The Freedom to Embrace the Spirituality of Leadership

Guglielmi, Charlotte L.

doi:10.1016/j.aorn.2010.04.004

« Previous Next »AORN Journal
Volume 91, Issue 6 , Pages 645-646, June 2010

The Freedom to Embrace the Spirituality of Leadership

Article Outline

The Qualities of a Leader
References
Copyright

- View Large Image
- Download to PowerPoint

In my Presidential acceptance speech at Congress in March, I contended that as an Association, AORN possesses the freedom to be bold. I challenged each of us to give definition to this boldness as we demonstrate what the role of nursing will be in this new decade and how AORN will respond to the new face of nursing.¹ To meet this challenge, we must be able to define, as individuals and as an Association, our spirituality of leadership. Every perioperative nurse is a leader! As nurses, we demonstrate our leadership potential in many different ways that reflect our individual roles.

When I speak of the spirituality of leadership, I am not speaking of spirituality in a religious sense but rather in a broader sense that requires us to actively consider our values, beliefs, and personal missions. For example, if we believe that the circulating nurse in a room must be a manager and a leader, we need to think about what it will take to get us there. We need to understand, in our complex, fast-paced work world, what it will take for us to have the freedom to be the nurses that we were born to be. Colleagues, I believe that the answer lives in our hearts.

Back to Article Outline

The Qualities of a Leader

When speaking about the qualities needed to transform managers into leaders, Bolman and Deal wrote, “Heart, hope and faith, rooted in soul and spirit, are necessary for today's managers to become tomorrow's leaders, for today's sterile bureaucracies to become tomorrow's communities of meaning and for our society to rediscover its ethical and spiritual center.”²^(p12) They went on to say, “The heart of leadership is in the hearts of leaders. You have to lead from something deep in your soul.”²^(p21) As we take time to rest, relax, and refresh ourselves during these summer months, we must also make time to journey into our hearts and to search deeply for a definition of our spirituality of leadership. Let there be no mistake about it, this is hard work. It requires that we take steps to come to a personal, introspective understanding of those values and beliefs that make us the nurses that we are. The qualities that are the essence of a spirituality of leadership differ for each of us, but there are several that reside at the core of our existence as perioperative nurses: compassionate caring, acknowledging our imperfections, and the ability to act justly.

Compassionate Caring

As an aspect of leadership, we easily recognize compassionate caring in actions such as allaying a patient's fear, holding a hand, recognizing a physical need, or positioning a patient safely on an OR bed. Compassionate caring goes far deeper, however. It is the way that we interact with, respect, and attempt to understand each other, our patients, and all those who touch our lives each day. Compassionate caring is embracing the colleague who learns slowly, the anesthesiologist who never will give us the five extra minutes we need before he wheels the patient into the room, or the surgeon who claims that her preference card is never correct. Compassionate caring is taking time at the end of the day to reflect and say to ourselves, “What could I have done to make things better today?”

Acknowledging Our Imperfections

An understanding that we are imperfect is one of the most difficult considerations that we, as leaders, must face. We continually hear that human factors play a role in medical errors. Volumes have been written on the application of crew resource management and teamwork as essential elements in improving surgical teams, but how often do any of us start the day knowing we are at less than our best? Perhaps we are working a day shift after being called in during the night. Do we give our colleagues permission to call our attention to our practice if it is not up to our usual standard? How many of us first try to reconcile an incorrect sponge count rather than reaching out to our resource nurse for help or try to find the missing item quietly before letting the surgeon know there might be a problem with the count? Is it our pride that gets in our way, or is there a quality that is inherent in us that says we cannot make a mistake? This is a question with which we must stay in constant touch.

Paula Graling, RN, MSN, CNOR, CNS, in her 2006 Presidential acceptance speech, identified anonymity as one of our most critical issues. It is an area of imperfection that we often fail to acknowledge.

As perioperative nurses we are all too familiar with the double-edged sword of being anonymous in our success … Sadly, as much as we have advanced as a profession, we are still the forgotten heroes in our hospitals … Colleagues, we cannot continue to be anonymous. We must focus on promoting our practice to others as well as to ourselves and to be the practice resource for the perioperative profession.³^(p822)

Our spirituality of leadership must demonstrate an articulation of our value as nurses. Our personal reflection must compel us to seek answers to why we hide behind our anonymity.

The Ability to Act Justly

Acting justly means stopping the line when we observe a safety flaw in our work environment. It is putting on the brakes if everyone is failing to give proper attention to the time-out process. It is pointing out that a colleague may be impaired by substance abuse without thinking, “What does it mean if I am wrong?” As a leader, acting justly is holding oneself to the highest of ethical standards. It is practicing in a manner that is fiscally responsible. It is keeping one's focus on the patient every minute of every day.

The AORN Leadership Conference

Embracing the spirituality of leadership is experiencing the joy of being a nurse. It is continually finding ways to reinvent our passion for our profession, rekindling our infatuation for who we are and what we do. It is falling in love with nursing over and over again.

Next month, we will gather in Denver, Colorado, for the 2010 AORN Leadership Conference. Dr Carmen Mariano, our keynote speaker, will challenge us to consider that “leadership is nothing more (or less) than the ability to earn followers and that people will follow anyone who gives direction then deals in the truth, tenderness, toughness, faith, and good example.”⁴ Together we will learn, network, play, and celebrate the freedom to be a leader. It is my hope that many of you will be able to join us as we continue to embrace the spirituality of leadership.

Back to Article Outline