are now Generation Z nurses with a different career outlook than previous generations. In his book Revenge of the Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell elaborates on the concept of the “magic third.” When a demographic, such as Generation Z, constitutes one-third or more of the current staff composition, their values, attitudes, and beliefs significantly influence and change a unit’s culture.
The magic third helps explain why some nurse leaders have significant staff challenges with issues like time and attendance, declining baseline mental health, lack of professional identity, communication skills, teamwork, professional accountability, and long-term retention, while others may not. It also explains why units with younger staff are more likely to embrace new technology and change. If you have a strong core team of seasoned nurses, you probably are not seeing the cultural changes that leaders with significantly younger staff are experiencing. Most executive nurse leaders also don’t have young staff reporting to them, so they, too, might not experience the challenges their frontline leaders have.
I always tell leaders not to do victory laps about their strong team cultures. The challenges discussed above are prevalent today in nursing, and this could be a movie coming to a theater near you in the future that has not arrived yet.
© emergingrnleader.com 2025
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