22// Leadership Support Missing? How to Grow Your Nursing Career Without It

Ever felt like you're on autopilot in your nursing career, just going with the flow of where the job takes you? It's time to grab the wheel and steer your professional journey toward meaningful growth and fulfillment. 

With insights gleaned from the Florence Challenge, today's episode is a guide for nurses looking to transform their careers from the inside out—without waiting for leadership's green light. 

If you've ever questioned how to assert your worth as a nurse, both in the workplace and during job interviews, then this conversation is your compass. I discuss the importance of stewardship in healthcare, exploring how owning your career path can cultivate a culture where titles are secondary to your impact. 

From mastering the art of delegation to fostering accountability among peers, I'll share practical strategies that strengthen professional development and empower you to communicate the value you bring to the table confidently. 

So, prepare to have your perspective on nursing refreshed and your ambition reignited, as we unravel what it truly means to take ownership of your career in healthcare.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

In the last episode I introduced the Florence Challenge based on the book the Florence Prescription From Accountability to Ownership Manifesto for a Positive Healthcare Culture. Yes, you can have a positive healthcare culture. Challenge reminds us that taking care of the sick, taking care of our patients, should be a mission, not just a business, and being a nurse or healthcare professional should be a calling, not just a job. Again, I refer back to my previous episode I believe it was episode 20, episode. I believe it was episode 20, where I talked about deciphering are you job-minded or are you career-minded? But what the Florence Challenge includes is being emotionally positive, being self-empowered and fully engaged. I am using this book to bring in a twist on how it helps you grow your career.

Speaker 1: 1:05

Many of us believe that our leadership or others should help us grow our careers. We'd like for that to be the case. Their leaders would like for that to be the case. They understand that that is part of it. Sometimes it's not your leadership fault, your leadership's fault or your manager's fault and they're not able to invest the time in helping you to grow because, more than likely, it's because they may be overwhelmed. But to some point that is true, but will less likely be the case in most cases. I've been in nursing for over 19 years It'll be 20 years this year in July and so I've ebbed and flowed through a lot of leaders understanding their abilities or maybe lack of abilities to support you in leadership. Every person can grow their careers without nursing leadership support, but you have to take ownership of the actions or inaction, the actions that you don't take to grow your careers. Nurse podcast, where I provide tips, tools and resources for the experienced nurse to put in your career bag to help you be a better person, a better leader, a better professional and, most of all, a better nurse. I'm your host, bonnie Meadows, a career coach and a clinical nurse specialist with over 18 years of experience in healthcare and nursing. It's my passion to help experienced nurses develop their careers to impact health care and their communities.

Speaker 1: 2:57

I was at a point in my career my nursing career where my boss was not helping me grow. In fact, she was doing the opposite. I had just moved from a job in risk management. I was good where I was, so going to quality was going to be icing on the cake. I was about six months from obtaining my first master's degree in nursing, with a focus in health systems management and a job in quality would allow me to use it more. Plus, there was no upward, there was not a lot of room for upward movement in risk management, and that's what I was looking for. I wasn't looking for. I was looking for a lot of out, some outward movement, but at that point my mind was on advancement yes, growth, because I was doing things that in my career that was helping me to grow. But I wanted advancement and so, like you, I desired a little bit more for my career and I wanted a change. But I was good if I didn't get the job. So I made it to my dream position as an outcome specialist.

Speaker 1: 4:15

This position was supposed to set me up for a very progressive career path in quality management and in other areas of health care. It provided me a lot of exposure where, on a regular basis, on a regular basis, on a weekly basis in risk management, I would work with CMOs and chief nursing officers. But in this other position, it was not just the hospitals that I covered, but it was a system wide position. Where it was, there were still presidents that I interacted with VPs, svps, executive vice presidents. So it was it was going to set me up and the leadership support I needed just was not there. Other people were bullying her and it stunned my growth, so much so that she suggested I look for another job, and I was in agreement because it was just not.

Speaker 1: 5:13

I wrestled with it for a while, because as nurses we don't give up, and at that point in time I'd had my gosh. I'd come off of maybe like a four-year time frame four or five-year time frame where my reviews were exceeds expectations. So, although that job was teaching me a lot of lessons, one of the things that I had to keep in mind is that I'm not a bad employee and I had to also keep at the forefront of my mind the things that I needed to work on. But I also kept in perspective. This is not all my fault, and I'm usually one who will take on a lot. I take my responsibility for those things that I am responsible for, and so I had held on as long as I could to do better in the role. But, as one of my colleagues said, oh my, we failed you in your orientation and I'm so sorry, and this was after I'd started looking for another job. Even my other co-workers were like, yeah, that's a great idea. It just never got better. But two months before I left I got a new boss who was more supportive and I could tell my growth had shifted. But it was too late. It was time for me to move on. She kept asking me are you sure you want to leave? Now, that was a huge pivot in my career time because I recently had somewhat of the same conversation from a job that I just left, of a new boss coming in and saying are you sure you want to leave? Like we could really like you could stay. If you really want to stay, you could stay, and so I. But back then I told her, yes, it's time for me to go, and that was the one of the best moves I made in my career.

