There is so much more to nursing than the majority of the world sees. Even recently, when the role of nursing has become so much more well known and appreciated, there is still a lot that takes place that no one except other healthcare professionals know about and understand. One of these “hidden” elements is leadership.
The fact is, even some registered nurses—or perhaps those studying to become nurses—aren’t aware of how much leadership could be involved in certain roles. However, nurse leaders are a crucial part of the healthcare industry, ensuring that all nurses and other personnel are doing the right job at the right time in the right place.
However, it’s crucial that you start to understand more about what nursing leadership actually entails, no matter what you might want to do in the future or what direction you see your career going in. Even if you don’t want to be a leader yourself, it’s still useful to know what makes a good leader; in that way, at least you’ll know whether the leaders in your life are performing effectively. This can be a helpful distinction to make, especially if you are unsure about what to do next.
With this in mind, why is it that nurses should consider taking on leadership roles when they are able to? What makes it possible for them to do this? Read on to find out more.
There Are Many Study Options
In the past, becoming a leader in nursing was not easy. Of course, it’s not easy today in terms of the work required and the knowledge needed, but at least it is a prospect that is open to all. Just a few years ago, this was not the case, and if you wanted to be a nurse leader there would have been some big sacrifices to make.
Today, it is different. Although, as already mentioned, you’ll still need to do a lot of hard work, you’ll also have many more options. Although you might still need to make some sacrifices, they won’t be as huge or challenging to think about as they might once have been.
The main reason for this is that universities and specific nursing schools understand that the way people want to learn is changing. They also know that for some, the traditional way of learning in a classroom with a set timetable makes it completely impossible to do without taking time away from work. Since this can also be impossible because we all need to earn money—particularly with the rising cost of living—if there was no alternative, it would mean that many nurses who would make amazing leaders simply wouldn’t be able to complete the qualifications necessary to get where they want and need to be in terms of their career.
Thankfully, the situation has changed and now it is possible for any nurse to further their career by taking additional courses and gaining additional qualifications through online learning. This kind of learning means that you can obtain the qualifications you want to at your own pace, fitting in study with your shifts so that you don’t have to compromise. It’s the ideal way for any nurse who wants to take on a leadership role to get the qualifications they need—while also gaining experience on the job.
You Can Pass On Your Learning
Another reason to consider leadership in nursing is that it will allow you to pass on your knowledge, your experience, and your learning. You can even take a post masters to become a nurse educator, ensuring that you know just how to teach others to become wonderful nurses.
For some, the idea of gaining a lot of knowledge and passing that knowledge on to others—who will be able to use it in the right way to make their careers even better and to enhance the treatment of their patients—is exactly what they want. This can be done in a number of different ways, so again, you won’t have to sacrifice anything. You will, however, have to think carefully about how you want to pass on the knowledge you have gained because there are different paths to take.
You might want to teach others by being a great nurse in your department, for example. You might want to step away from patient care and focus solely on teaching, perhaps at the same college you learned in. Maybe you’ll decide to write textbooks for nurses, or a blog or vlog to help them. No matter how you want to teach others, if that’s what you want, there are plenty of options to allow it to happen.
Nurses Make Great Leaders
Often, it’s not a case of specifically wanting to become a leader as a nurse; it can simply be a natural progression. That’s because many of the traits needed to be a great nurse are the same traits needed to become a great leader, so if you’re a nurse you probably have a lot of (and perhaps all of) the skills required to be a brilliant leader and help your colleagues and patients—and your own career—as much as possible.
What are these traits that mean nurses generally make great leaders? Here are a few examples:
- Communication
- Seeing the bigger picture
- A holistic outlook
- Having people skills
- Being able to solve problems
- Working well under pressure
- Making big decisions
- Collaboration and teamwork
As you can see, these skills are the same whether you’re a leader in nursing or in any other industry. It just so happens, however, that nurses have the advantage because they already possess many of these skills just by doing their daily work and learning all they can about what it takes to be an excellent nurse.
In other words, the step from nurse to nurse leader is not as big as you might think, and that means many more people can do it: perhaps you are one of them.
You Can Break Down Barriers
As a nurse, you know that nurse leadership is important. You know that it exists. However, this is not necessarily the case with the general public. They will, of course, know that nursing is a highly skilled job that not everyone can do, and they’ll know there is a lot of learning that has to take place before nurses can gain their qualifications, but that might be the extent of their knowledge.
However, the more nurses take on leadership positions, the more they can show the general public that there is more to nursing that most people think. They can show that nurse leadership and the hard work that goes into it can be the difference between a good healthcare experience and a bad one. It can even be the difference between life and death in some cases, which is not a fact that can be stated about many roles, and certainly not management ones.
The more people begin to understand what nursing is actually all about and the opportunities that exist within it, the more people might apply to become nurses. This is crucial as there is a nursing shortage, and so the more people who decide that nursing is for them, the better, as it will help to reduce this shortage. This, in turn, will help to improve the lives of many people who might otherwise not have been seen quite so quickly or helped quite so competently.
There Are Many Roles Available
Perhaps the reason that you’re not currently considering a leadership role as a nurse is that you don’t want to stop taking care of patients. You want to stay literally by their side, holding their hands, and helping them as much as possible. That’s why you became a nurse in the first place, after all.
In fact, as a nurse leader all of the patient care aspect of nursing that you love is still entirely possible. It simply depends on which role you take on once you have your leadership qualifications and experience. It might be that you take on a clinical nurse practitioner role, for example, meaning that patients are still your top priority, but you’ll also be leading a team. Or it could be, as mentioned above, that you choose to focus on teaching or another aspect of leadership that doesn’t involve hands-on patient care. It all depends on what you love most about nursing and what you want to get out of taking on a leadership role. Nursing comes in a variety of different forms, as does leadership. It only makes sense that when you combine the two, you have even more choice.
There Is High Demand
Another reason to consider a leadership role as a nurse is that nurse leaders are in high demand. In fact, nurses of all kinds are in high demand, but roles for RNs are filling up faster than anything else because this is the first step in nursing. As more people choose to become nurses, this is the role that will be taken first, as experience and additional qualifications will be necessary to move on from there.
If you already have the relevant experience and qualifications, there will be plenty of jobs available for you. There is a definite shortfall in the number of leadership roles in nursing and the number of people who can fill them. If you want a role in which you can truly have your pick of jobs and you can find one that works best for you, nurse leadership certainly fits the bill.
