Consider these solutions to three common mistakes.
Stepping into a formal leadership role is exciting. Whether it’s your first supervisor or manager role or an interim position with the potential to become permanent, the new responsibilities can feel empowering and overwhelming. Many of your finely honed nursing skills will serve you well as a manager, but you’ll still have gaps. You’ll likely need to use some of your skills in different ways and develop entirely new ones.
Although skill development is important, creating success in any role isn’t just about learning and applying new skills; it’s also about avoiding missteps—the common pitfalls that many of us have encountered early in, and throughout, our leadership journeys. These missteps can create stress and leave you feeling stuck, or worse, as though you’re moving in the wrong direction.
You can learn to recognize these pitfalls and avoid them. Let’s explore three mistakes many new managers make and what you can do instead to support your team and stay on your path to becoming a confident, successful leader.
Pitfall #1: Assuming the role of protector and defender
Impact: This approach may cost you the best nurses on your team. This mistake is especially common with internal promotions where a frontline nurse assumes the manager position and feels obligated to become the wall that protects and defends their team against the injustices of the organization and the malice of upper management.
You may take this approach out of a desire to demonstrate that you genuinely care about the nurses on your team and that you have their backs. However, it creates an “us vs. them” dynamic, which ultimately hurts nurses and you as their leader. When you convince your team that you’re protecting them from all the bad ideas, proposed changes, and higher-level leaders who don’t understand what your team does, nurses lose faith in the organization.
Even if you don’t overtly disparage the organization or senior leadership, if you communicate by words or behaviors that you need to protect the nurses because they’re not valued by leadership and/or they’re not safe in the organization, trust and psychological safety erode. This atmosphere will prompt nurses to leave the organization or even the profession.
As these nurses walk out the door, they’ll tell you how much they like you and how much they appreciate how hard you fought for them but will still leave. Now you’re short-staffed, spending your time and energy recruiting and hiring while you and those who remain struggle with higher workloads and sinking morale.
What to do instead: Assume the role of facilitator and communicator. Focus your efforts on building bridges for communication between your team and others in the organization. Hone your listening skills, which includes asking thoughtful questions. Clarify what’s important, and translate that information across the bridge so that those on the other side can hear and understand.
As you develop these skills, you’ll learn to effectively communicate the needs of your team upward to decision-makers and budget-holders. You’ll also learn to discuss organizational needs and decisions with your team members in a way that helps them feel supported and communicated with honestly, even if they don’t like the changes or agree with the decisions.
People can tolerate change better than you might expect when you build and maintain trust and support them in feeling respected and cared for.
Key takeaway: Don’t fall into the trap of thinking protection will serve your team better than collaboration. Instead, foster a culture of trust, safety, and advocacy through clear, empathetic communication.
Pitfall #2: Too many “why” questions
Impact: “Why” questions about performance or behavior create barriers to solving problems and achieving positive results. When someone asks, “Why did you do it that way?” or “Why are you late again?”, what’s your reaction? Many of us become defensive or shut down. We feel attacked (even if subconsciously) and the natural response to an attack is to actively defend our decision, behavior, or position or to withdraw or escape—the classic fight-or-flight response.
In addition to how we perceive and react to “why” questions, the questions themselves can sound accusatory or judgmental. When we ask, “Why did you do it that way?” our tone of voice or facial expressions frequently imply “That was stupid” or “You should have known better” or “You must not care about doing a good job.”
Judgment-laced questions and an activated fight-or-flight response don’t support positive behavioral changes.
What to do instead: Partner with team members to understand and solve the problem while also clearly describing expectations. Imagine you and the other person are sitting on the same side of a table. The problem is in the middle of the table, and you’re studying it together, trying to understand it and create a reasonable solution. You’re both focused on the problem in front of you rather than judging, blaming, or defending.
Most of the time, we want to do things well. And when we’re not meeting expectations, it may be because we’ve encountered a barrier or the systems in which we operate (including those we create for ourselves) don’t provide effective support. This same-side-of-the-table approach lets you give others the benefit of the doubt and partner in uncovering barriers and improvement opportunities.
This strategy doesn’t absolve the other person of responsibility or accountability. On the contrary, you’re reinforcing expectations, requirements, and consequences while simultaneously creating space for them to contribute to a solution. (See Reframe the question.)
