Nurses are often rightly pleased to be members of a profession that is routinely ranked as the most trusted profession. But does that trust and respect transfer directly to getting your voice heard? Not necessarily.
Nurses are ranked as members of the most respected profession, but one that is the least influential, says Dr. Daniel Pesut, PhD, RN, PMHCNS-BC, FAAN, professor of nursing at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing and the director of the Katherine J. Densford International Center for Nursing Leadership.
When nurses take assessments that help determine their strengths, lots of nurses fall into a strategic or executive corner, says Dr. Pesut, but lack the most representation in the corner where influence is most important. This is where nurse leadership becomes all important. The problem is that nurses need to have their voices heard collectively as professionals and on the job as individuals. “Lots of leadership is about influencing,” says Dr. Pesut.
So if your strengths don’t square you in that corner where you can influence people, can you change that?
The short answer is yes. Dr. Pesut recommends nurses watch the Wisdom Dialog series by Eleanor Sullivan, PhD, RN, FAAN, who wrote Becoming Influential: A Guide for Nurses. Learning about and understanding the dimensions of influence are often the first steps to learning how to garner influence. A lot of it, says Dr. Pesut, is understanding the meanings behind what’s being said and what’s not being said.
Taking on leadership roles at work is an important step to becoming influential. “There are some who are always task oriented and there are some who always want to do more and feel compelled to do more because of their values and beliefs,” he says. Nurses with those qualities who nurture those attributes can become better leaders, but they also have to look at not just leadership, but resiliency.
Dr. Pesut addresses the idea of nurse leaders needing to bounce forward, not just back, in the book he co-wrote with Elle Allison-Napolitano, Bounce Forward: The Extraordinary Resilience of Nurse Leadership. Being able to take care of yourself and doing it reliably, puts a nurse in a good position to handle the inevitable setbacks and crises that will come in any leadership role.
Being able to nurture and support resilience in nurse leaders so they can continue to put their resilient leadership style into good and effective use in the workplace can only help their influence as a profession grow.
As a nursing student, responsibilities and demands pull at your time and energy constantly. You have classes to attend, homework to complete, clinicals to work, clubs to join, and organizations to check out. There are family responsibilities and friends to keep up with, and a little personal time to squeeze in there as well.
But nursing school forces you to keep your eyes firmly focused on the future – your career in nursing and all the choices it offers you and all the opportunities you will have to excel in your field.
Confusing? Yes, definitely! But there’s one way to get the guidance you need as a student while also offering opportunities to learn how to lead successfully before you even earn your degree. Joining a student nursing association can help you bring all of those choices, conflicts, exciting developments, and career plans into focus.
Sure, it’s one more thing to do, and as a nursing student, you’re swamped. You might prefer to join a national nursing organization and skip those directed at students altogether. But an organization that’s focused primarily on students’ needs and unique challenges will save you time in the long run because it will help guide you on your career path, introduce you to leaders in your field, and help you clarify what kind of nurse you want to be.
“Joining a student nursing association has helped me understand what kind of leader I am,” says Yvonne Shih, president of the Massachusetts Student Nurses’ Association and student at the Boston College William F. Connell School of Nursing. “I’m not limited to one leadership skill.”
Shih says before joining the organization, she wasn’t exactly the type of person who was comfortable taking or keeping command of a room. “Before, I just couldn’t see myself in the forefront,” she says. “I didn’t have the confidence.” Uneasy with delegating roles to people or completely taking charge, Shih says joining a student nursing association showed her how things work in an organization and in healthcare and gave her needed confidence. She had a chance to try out those roles with her peers before taking them on in a larger professional setting. “There’s no hierarchy and that encouraged me to lead others in a different way,” says Shih.
Student nursing associations are often through a state, so they take more time, energy, and commitment than something closer to your school. But the benefits, both in the knowledge and the networking contacts gained, are clear. Student organizations tend to offer career advice geared to nurses who haven’t yet earned their degrees or those who just recently graduated. One of the biggest benefits is being in a peer organization where most of the other members are in a similar stage of life, education, and career.
Yes, in general, it’s a little tougher to join an organization that’s often state-, not school-, based. “It’s time consuming,” says Shih. “You have to travel a little more, but you’ll meet with others in other schools.” When you graduate from nursing school, your contacts remain and are much broader than any you might gain through your school alone.
Joining a student nursing associaton gives you a chance to take on positions of influence or leadership that will train you for larger roles with increasing responsibility on increasingly larger stages. Because the organization is geared specifically toward students, you’ll have opportunities and access to experiences that larger, national nursing associations might not permit for students.
“Leadership roles are all very different,” says Shih, and she notes this is a great time to find your own style and what works best for you.
As you probably already know, Nurses Week began Tuesday May 6th and runs to Monday May 12th this year. That’s the anniversry of the birthday of perhaps the most famous nurse of all, Florence Nightingale.
The U.S. Deptartment of Health and Human Services set the theme for 2014 as “Nurses: Leading the Way.” Nationwide, nurses have been recognized this week for the critical contributions they make to leading the charge for our health and happiness. As there are now over 3 million Registered Nurses in the U.S., that’s a lot of thank you’s!
This week and every week throughout this year, let’s remember that leadership is a trait that many nurses strongly embody, and others can further develop with just a bit of intention and effort. Here’s how:
1. Know that you’re already a healthcare leader. How? Well, as survey after survey shows, nurses are the most trusted professional (above even doctors, dentists, and pharmacists) and the go-to source for advice on education on personal health.
Are you making the most of your favored position to lead the charge for healthcare information, say? Or how about making your voice heard in the workplace or the larger community about healthcare topics, such as the Affordable Care Act? Have you written a letter to the editor about a local health-related issue dear to your heart of that of your patients? Any of these activities would serve to raise your profile as a nurse leader and also empower the folks in your community. A win-win.
2. Support Other Nurses as Leaders. Are you a member of a nursing organization, either associated with your workplace, specialty, or perhaps a minority group you belong to? There are many reasons to join, including getting your own needs met. But there’s one often overlooked opportunity in belong to a professional group: supporting other nurses in their professional development and encouraging them to take on leadership roles. Women are especially hesitant to lead, and since nursing is a predominately female occupation, well… Peer support leads to more nurses putting themselves out there as leaders.
3. Encourage Management to Give Nurses Opportunities to Lead. Nurses already go above and beyond to take care of patients, of course, but they also often streamline operational functions so that everything comes together to improve the patient experience.
Does management offer ways for nurses to serve on committees and boards so their unique experiences are heard? If not, individual nurses and nurse groups should take up the charge to make sure they do.
Are there opportunites for training and certification in leadership topics and techniques? Of course, it’s important that nursing staff should renew their certifications and other medically-based training. That’s not enough though. Healthcare providors must offer professional development courses and programs that helps nurses take charge — or lead the charge for change.
So, what are you doing to help ensure that nurses are leading the way in our nation’s healthcare? Please share your experiences — we’d like to know.
Jebra Turner is a health writer in Portland, Oregon, but you can visit her online at www.jebra.com.