Speaker 1: 7:18

Nurses stay stagnant because they feel like they have no other choice or this is just the way it will be and they just settle there and stay miserable, or they leave the profession. Leaving the profession is not always the answer, because there are so many options in healthcare than just not than just being a nurse. There are so many options in healthcare, even in nursing. Honestly, it's definitely changed in my 20 years as far as the options that are available. We are at a point, though, where we are at a crux in the profession, where the options are many more, so that it's much easier for the nurse at the bedside to leave the hospital or to stay within the hospital setting. But do something just a little bit different in order to contribute. But do something just a little bit different in order to contribute, and so, in this episode, you'll learn how to use the elements of the Florence Challenge of ownership to grow your career. Without leadership.

Speaker 1: 8:35

Ownership is when we aspire to be committed to our core values, especially those that match the organization. We are engaged in our work and with our co-workers, and we take pride in our work and in our profession, and that ownership that we have is a culture that is built within us. That ownership that we have is a culture that is built within us, so I take the culture of ownership with me wherever I go, and people can see it on me. This is one of the major ways that you can show your value to the organization, and it helps you to validate yourself also at the same time. Like this is a give and take, we always think, oh well, what's in it for me and, yes, we definitely want to know what's in it for us, but we also have to understand the tangibles and the intangibles that we are able to provide to the organization. And so, with ownership, there are three things under ownership, under the big umbrella of ownership, that we can really focus on, and then under that, there are ways in which you can incorporate ownership. So that's more so the how are we going to do this?

Speaker 1: 10:03

With ownership, we are focused on our commitment to our values, our own vision and mission and the organization's vision and mission, and we're making sure those two line up at all times. And so, even though someone, I would challenge you that, if you are in a difficult situation within your job, your nursing job, go back to find the company's vision and mission and you read that and you look at that, because if that's what they're saying but they're not doing it, then we we need to have some conversations, because I can guarantee you that somewhere in that organization, someone, some leader, is carrying it out, and sometimes you need to make a move. Or if you feel like the entire organization is opposite of what they're saying their vision and mission is, then you have some decisions to make. But back to ownership, commitment to your values, vision and mission and the organizations. That looks like engagement, and so I talked about being fully engaged, being fully present physically and emotionally, and then having a passion, loving your work and letting it show. And I listen, you're not going to have a passion for everything that you do, but anytime you get to do those things that do bring you joy, you find ways to do it. Find ways to do those things within your work that do bring you joy. So, if it's working on a project, if it's teaching, if it's rewriting a policy, if it's doing clinical inquiry and doing analysis of data, like any of those things, if it's patient education, if it's mentoring another nurse, find ways to insert your passion into your everyday work so that you're not always focused on what's not going right and what you don't like about work. These are the ways, these are the elements of ownership that you need in order to grow your career, because when you get some of these things lined up, then you're able to have a better vision about where you want to go and you're able to start journaling, writing down, understanding your value, and then you're able to articulate that to others.

Speaker 1: 12:46

Okay, so here are some other tangible ways to incorporate ownership or to be an owner of your career growth process. The first one is being an owner and not a renter. No one changes the oil in a rental car, so anytime you say that's not my job, or you walk by a patient's room where the call light is on, you don't stop pick up a piece of paper on the floor when your hands are empty. You're renting a space in the organization. You're not taking ownership of your work, and then that shows to others. There are people all around you. Shows to others. There are people all around you. You're always interviewing. From the moment you step foot on the floor to however many years you have been in nursing, you are always interviewing. And so even in the places where you might just be there for a short period of time, you can take on a spirit or culture of ownership. Even in the short period that you are there, you do that by taking. You do that by stewardship. You're stewarding the resources that are around you.

Speaker 1: 14:08

People tend to be better stewards of things that they own than of things that they rent, and you don't want to rent out your career to someone else. You don't want to rent out your growth to someone else by expecting someone else to do those things. You want to be an owner and say it's my job to do these things. And then that way, you show up in an interview 15 years later in front of someone who you knew 15 years ago, clear across the country, and they say, ah yes, this person. They might've been in the float pool or, although they were a traveler, I liked their work ethic. They are our owner. They took ownership of their patients. They took ownership of the work that they did.

Speaker 1: 14:59

Now I'm not saying be a doormat. I'm not saying you say yes to everything Again. That's where boundaries come in. That's where we think about the essential things that take us to the next level Stewardship, being an owner and not a renter. And how do we do that? We apply stewardship and we just become a better steward of the things that we have, those things that are around us. That helps to develop a culture of ownership within yourself.

