Sorry about the unwieldy title, but Angie O'Plasty's thread on the all-too-common practice of 'weeding out' staff nurses has gotten me to wondering: How many of you have gone into management yourselves after leaving a staff-nursing position in which you were unfairly targeted or abused by an unscrupulous boss? And how has that experience affected the way you manage your own staff?
For those who are unfamiliar with it, the short version of my story is this: From March 2003 until December of last year, I worked as a float nurse on a unit where one of the two assistant department managers decided she was going to make life miserable for a few of us older, and perhaps slower, staff nurses. To this day I don't know why, because I was reliable, flexible, good with patients, technically competent, and easy to get along with, but she did, and for a year-and-a-half I was given some of the worst assignments, criticized for every single minor mistake or omission, told that my co-workers saw me as "unmotivated", driven hard, and generally made to feel I couldn't do anything right. Finally, after a year of stress-related illness and hospitalizations, I realized that nothing I did was ever going to be enough even if I killed myself doing it, and I left that job nine days before Christmas.
Fast-forward to the present time: I am now the director of health services for a 42-bed assisted living community, a position which is roughly the equivalent of a DON/DNS in a nursing home. I'm no stranger to supervision and management, having been a care manager and assistant DON in two different LTCs; but in this job I've been given a huge amount of leeway to use my creativity and independent judgment to make the position conform to my wishes and needs, as well as to oversee nursing services the way I see fit.
Now, nine months later, I've had mostly great results with my staff, most of whom are unlicensed caregivers with specialized training in medications and nursing skills. Being a relatively patient person, for the most part, I'm pretty laid-back when it comes to managing people (although I'm finding that this backfires now and again) and I like to facilitate their learning and growth, rather than micromanaging them the way I've had done to me. I don't call employees on every little mistake; I make a point to always look for the GOOD things they do and praise them. Even when I have to discipline someone, I try to do it in such a manner that it's a learning experience rather than a punitive one. In return, I expect workers to behave as responsible adults (if you're hung over out of your gourd, too bad---you STILL have to come to work in the morning) and to treat the residents as they would their own parents or grandparents, because if this is just a way to earn beer money, they need to go flip burgers or something!
This approach doesn't always work, of course (in fact, I've got a couple of disciplinary issues to deal with tomorrow morning:madface: ) but I'd rather put up with a little immaturity from otherwise good workers than grind them down and make them feel the way I did when I worked under that one assistant manager.
So now I'm curious about other nurses who have made the leap from being a staff nurse with little say and even less control over their working lives, to supervisory or executive roles with their own challenges, headaches, adversities, and successes. I'm still a little dizzy over the enormous changes that have taken place; I literally went from a frightened little mouse with a sharp-clawed, mean-tempered, and very hungry cat watching my every move, to a (relatively) self-confident authority figure in less than a year. Yet I know I'm not the only nurse who's been through something like it and learned to thrive, and I'd like to hear others' perspectives........not only from a manager's point of view, but from that cold, dark place we have come from as the targets of cruel, insensitive, power-hungry, inept, or just plain uncaring supervisors.
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
Thank you, Angie, that's one of the nicest things I've heard all week!
I was fortunate enough to 'inherit' a great staff for the most part. There are a couple of weak links, but overall they are hard-working and compassionate people. And yes, they do let me know they appreciate me......I get a lot of hugs and "I love you's", and most of the time they aren't even asking for anything.:wink2:
VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN
22 Articles; 9,996 Posts
Thank you, Angie, that's one of the nicest things I've heard all week!
I was fortunate enough to 'inherit' a great staff for the most part. There are a couple of weak links, but overall they are hard-working and compassionate people. And yes, they do let me know they appreciate me......I get a lot of hugs and "I love you's", and most of the time they aren't even asking for anything.:wink2: