Time to step down from management?

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Specializes in ICU.

To those who of you who have served in formal leadership positions (nurse manager, clinical supervisor, etc) what was the breaking point or decision factors that led you to step back down into a staff RN role?

was it one specific thing or a combination of events/items?

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Specializes in Hospice.

For me the decision to step from a manager role back into a staff role was a combination of several realizations; most importantly that I really enjoyed the hands on/ clinical aspects of nursing. I also realized that my personality is much more suited for non-management roles. I've also held clinical leadership roles (charge nurse), those I enjoy.

That's the beauty of nursing though, there are so many different roles available. Currently I'm a hospice case manager which is a great fit for me. Good luck in finding the right role for you!

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Specializes in Psychiatry, Community, Nurse Manager, hospice.

Interesting question and I look forward to the answers.

I was never a manager, but I was a charge nurse. I left that position because I had no real authority over the people I delegated to, but I was still held responsible for every decision they made. To make it worse, I was also blamed for the physician's decisions, even though I was quite good at questioning orders when I needed to. I left. I am not responsible for anyone else's work anymore. I actually have a lot more autonomy at my current job even though I am not in a leadership position. Go figure. Workplace culture is everything.

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Specializes in Dialysis.

When I was a DON in an LTC, I stepped down when I was spending more time there than at home, and corporate management wanted me to spend more time there and gave me grief about it. 70-80 hrs a week is ridiculous! And they haven't kept a DON for longer than 6 months since. I did it for 2 years (stupidly!)

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Specializes in ICU.
3 hours ago, vampiregirl said:

For me the decision to step from a manager role back into a staff role was a combination of several realizations; most importantly that I really enjoyed the hands on/ clinical aspects of nursing. I also realized that my personality is much more suited for non-management roles. I've also held clinical leadership roles (charge nurse), those I enjoy.

That's the beauty of nursing though, there are so many different roles available. Currently I'm a hospice case manager which is a great fit for me. Good luck in finding the right role for you!

When you say your personality was suited for non-management roles...please describe? As in not liking to “have” to be the voice of authority?

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Specializes in Hospice.

Being the voice of authority didn't specifically bother me.

I function best in an environment in which expectations are clear (to both management and employees), rules/ policies are consistently enforced and managers support each other. Unfortunately where I was in management, this was not the environment I was working in and there was no interest from upper management in changing at the time. I wasn't comfortable asking employees to do things I wouldn't do myself (pick up crazy/ unhealthy numbers of hours etc). I didn't feel like we were taking care of our employees and this reflected in the care we were providing. This just sit well with me and eventually I left this position on good terms.

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Specializes in M/S, Pulmonary, Travel, Homecare, Psych..

I've been in management roles three times.

First: This position ended because I moved. It would have ended eventually for other reasons not at all unlike the ones that made me step away from management in the future. Lack of autonomy (nurses on the floor think this is a problem.........whoa it gets so much worse in management roles) in decision making, lack of staffing (this place simply refused to admit their short staffing was leading to bad outcomes..........it was always someone else's fault) and a general comfort level with poor outcomes by those above me that turned me off.

Second: This was the one I wanted to work. It did not. I stayed in this position much longer than I should have.

Same things I mentioned above were the problem: People above me were too comfortable with poor outcomes, facility refusing to staff itself and not being able to make my own decisions on too many things.

Third: I'm not one to keep walking into the same wall and expect a different outcome. I was begged to take this position, and it was a temporary position. I did it for nine months, a month longer than I was supposed to. They had trained my replacement before I left. Left on good terms but.........

.......everything I mentioned above was going on again, and had I not known it was temporary and going to end..........I'd have ended it.

Most admin. in medical facilities like to hire, what I call "lever pullers" into middle management. They want people who pull whatever lever they're told to pull without question or regard for how it affects the patient outcome. They do not want out of the box thinking or anything else. Just pull they lever you're told to pull, and pull it well. And throw a nurse bellow you under the bus when pulling said lever ends up being the wrong decision.

For me, medical leadership has too much of a "Can't have it any way but my way, but it's everyone else's fault when my way doesn't work" approach for there to be improvements on the system made.

So, knowing this, I don't join the song and dance with them.

I'm not much of a lever puller. I have self will and independent thinking and all sorts of other things that just doesn't mesh with that role well.

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I left a middle mgt position when I figured out there are many good nurses, there are many good managers but that there are few good nurse managers. I was a good nurse ?

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I love my job and made a natural transition into management from a staff nurse to lower level management (supervisor) to finally manager. The reason why I am going to be leaving (aside from the fact I have a new degree I want to put to use) is that we have spent the last 4 years talking about the same thing and circling the drain with the same issues! It is almost nauseated to sit at mandatory meetings where voices are not heard and the agenda of investors and shareholders is priority but if the just listened to 'the people' they would realize even greater potential of not only money but employee and customer satisfaction. We have taken on a mentality that everyone is expendable and work good people until they quit and spend time and money finding new people instead of just preventing that from happening.

My job has been really supportive and I have done things I always wanted to do (get better at being a leader and managing and organizing processes) but beyond that there is little room for opinions on how to make real change work.

I've seen so many people come and go I am tired of picking up the slack, training people, answering to why something impossible didn't happen.

Companies need to learn the difference between lifting their 'lid' and being delusional.

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I left a middle management position because of several reasons. The administration up the ladder were all replaced with consultants and new hire husband/wife administrator-DON team. They were really good at telling everyone what was required but not in providing guidance in how to accomplish the goals.

I also left a position because a nurse that I was supervising made more money than I did and had much fewer responsibilities. When she left I took her position, unfortunately they still took advantage of me by removing my QMA and almost doubling my patient load to boot within the first month of working the job. I ended up leaving that one too. A person can only take so much abuse. After I left they did a huge hire on and created several new nursing positions, wish they had done that when I was there, I would have never left.

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