This postpandemic environment is one of the hardest times in recent history to work in healthcare. There are pressures from all sides: staffing shortages, burnout, increased reliance on technology, conflicts, supply chain issues, and delays in the systemic ability to provide healthcare services, to name a few. These challenges add up and often make the nurse leader's job difficult and demanding. In light of these challenges, it's very easy to focus on the negative amid the day-to-day pressures of the position. However, the time has come to shift attention toward the positive aspects of healthcare and the nursing role.
Focusing on the good doesn't negate the challenges that happen every day. However, seeing the positive can motivate nurse leaders and their teams to rise to a higher level and deliver the best care possible to patients while navigating the postpandemic healthcare landscape. The nursing profession is a relevant and needed institution to provide quality care for patients. It's the nurse leader's choice during the daily routine to move their focus and their teams' focus toward the good.
Moving forward
Why should nurse leaders focus on the good? The benefits of positive thinking are well documented in the literature. This shift in mindset can improve overall job satisfaction as well as individual mental health.1 It can allow nursing to move forward instead of dwelling on the past. Focusing on the good can help nurses to stay in the profession.2 Focusing on the good can help leaders rebuild this new healthcare landscape and new healthcare teams.3 It can help patients receive quality care that's needed during a time when everyone feels most vulnerable.
Nurses need to focus on the good because the healthcare profession will continue to move forward regardless of what happened in the past. People will continue to show up in hospitals and clinics and need quality care. Nurse leaders should look back on the past and remember it, but they should do so to learn from it.
The healthcare profession will never again be the same as it was before the pandemic. The profession should mourn this and then continue to move forward. Nurse leaders need to view the challenges experienced during the pandemic as a prism, with many sides and shades, some brighter than others. Nurses' satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with staying in the healthcare profession will correlate with what sides of the prism they focus on during the challenges that will inevitably continue to arise.
Embracing change
What are some examples of areas where nursing and nursing leadership can change the narrative to highlight the good? Teamwork, staff recruitment and retention, and staff satisfaction are a few areas in which the profession can adjust its focus. Although the pandemic disrupted many teams, it has created an opportunity for healthcare to create new and more flexible teams. Although the pandemic caused many members of the profession to leave, it has also pushed newer members of the profession into clinical positions that previously would have taken them years to attain.
Nurse leaders can choose to dwell on the talent that was lost, or instead focus on the value of the fresh perspective gained from new nursing talent. Nurse leaders can choose to lament the challenges of navigating nurses coming in and out with travel agencies, or they can appreciate the opportunity to showcase organizational values to many nurses and encourage them to stay if they choose. Nurse leaders can focus on the frustrations of recruitment in healthcare, or they can focus on the benefits of adapting hiring, recruitment, and retention practices to find a middle ground that supports both the organization and the nurses it employs.
The pandemic disrupted many of the old ways of communicating with healthcare teams. Nurse leaders can focus on the loss of the in-person meeting and face-to-face communication, or they can focus on the good and realize that healthcare teams have moved toward more inclusive methods of team communication, such as video meetings that all can attend.
The call to care
It's valuable as well for nurse leaders to focus on the personal good of why they do what they do. They should take time to think about why they went into healthcare. It's important for a leader to remember a time when they helped a patient, a family member, or a colleague. What about instances when a nurse leader helped a staff member who was dealing with a difficult personal issue? Nurse leaders can contemplate challenging areas of staff management or be grateful for the good that staff members bring to the overall team. Many staff members are doing great things every day and nurse leaders should take the time to observe and recognize these acts, abilities, and accomplishments.
When and where?
Focusing on the good can happen anywhere, at any time. It can happen at work or outside of work. It can happen before, during, and after a meeting. It can happen in the middle of a crisis or during a debrief after a crisis. Nurse leaders can focus on the good during their morning commute, at lunch time, or when providing patient care. They can be in the hallway, the office, or the unit breakroom.
It's easy to get lost in the day-to-day responsibilities of management. It's important to take time to focus on the good. Instead of spending the commute home only going over what went wrong during the day, nurse leaders can commit to also consider what went right that day. It's not necessary to disregard the negative things that happened: leaders can learn from those situations. However, the thought pattern shouldn't stay absorbed in the negative challenges that occurred. The leader should rise above and think ahead to where those challenges can help them grow as an individual and help the team evolve as a whole.
Did an error happen? Instead of remaining focused on the system or individual challenges that caused that error, determine what can be learned from the situation and recognize the good that can come from it. Flip the narrative to the positive whenever possible.
Prioritizing self-care
Another way for the nurse leader to maintain a positive focus is to make time for self-care. Take a break from less enjoyable tasks to do something more enjoyable. These tasks will differ depending on the individual. Does taking the time to educate a patient help you focus on the good? Does doing something clinical, such as starting an I.V. line or changing a wound dressing, help you focus on the good? It's also important for nurse leaders to model self-care behaviors for their staff and ask their team members what they need instead of making assumptions.
Leaders should also engage in enjoyable activities outside of work. Some ideas are to take a walk, cultivate a new hobby, or visit a friend. Limit screen time and exposure when possible: unplug when away and able. Taking vacations and looking after personal physical and mental health are also areas that can help nurse leaders to focus on the good.
A new horizon
Although being a nurse or a nurse leader can be extremely challenging, especially in today's healthcare environment, it can also be very rewarding. Focusing on the positive can enable the nurse to find rewarding moments amid the everyday routine. In many ways, the profession is helping to rewrite the narrative of what healthcare used to be and transform it into something new. Every nurse leader can embrace the challenges of a new healthcare landscape, choose to focus on the good, and ultimately move themselves and their teams onward toward quality patient care.
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