Nursing staff and patients benefit.
Being mindful requires complete awareness of what is happening and what is being experienced within. It is purposeful and allows for self-reflection.
Are you mindful? Or is your mind full? It’s important for nurse leaders to consider these questions. The daily responsibilities and activities of nurse leaders can interfere with their self-awareness and awareness of others. A mind that is too busy interferes with awareness, intentionality, and focus. Have you been there?
Reflection that enables you to be fully present in the moment results in mindfulness. It’s being centered and focusing on the present. It’s a way of being, not a way of doing (Burkhardt & Nagai-Jacobson, 2013). Activities that promote a mindful way of being include meditation, journaling, group sharing, and storytelling.
You don’t have the time? Your day is filled with meetings, writing reports, and putting out fires? Because of the importance of mindfulness, it’s essential that you make time
Attitude of intentionality
Being mindful requires complete awareness of what is happening and what is being experienced within. It is purposeful and allows for self-reflection. It’s an attitude of intentionality that is practiced and deliberate. If you don’t take time to practice mindfulness, it will not develop. It cannot be wished into fruition. For improving leadership effectiveness, it is likely one of the most important daily activities a person can do.
Nursing staff and patients benefit from mindful leadership. When healthcare organizations have mindful nurse leaders, patient outcomes and staff retention improve. Mindful leaders help personnel develop composure and better communication skills.
Perhaps you’ve worked in settings where nurse leaders seemed to completely lack both self-awareness and awareness of others. Communication was poor, and leaders seemed out of touch, frazzled, and unsympathetic. It’s not pleasant to work in that kind of environment.
I’ve worked in places where compassion fatigue and bullying are the norm because of a lack of mindful leadership. Staff members felt they were not understood, and patient outcomes suffered. It was obvious that nurse leaders lacked insight into how their behaviors affected the work environment and care delivery. Their way of being did not promote health and healing.
Busy isn’t necessarily better
It is discouraging that, despite all the evidence about the need for mindful leadership, it is not promoted or facilitated in many healthcare organizations. When a culture is not aware of the importance of mindfulness, it doesn’t support meaningful reflective practices. Nurse leaders are not given time to engage in mindfulness-promoting activities. Instead, there’s a task-oriented focus on doing, as if busy is better and busy leaders are better leaders.
It’s not true. Nurse leaders need to feel empowered by their organizations to slow down and engage in activities that promote mindfulness. They need to be encouraged to incorporate these activities into their leadership roles. Taking time during the workday to quietly sit and reflect via journaling or meditation is valuable. It is not unproductive. It is not doing nothing! Rather, these leadership practices increase productivity and support leadership that is fully aware.
Time to reallocate resources?
One study found mindful meditation to be more effective than leadership education and academic leadership programs. Not only were the latter less effective, they also cost more than allowing time for meditation. If your organization is putting most of its leadership development resources into activities that cost more and are shown to be less effective than mindfulness development, it should consider reallocation of those resources.
Remember, evidence-based practice doesn’t apply only to delivery of bedside care. It extends to the practice of leadership.
Integrating practices that support mindfulness in the workplace requires a change of perspective. It means accepting evidence that it’s important to invest in advancing the practice of mindfulness to develop more effective leaders and improve outcomes.
For leaders, it’s an investment of time. For healthcare organizations, it’s commitment to a healthier work environment for their nursing leadership team. Organizations that support leadership mindfulness will have mindful leaders, not leaders whose minds are full. RNL
Norman C. Olsen, DNP, MSN, RN, CNE, AHN-BC, is an assistant professor of nursing at Chamberlain University, Atlanta Campus, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Reference:
Burkhardt, M.A., & Nagai-Jacobson, M.G. (2013). Spirituality and health. In B.M. Dossey & L. Keegan (Eds.), Holistic nursing: A handbook for practice (pp. 721-750). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.