their focus on a healthy bottom line, servant leaders make sure an organization improves its community, region, and nation.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is a component of leadership and refers to the capacity to accurately perceive and express emotion, to use feelings to inform and guide thinking, to understand the meanings of emotions and to manage emotions for personal and social growth (Goleman, 1998). Emotional intelligence consists of social and emotional skills enabling the capacity to interact with understanding and respect, resolve conflicts, withstand stress and adversity to persevere. Better performance and job success have been attributed to emotional intelligence, whereas problems with interpersonal relationships and difficulty adapting occur when emotional intelligence is low or absent. Emotional intelligence is necessary for nurses to maintain a calm and professional demeanor in emergency situations, to participate effectively in teams and groups and to navigate interpersonal issues and adversity.
Emotional intelligence includes five basic emotional and social competencies: i.e., Self‐awareness, Self‐regulation, Motivation, Empathy, and Social skills (Table 1.3).
Table 1.3 Emotional Intelligence (EI)
| Emotional and social competencies | Examples for a beginning nurse leader | |
|---|---|---|
| Self‐awareness | Knowing what you are feeling in the moment and using your preferences to guide your decision making; having a realistic assessment of your own abilities and a well‐grounded sense of self‐confidence | Recognizing fatigue and feeling a bit drained after admitting a new patient and getting another patient off to surgery; rather than skipping a break, thinking that the break time will help with catching up, the EI nurse uses self‐awareness to decide it would be best to take the break. She checks in with the charge nurse and then hands‐off assigned patients and uses the time to rest and refresh. |
| Self‐regulation | Handling your emotions so that they facilitate rather than interfere with the task at hand; being conscientious and delaying gratification to pursue goals; and recovering well from emotional distress | Discovering that a medication error has occurred can create emotional distress ranging from fear of what peers will think, fears that you did something that might have caused patient harm, to feeling less than adequate as a nurse. The EI nurse will manage those emotions in the moment to focus on reporting the error, examining how it happened, and being open to learning and taking action to prevent a future occurrence. |
| Motivation | Using your deepest preferences to move and guide you toward your goals, to help you take initiative and strive to improve, and to persevere in the face of setbacks and frustrations | A goal for a new nurse is to pursue becoming board certified in a selected area of nursing. For example, the certification for critical care nurses is the Critical Care Registered Nurse (CCRN); for oncology nurses, the certification is Oncology Certified Nurse (OCN). After completing a review course and taking the certification exam, a nurse receives results that show she didn't pass the exam. At first, she is embarrassed and feels that she isn't smart enough. As an EI nurse, she realizes that this setback isn't going to prevent her from reaching her goals. She also takes initiative and asks for help to guide her preparation to retake the exam in the future. |
| Empathy | Sensing what people are feeling; being able to take their perspective; cultivating rapport and being in tune with a broad diversity of people | As the nurse walks into the patient's room planning to change the patient's dressing, the patient begins to cry. The EI nurse realizes that the patient's emotional distress is a priority and she takes time to comfort the patient and acknowledge the patient's need to express her feelings. |
| Social Skills | Handling emotions in relationships well and accurately reading social situations and networks; interacting smoothly; using these social skills to persuade, lead, negotiate, and settle disputes, and for cooperation and teamwork | Interacting smoothly at change of shift can require the EI nurse to recognize when the situation with a peer is not going well. It's important to not take it personally but rather to acknowledge if another's expectations were not met. Then say what you can/will do and explore what you need to do for continued teamwork. |
Real World Interview
Transformational leadership encourages the retention of nurses through job satisfaction. Initially, it is important for a beginning nurse to have structure and supportive supervision. The nurse leader should be visible and approachable. The younger generation generally wants meaningful work, feedback, continuous learning, and flexibility for balancing activities. Transformational leadership fosters healthy staff‐focused workplaces through such techniques as shared organizational goals, learning opportunities for career development, rewards and recognition, empowerment, autonomy, employee health programs, and shared governance. That facilitates quality of care, and consequently, job satisfaction and nurse retention.
Anne Marriner‐Tomey, PhD, RN
Author, Guide to Nursing Management and Leadership
Professor Emerita
Indiana State University‐College of Nursing
Terre Haute, Indiana
Nursing Leadership during the Pandemic
The COVID‐19 Pandemic began as an active crisis in 2020, causing thousands of deaths. Now more than ever, nurses, as leaders and managers, were responding to protect patients, family, friends, the public, and members of the interprofessional health care team, including nurses. Situations not thought plausible had become reality. The American Nurses Association Response to the COVID‐19 Pandemic document highlights Nursing's response and illustrates one of the ways that nurses have always answered the call to serve their patients, their country, and communities during times of crisis.
Doctors and nurses were dying because of lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies; not just in one country, but in many. Nurses were being fired for voicing truths, such as hospital PPE shortages; how could we protect transparency and patient safety? Nurses had to demonstrate leadership in safeguarding their patients and themselves.
This situation has put a magnifying glass on the errors in many world health care systems and shows that some health care systems and governments prepared and responded better than others. The Pandemic has brought a plethora of opportunities and critical needs for nursing and also underscores our need for data‐driven decisions. Nurses' voices need to be heard and this is a call for you to use yours. An incomplete list of opportunities and critical needs for nursing leaders includes: (see COVID‐19 and disaster planning p. 15)
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COVID‐19 and Disaster PlanningNursing Membership on Boards of Directors and other Decision‐Making GroupsEnsuring protection and safety for all health care workersDisaster Preparedness and Preparedness TrainingTelemedicineOrganization of patient care for large groups of patientsGlobal disease managementSupply chain issuesInformation and communicationCommunity health nursingNursing educationAdvanced practiceRacism and blamingEconomic impacts on healthcarePopulation HealthMental Health Care Management, e.g., Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Depression, Anxiety, Addiction, Abuse, etc.Ethical issuesPolitical,
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