What makes a good manager?

roseynurse345 · May 24, 2017

When your staff wants to leave or transfer to other units, be gracious about it. Don't take it personally and

try to sabotage it for them.

3ringnursing, BSN · May 24, 2017

Someone who can jump in and help when staffing is short. And someone who is there for the staff when the need is most great (problem with X, death in the family, etc.). Someone who has the back of their team - who also watches the manager's back in turn.

ppfd, BSN, EMT-P · May 24, 2017

I work in a free standing ED for the local hospital so "we" are away from the typical BS. I've had the pleasure of knowing my manager before either of us got into nursing. She ran EMS as I did and do on occasion still.

My opinion, if managers operated the way mine does, there would be a huge difference in morale everywhere. This lady does more and goes above her salary and job specs. As laid back as they come, fair, personable, comes out of the office and works when needed and she does the work of 10 people! She has to do her share of butt kissing I'm sure but we hardly see it and knowing her it is as little as possible.

Just got a new nurse to the ED that came from the floor in our hospital. The things they had to say and do was so off the wall it was comical.

dec2007 · May 24, 2017

I've had good managers and bad ones, too. The good ones will listen to the story, the problem, both sides of the argument before reacting.
The good managers will support their employees and then, if required, discipline them behind the scenes. I had a colleague make a really dumb mistake, and she made it in the middle of physician rounds. Voices were heard loudly exclaiming about the morons that work in this ICU, and how did someone so stupid make it through nursing school. The manager went in, defused the situation, told the physicians they needed to apologize for their rudeness toward her nurse (and waited until they did) and then whisked the nurse into her office for a little talk. Only after my colleague was done crying over being humiliated so publically did the manager discuss the actual mistake with her. And although not everyone knows it, there was discipline involved as well. The bad ones -- and this was me -- will pile on publically and then never seek out the rest of the story. "Did you, Ruby, tell Dr. Iusedtobeapathologistandamnowtryingoutcardiacsurgery that he was a moron?" "No, ma'am. I only told him that if he wanted to do a heart transplant on every patient who had a cardiac tamponade, he'd better have a cousin in the enforcer business to go around and line up donors for us. He told me that only an idiot would say that to a man who had just finished telling a patient's wife her husband was going to die without a transplant, so I told him that only a moron would talk to the wife about a heart transplant without at least checking with his Fellow about opening the chest because the experienced ICU told him his patient had a tamponade and he needed to get on it NOW rather than after his pizza break." (OK -- I was somewhat more tactful -- but the manager didn't understand my POINT. The patient had a tamponade -- needed to be fixed now. He didn't need a transplant, although he would have needed a pine box had the charge nurse not dragged the Fellow out of the OR -- the resident was so sure he was right and I was wrong he wouldn't even PAGE him -- and we opened the chest.) She told me I needed to apologize to Iusedtobeapathologistandamnowtryingoutcardiacsurgery; the Cardiac Surgery Fellow brought HIM to apologize to ME.
A bad manager tells you that if you need Wednesday off because the biopsy came back positive and the HMO's only oncologist is only available on Wednesday in the clinic three hours away, you'll need to find your own replacement. A good manager asks you how you're doing, and if Wednesday is the absolute soonest you can get an appointment and if she can call her friend who is the oncologist's scheduler's mother to see about getting you in sooner. And by the way, I've taken you off the schedule for Wednesday and if you need any other days off, please let me know.
A poor manager hears about you being on your cell phone all day while your orientee (who is nearing the end of her orientation) and tells you that you're obviously not fit to precept. A good manager asks you if anything is going on at home, because you're not usually on the phone at work. When you tell her that Mom has Alzheimer's and your sister programmed your cell phone number into Mom's direct dial and Mom has been calling you all day looking for your father, who died two years ago, a good manager takes you off the schedule so that you can fly home and sort out Mom's living situation, faxes the FMLA papers to you in hour home town that is so small there's no cell phone coverage and sends you an Edible Arrangement because that's all you have the time and energy to eat.
A bad manager accosts you at 7:35, waves your rhythm strip which is already analyzed and signed in your face and says "This is inadequate charting." A good manager wanders by at 7:35, sees that you've already posted your rhythm strip and says "Good -- now we'll have documentation that he actually WAS in atrial fib so that cardiology resident will have to believe that nurses can distinguish A fib from that other rhythm."
A good manager either knows the job and can do it well, or understands the outlines of the job and trusts her staff to do the job well and believes them when they tell her that they need more X, Y and Z and perhaps someone could talk to Dr. Dick and explain to him that "Yes, nurses can analyze a rhythm and if he ever again refuses to come when called because of a serious dysrhythmia, she'll be having a talk about it with the Highest Head Honcho of Doctoring." A bad manager will talk to her nurses about not pestering Dr. Dick at nigh because he needs his sleep.

This is eloquent and accurate!!! My only addition to the "bad manager" list is this: managers should not hire, nor protect from firing, incompetent friends and relatives.

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · May 25, 2017

It's been along time since I've felt like I worked for a good manager... but I'm VERY familiar with bad ones.

A good manager doesn't stand in the middle of a unit filled with patients, family members, consultants and others and scream at a nurse for some unproven error.

A good manager understands the job well enough to know what's realistic to expect a person to do and what's an absolute impossibility.

A good manager is visible and approachable to his/her staff, in a way that doesn't make them want to hide when they see him/her coming.

A good manager knows that every additional paper I have to handle, every new assessment I have to score, every new protocol I have to follow, every new research project started on the unit, will add to my workload and take time away from something else.

A good manager will ensure that each employee is doing their job, their WHOLE job, every day. I don't have time to file all the chart copies of lab reports, track down an aide to help me with linen changes and turns, go to three different supply carts for the items needed to start tube feeds and any number of other tasks that are part of someone else's job description on top of my own.

A good manager consults with his/her staff when changes are being made to ensure their points of view are considered. This applies to purchasing new equipment - don't ask us to evaluate several options and then go ahead and buy the one nobody liked because they're not user-friendly for one reason or another... or they aren't going to do what we need them to do. This applies to process changes - the people who are actually DOING the job will know better than anyone else what's going to work and what's just going to make their jobs more difficult.

A good manager knows enough about his/her employees to know what their strengths are and acknowledges them for their skills and abilities through assignments appropriate to their rung on the clinical ladder and through fair distribution of responsibilities.

A good manager knows that recognizing individuals for their good work, even privately, can more than balance out criticism for their their slips. It's unbelievably patronizing to send out a mass email telling staff what great team players they are, how hard they work, who much their efforts are appreciated after a horrendous shift that they've just survived without any help from those in higher pay grades. It doesn't really validate their value in anyone's eyes. In the same way, sending out a mass email castigating the entire group for errors made by one or two really isn't a great strategy.

A good manager makes the effort to be visible to those who don't work banker's hours. When the people who work nights have never even met their manager, that's a problem.

And finally, a good manager doesn't desert his/her staff in the middle of sweeping changes occurring on their unit that affect EVERY aspect of their working lives. That's going to kill morale deader than dead.