You are a Nurse Executive in a small community hospital. You have been in your position for five years and pride yourself on the close knit and supportive culture that you have built for your nursing staff. Your hospital is highly regarded in the community and you are looking toward applying for Magnet recognition status within the next two years. You view yourself as a transformational nurse leader and expect this leadership style from your managers. All ten of the Nurse Managers in your facility report directly to you. The management team has been very stable with the exception of one unit 3 East, a 30 bed Orthopedic Unit. That unit has had three nurse managers over the past 4 years and has a 15% yearly staff turnover – your nursing department average is 5%.
The nurse manager who managed the unit when you arrived left the unit within the year citing philosphical differences with “your expectations of managers”. You then hired a Nurse Manager from the outside who appeared to happy but after two years took a non-management position in Quality Management to “reduce her stress level”. When she transferred, you advertised the position as an excellent promotion opportunity for an “Aspiring Nurse Leader” and you hoped to have BSN candidates with some leadership background. None of the candidates who applied met this criteria and after an extensive competency based interview process you selected Sally Smiles, a staff nurse who had worked on 3 East for three years.
Sally’s first year as Nurse Manager has been very rocky. Unfortunately your hospital offers supervisory training once each year and Sally attended after being in the role almost eight months. You have notice she seems overwhelmed with the responsibilities of her role. She frequently works late and is often in the hospital on weekends. Recently, she seems to be withdrawing from her staff and from you. Staff complain that she is in the office for hours with the door closed. Her staffing budget is frequently outside the expected variances and her reports are routinely late. Other departments have complained to you that she is abrupt and unwilling to consider their viewpoints. She has not really bonded with any of your other nurse managers. A highly regarded staff member was recently exit interviewed by the Nurse Recruiter and described her as cold and controlling and added many staff were interviewing for other positions. You have heard through the grapevine that Sally has told staff that she “receives no support from administration and it is not surprising that this unit has been through so many managers”.
Initially, you met with Sally weekly but recently because of your schedule, that has been changed to monthly. You have a meeting scheduled with Sally next week. Consider your readings for this unit and this case situation and answer the following questions:
- What information will you collect/compile in advance of your meeting with Sally?
- What reflective questions will you ask yourself about the level of support that you have provided for Sally over the past year?
- What strategies/suggestions/interventions might you suggest or perhaps even require Sally to implement?
- What emotional intelligence competencies does Sally need to work on?
- With your knowledge of Transformational leadership, what specific strategies would you suggest for Sally to change the direction of her leadership style?
- As a Nursing Leader, what type of timeline would you look at to expect to see change and/or improvement in this situation?
- If it is your assessment that the Nurse Manager Role may not be the right one for Sally – how would you present this to her?
Submission Instructions:
- Your initial post should be at least 500 words, formatted and cited in current APA style with support from at least 2 academic sources. Your initial post is worth 8 points.
- You should respond to at least two of your peers by extending, refuting/correcting, or adding additional nuance to their posts. Your reply posts are worth 2 points (1 point per response.)
