5 Nurse Leaders Who are Making a Difference

Effective leadership requires putting staff at the forefront, as these examples illustrate.

HealthLeaders recently saluted five nurse leaders during National Nurses Week who have taken solid steps to lift up and take care of those around them.

Here's a look at those five who go above and beyond:

1. Winnie Mele, RN, on caring for caregivers

Giving nurses what they need is crucial to Winnie Mele, director of perioperative services at Northwell Health's Plainview Hospital.

"One of the reasons why our employee engagement in perioperative services so high is that we really do care about people," she says. "I'm from a big family and it's always about the other guy, so when I was putting together the leadership team over the last 10 years, my mission was to hire people that have that same vision."

Schedule flexibility is a large part of that, she says.

"As hard as it is when someone says, 'I need to take my mother for a CT scan,' or 'My daughter has a dance recital,' we try to connect with the person and give them what they need," she says.

Mele encourages her nurses to practice self-care and seek joy.

"If you like to knit, if you like to sing, if you like to run or ride a bike, you really need to do it, because during the pandemic, we put a lot of that away because we had no time," she says. "Now, we're encouraging them to get back to whatever it is that they'd like to do."

"If your cup is empty, you can't really help anybody else," she says. "You need to fill your cup to be effective and do the best work that you can."

2. Deborah Washington, PhD, RN, on the value of nurses

The nursing profession is "valued but well-kept secret" that needs to take a big step forward in becoming a player in healthcare's power structure, says Deborah Washington, PhD, RN, Massachusetts General Hospital's DEI health and community partnerships manager.

"What I find to be problematic in this discipline I love is that when we problem solve, we tend to speak only to each other within the system," she says. "The missing piece that COVID has taught me is that the trusted messenger conversations have opened up the realization that nursing leaders need to create a public discourse around the value of the discipline and the difference it makes in terms of healthcare."

To do that, nurse leaders must engage in the media, on social media, and in other public venues to talk about the value of nurses and the difference they make, Washington says.

"We need to be more audacious in terms of using our organizational power, our positional power, and the influence that we have in terms of our voice and values, and by that I mean, having the chutzpah to create programs to address the problems that are of concern to us," she says.

"We need to step out from under medicine or the organizational name and step out of the name of our discipline," she says. "And we need to exercise the power we have in order to make that choice."

3. Mary Sullivan Smith, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, on mindfulness training

When Mary Sullivan Smith, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, was pursuing her Doctor of Nursing Practice degree, she chose as her capstone project, "Mindfulness training for acute care nurses to promote a healthy workplace."

That's because as a nurse, as well as senior vice president, chief operating officer, and chief nursing officer of New England Baptist Hospital, Sullivan Smith knew that nurses busy with patient care generally don't take time to take care of themselves.

Smith Sullivan received her DNP in 2020, and research from that project has resulted in wellness programs at New England Baptist.

"I thought there must be ways to incorporate some of the some more healthy habits into the organization … and that's when I started looking into opportunities," she says. "Establishing a mindfulness practice is beneficial in so many ways, but it certainly hits that those areas that I was concerned about—caring for others more than oneself and not taking enough time to hydrate and get good nutrition."

She partnered with a certified mindfulness instructor who created short mindfulness meditations and taught nurses how to center themselves.

"Not only did the nurses take advantage of it, but other disciplines as well because we put them on Zoom and invited people to participate," Smith Sullivan says.

"Once I finished with the pilot project, I introduced this into our nurse residency program, so one of the aspects of our curriculum is on wellness and self-care and they learn the benefit of meditation."

4. K. David Bailey, PhD, RN, MBA, CCRN-K, NEA-BAC, FACHE, on mentoring

Though K. David Bailey, PhD, RN, MBA, CCRN-K, NEA-BAC, FACHE, chief nursing officer at UCLA Health-Santa Monica Medical Centers, admittedly didn't recognize earlier in his career the advantages and benefits a mentor could provide, he's become a champion of mentorship.

Not only does he have several mentors, but he mentors multiple nurses and healthcare employees, as well.

"For the mentee, the benefit is having that safe space for anything to be discussed. There's no sacred cows that can't be discussed there," he says. "For the mentor, you can use the wisdom that you have earned and learned across your career, and you can provide (mentees) insights without telling them the way they need to do it."

Being a good mentor requires some basics, such as trust Bailey says.

"You have to be able to have open and honest communication, whether things are going well, or especially if they're not," he says.

Good mentors listen, rather than doing all the talking, and they have presence, Bailey says.

"There's some emerging literature coming out about the importance of nursing leadership presence, which is more recognized since the pandemic. But having presence demonstrates that you are walking the talk and that you really are following through," he says.

"It really illustrates to your mentee and to others that you're authentic and that you are supporting them," he says, "but you're also living by what you're talking about."

5. Maria Knecht, RN, MSN, NE-BC on growing nurse leaders

With fewer nurses stepping into leadership, it's up to today's nurse leaders to boost those numbers by understanding current workforce's needs and adjusting those leadership roles to focus on quality rather than quantity, says Maria Knecht, RN, MSN, NE-BC, vice president of nursing and clinical operations at NorthShore University HealthSystem's Glenbrook Hospital.

"When you look at work-life balance and all of those issues, sometimes folks of my generation and in the role that I am in are not always the best role models," she says.

"We have to abandon this whole notion of seven days a week, and 10- and 12-hour days, and give people permission [to be away], like we do here. My leadership team does a good job of saying, 'I'm out tomorrow. I don't want an email. I don't get paged. My co-workers are going to cover me.'  And there's a lot of peer support to get that balance."

Once Knecht has recognized a potential leader, she provides them leadership opportunities, such as serving on a task force or leading a project, she says.

"As leaders, we have to be very deliberate about giving them more opportunities," she says.

"The one thing we've not always done well in nursing is good succession planning," Knecht says. "You [must] identify those people very early—maybe it's years ahead of time—and put them on a very formalized path to get them to where they need to be."