3 Competencies of a Successful Nurse Leader

A growth mindset, emotional intelligence, and innovation create a workplace where nurses want to stay.

A hospital or health system's nurse recruiting strategy may be successful, but retaining them requires the skills and management of effective nurse leaders, says Sara Groff, MSN, CMSRN, RN-BC, MedStar Health's senior nursing director for Oncology and Surgical Services.

These three competencies can help nurse leaders create the kind of workplace environment that successfully encourages nurses to stay where they are, Groff says.

1. A growth mindset

Nurse leaders must focus on progressive career development for their nurses, Groff says.

"An operations leader used to get that role and stay in that role for quite some time, whether it be at a unit level or senior level, and that's not the nursing workforce or the workforce in general anymore," Groff says.

Instead, nurse leaders must recognize their rising stars and help them climb the career ladder of their choosing, Groff says.

"We need to be able to have rising stars ready to come up the steps, so to speak, and nurse leaders must understand that you don't want to hire to keep someone in that particular role, but you want to hire to grow them," she says. "Having this growth mindset across the entire nursing profession is important not just when they start as a nurse, but as an evolution of the profession.

2. Emotional intelligence

Today's workforce is different than generations prior because most new nurses have never held a job before, Groff says, which requires greater emotional intelligence (EI)—an ability to identify and manage one's own emotions and understand the emotions of others—on the part of nurse leaders.

"EI is so crucial because the workforce is coming into this profession not having as many professional or work experiences prior. And it's not good or bad; it just is," she says.

"I use myself as an example: When I became a nurse, it was common that most of my peers would have worked, whether it be in their high school or their college years, to help sustain being able to go to school. Based on their upbringing, they were going to have a job," she says. "Now, there's more of an effort to ensure that kids can reach their capabilities as kids for a longer period of time, so we started to notice here that this is people's first job, not just their first nursing job."

Consequently, nurse leaders must have the capability to usher new graduates not only into nursing, but into the professional world.

"Our leaders now have to have that patience, but also have the EI to help the nurse arrive into nursing, which is already a pretty tough profession, but also help people arrive into adulthood, so to speak," Groff says. "Health systems are looking for the ability to be agile—the ability to have emotional intelligence to grow and support the nursing workforce."

3. Innovation

Nurses generally are innovative problem solvers because of their training, but effective nurse leaders elevate innovation to drive change, Groff says.

"Before the pandemic, we used to be able to innovate because we might have a couple of things that needed worked on, but now you can't have an excuse to not innovate," she says.

"We need creative leaders—people who are willing to take chances but who still keep patient flow and patient care plans at the center," Groff says. "We need nurse leaders who can think through an operational problem and solve it, while also considering how it impacts the bigger picture."

Teaching leadership skills

All three competencies can be learned with the right support from healthcare organizations, Groff says.

"They need to not just encourage the leadership options, but actually support nurses to do that," she says.

MedStar Health, for example, has developed a curriculum/learning series for nurse leader development called Nurse Leader Academy at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. The curriculum is based on the American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL) Nurse Manager Competencies.

"It started a few years ago when we recognized the need for better onboarding of nurse leaders and then ongoing opportunities for development in leadership skills and knowledge," she says.

The curriculum continues to evolve as new leaders enter roles.

"We want to be contemporary and applicable to the needs of our leaders," Groff says. "This year, we have a new role that will further support and tailor leader development. We have a director for Nurse Leader Development, and they will work closely with our senior leadership and frontline leaders to consult, guide, and develop learning and career mapping for our team."