Speaker 1: 15:31

Do your part. We're always looking at what others are not doing. Make sure you do your part. And sometimes that can be hard in health care, because you are doing your part and then you're doing 50 other jobs at the same time. But if that is happening, there are ways to set boundaries and say no without harming your patients. But you know that if you just focus on doing your part, you can actually change your growth for the better. And then you bring others in around you to help them to do their part. So you start delegating to them and creating this sense of belonging, because belonging is one of the parts of creating a culture of ownership where you work. But then it creates a level of ownership within each individual to create a collective ownership. Again, doing your part shows teamwork, it shows that you know how to work well with others and it shows you know how to lead.

Speaker 1: 16:40

Next point, number three take initiative even when you don't have a title. I am what I would say. What others would call me is an influential leader. I have been in several leadership positions and not a management position. But does that make me not a leader? No, it doesn't, because I still lead people and I would argue that my job as an influential leader is harder than a nurse manager's job, because I have to make you move, I have to help, encourage you to move on this thing and I don't sign your check You're just going off of. I trust them, I trust what they're saying to me, so I'm going to do it. And so, even though you may have been looking for jobs where you want to grow as a manager, or whatever the case may be, sometimes growth looks like going into leadership positions, and not necessarily manager positions. So open your open your eyes to that.

Speaker 1: 17:58

But you can practice it where you are right now by taking initiative, even when you don't have a title. And when you do that, you you see what needs to be done and you take action. You proceed until apprehended. So you see something that's wrong on the unit and you say, okay, I want to do a project on that. Or you go to your nurse leader and you say I see this as an issue. Can we do a project on such and such and such? More than likely they will say yes. Or they will say, okay, well, you can partner with me on this.

Speaker 1: 18:34

I had someone ask me once before, like how do I let my manager know that I want to be involved in more projects? You ask them what they're working on. Or you see an issue and you try to solve it. But there are two ways to do that. You either take initiative on something that has been a problem, that you see that your manager might be having a struggle getting their arms around and you partner with that manager, or you get nosy about what they're doing and what they're involved in and you ask questions and then you pick and choose on what you want to get involved in. They have a laundry list of things that you could take initiative on but proceed until apprehended.

Speaker 1: 19:19

That is how you grow, that is how you take ownership, and not waiting on someone to come to you and say, hey, can you, would you? No, you do it, take ownership. And then, lastly, you create a spirit of ownership where you hold people accountable for showing up on time and for fulfilling the terms of what they are supposed to do, what they have committed to do. How do you do that? You're like how do I do that? I don't, I can't hold anybody accountable. I can't. Yes, you can. Peer-to-peer accountability is huge. It's huge.

Speaker 1: 20:04

I worked in a unit where we had strong peer-to-peer accountability, but what it takes is one being in fellowship, being a friend and having friends at work or having a good rapport. So it doesn't. You don't necessarily have to be friends, because things can get cliquish, but you can have a good rapport with people without being friends, because you're open, you're ready to help, and then you have pride in your profession and where you work and yourself. And having pride means working to stay on top of whatever is the newest literature, making sure that you're coming to work in a professional manner and having a professional thought process. All of these things help you to take ownership of your career so that you can grow. They may be intangible, but they help your mindset to grow beyond where you are, and then you end up taking that with you when you go on a job interview. So then they start to see your leadership skills. You can then better articulate what value you bring to the position, which then leads to you getting the job.

Speaker 1: 21:27

But here's another bonus point All of these things help you to get clarity on your next step. How is that, bonnie? Because when you do these things, you start to tease out what you like, what you don't like, what you have a passion for, what you don't have a passion for, and then you start to tease out what you like, what you don't like, what you have a passion for, what you don't have a passion for, and then you start to think, okay, I want to do more of that thing. Or sometimes you might have five things and then you just got to make a decision on the route that you want to pursue. But we're always going to have many options for whatever route we want to go. But taking ownership of your career and your career growth starts with being an owner and not a renter. Doing your part, taking initiative even when you don't have a title, and then you creating a spirit of ownership within yourself and where you work, and you will be surprised at how your growth will accelerate from there. Thanks.

Speaker 1: 22:37

Thanks for joining us this week on the Ambitious Nurse Podcast. To review the show notes and any links mentioned in today's episode, please go to theambitiousnursepodcastcom. If you enjoyed this conversation, follow or subscribe so you don't miss a future episode. Also, please consider leaving a rating review and or comment about what you want to hear. This helps more nurses, just like you find this podcast. Thank you for joining me, bonnie Meadows, on the Ambitious Nurse Podcast. I look forward to chatting with you the next time. And remember you don't have to grow your career alone. As iron sharpens iron, one person sharpens another. Thank you for letting me sharpen you as you take this knowledge to sharpen the next.