Coaches help nurse managers gain four characteristics of a leader.
Professional coaching is a leadership training strategy that helps nurse managers maximize their potential.
I identify strongly with the belief that it is important for nurses—especially nurse managers—to develop their leadership skills. I have learned from both personal experience and the literature that nurse managers have tremendous responsibilities, not only to the nurses who report to them and the patients of those nurses but also to higher levels of leadership within their organizations.
The tremendous stress nurse managers experience as they continually manage up, down, and laterally often results in high levels of burnout and turnover. This is especially concerning because nurse managers are critical linchpins who determine a nursing unit’s overall success and, ultimately, influence patient outcomes and nursing staff well-being. As a nurse and psychologist, I am passionate about facilitating and supporting these middle managers in their career development.
In recent decades, it has become increasingly common for nurses at the executive level to be offered, as part of their employment package, tools to enhance their leadership abilities, including professional coaching. Unfortunately, in most healthcare systems, middle-management nurses are typically not offered such benefits.
A coach can add leadership skills to your clinical skills
Nurse managers need and greatly benefit from resources that help them develop their leadership skills. Often, they are promoted to the nurse manager position because of their excellent clinical skills. Unfortunately, many are not given the opportunity or organizational support to develop nonclinical skills critical to success in that role. As a result, they are not equipped to handle the myriad complexities that managers face. Not knowing where to turn for help, they can be overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy. Although excellent clinicians, many nurse managers are novices when it comes to daily management of a unit.
One strategy that can support nurse managers in their role development is professional coaching. Professional coaching is “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential, which is particularly important in today’s uncertain and complex environment. Coaches honor the client as the expert in his or her life and work and believe every client is creative, resourceful and whole.”
Depending on the needs of the manager, a coaching engagement could be as little as three months but generally lasts six months, with some up to a year. While some organizations establish contracts with coaches and then offer that service to nurse managers within the organization, most managers seek and secure coaches on their own, with payment coming from either the organization or themselves. The coaching engagement usually occurs in face-to-face encounters between the coach and the manager at the manager’s workplace. Some coaching may occur online or via telephone.
A coach can improve self-awareness and understanding
From personal experience, I believe professional coaches can assist nurse managers in a number of areas. One of the most important is helping clients improve self-awareness and understanding. Both are essential to manage people and processes effectively at unit and organizational levels. Coaches can provide clients with opportunities to increase self-awareness relative to thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. For example, coaches can learn how nurse managers deal with criticism from staff members and help them improve how they respond. In addition, they can help clients gain insight into their personal behaviors when stressful situations arise.
Working with a professional coach offers nurse managers numerous opportunities to grow and develop into the leaders they want to be. As the client, the manager sets the agenda for each coaching session. Goals are reviewed at the beginning of each meeting, and the client plans action steps to take between meetings. The coach holds the client accountable. If the manager does not take a planned action, the coach explores barriers that prevented it from occurring.
A professional coach can assist a nurse manager in understanding what it means to be a leader and what leadership entails. In addition to helping managers determine the type of leader they want to become, coaches can help managers identify excellent role models, understand why they perceive them as such, and develop an accurate perception of their leadership presence.
A coach provides objectivity
Finally, coaching engagements offer nurse managers a quiet and safe haven for discussing their situations with an objective outsider. Nurse managers work in pressure-cooker environments and thus have little time to process troublesome events or circumstances that they wish, in retrospect, they had addressed differently or with more skill. In a coaching session, managers can freely examine such situations with their coaches, without fear of retribution, and identify what is going well, what is not working, and what is needed to move forward as a leader.
Although professional coaching of middle managers is still in its infancy, I believe this strategy needs to be offered more widely, because nurse managers and others in middle management can benefit greatly from a purposeful approach to leadership training.
Four characteristics of effective nurse leaders
For me, professional coaching is a calling, and my holistic mission to fulfill my calling addresses body, mind, spirit, and emotions. Throughout my career, I have been interested in connecting with people and learning where they are in their lives. I enjoy examining with them what is working and what is not; where they see themselves today and in coming weeks, months, and years; and what brings meaning to them. As a coach working with nurse managers, I have had the opportunity to explore how the nursing profession fits into their lives and how they perceive the nurse manager role.
Facilitating the growth and development of nurses has been one of the most important and fun responsibilities I have been privileged to engage in. In the course of my career and my encounters with fabulous nurse leaders, I have found the following four characteristics to be common among them: 1) an interest in learning more about themselves, 2) the ability to acknowledge what they don’t know, 3) an openness to taking action and trying new strategies, and 4) an eagerness to lead that is based on their personal values.
When professional coaching engagements are successful, nurse managers exhibit self-confidence and behave in ways that demonstrate they are comfortable in their own skin. They are the calm in the middle of the storm, an important attribute in the current healthcare arena where storms are the norm rather than the exception. As you can see, I am passionate about helping nurse managers meet their goals of authentic and meaningful leadership as they work courageously to deepen their self-awareness and understanding. RNL
Editor’s note: Jennifer Bradley will present “Professional Coaching: A Successful Strategy for Supporting and Developing Nurse Managers for the Future” on Tuesday, 31 October, at the 44th Biennial Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. See the Virginia Henderson Global Nursing e-Repository for additional information.
Jennifer M. Bradley, PhD, RN, AHN-BC, ACC, is assistant professor of nursing, Xavier University School of Nursing, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.