Reframe the question
Rather than asking why someone did something that led to a mistake, reframe the question so you and the nurse can collaboratively solve the problem. For example, rather than asking, “Why did you do it that way?” you might say, “I know you work hard to provide excellent patient care, and I’m not questioning that. In this instance, procedures weren’t followed, and I want to better understand what happened. Can you walk me through your thinking and the process that led to the decision to do it this way?”
You may think that sounds squishy and indirect, but if you couple this kind of language with a genuine desire to understand, this approach can accomplish the following:
- You decrease the chances of activating the nurse’s defense mechanisms and increase the likelihood that they’ll engage with you.
- You create space for the nurse to share concerns that make you aware of systems issues that require attention. They might say something like, “I know I didn’t follow the written procedure, but we were out of the necessary supply item again, so I tried to make it work” or “I felt overwhelmed, and there was no one available to help me” or “I thought that was the right way to do it because that’s how my preceptor taught me.” Now you have an opportunity to evaluate potential supply, support, or training issues and help the nurse understand expectations and what they should do in the future.
- You build trust. The nurse now knows they can come to you with issues and concerns (hopefully before doing something incorrectly) and you won’t judge or embarrass them.
Not everyone will accept your invitation to partner in this process. In those situations, you’ll have to take a different approach. However, to gain deeper insight into issues and arrive at workable solutions, reframing the question provides a great starting point.
Key takeaway: When it comes to addressing behaviors or performance, avoid fight-or-flight-inducing “why” questions. Instead, get genuinely curious, collaborate to find reasonable solutions, firmly reinforce expectations, and clarify potential consequences.
Pitfall #3: Serving as an automatic advice-and-answer dispenser
Impact: You reinforce a structure where everyone comes to you for every problem and question. Additional impact: Potentially great ideas and solutions may go unspoken.
Many leaders complain, “My team members can’t think critically and problem-solve; they come to me for everything.” You may be surprised to learn that you’re probably encouraging this pattern, even if unintentionally. However, you can create a different pattern.
As an individual contributor, you were rewarded for being an expert and having answers. You received praise and high-performance marks for being a skilled and competent nurse. When you step into a leadership or management role, however, you can’t rely solely on being a great nurse. You now have to perform as a leader who helps to develop other skilled, capable nurses who can think critically, effectively use resources, and solve problems.
Higher leadership roles may require you to oversee multiple job roles or departments, so you can’t possibly be the expert in everything. Continuing to position yourself as the go-to resource is a fast road to feeling overwhelmed and doing others’ work and research for them (and in many cases, probably not doing it as well as they could).
What to do instead: Assess the situation and ask questions. A favorite tool I’ve acquired, thanks to author Michael Bungay Stanier, is to ask (just as the team member gets started with their story), “Can we pause for just a second? So I can be sure you get what you need, what are you looking for from me? Advice? Brainstorming? Approval of your plan? Or are you just looping me in so I’m in the know?”
This approach proves useful in a few ways. First, it makes the person consider what they need or want before they unload on you with a narrative or question. Second, it reinforces the idea that you’re here to support them in multiple ways and can offer options other than advice. Asking these questions empowers them to bring potential solutions to the table and sets an expectation that they do so. Third, it puts you in a better position to listen, support, and get to the root of an issue rather than be overtaken by what Bungay Stanier refers to as your “advice monster.” Last, pausing for clarification creates new patterns in when, how, and why team members come to you.
Initially, people may say that they want your advice because they think it’s the fastest and the best use of your time and expertise. But even if they’re looking for advice, you can respond with something like “I’m happy to share my thoughts, but first I’d like to hear your ideas or solutions.”
Over time, you won’t even have to ask what they need because team members will learn the pattern. They’ll come to you and say “I have this issue, and this is what I’m planning to do about it. Do you have any concerns?” or “I had a disagreement with a nurse on another floor, but I think I’ve got it handled. I’ll let you know if I need additional support. I just wanted to keep you in the loop in case their manager brings it up to you.”
Sometimes a team member’s solution won’t be the same one you’d offer, but before overriding them, check in with yourself and ask, “Is what they’re proposing safe? Is it appropriate?” If so, consider letting them run with it. If not, consider how you might contribute the necessary advice or guidance while still making the process collaborative.
This is a partnership endeavor. Does it take more time than just throwing out an answer? Sure it does—at first. But it’s a worthwhile investment that will save you and your team time and frustration down the line. It also builds trust, elevates everyone’s skills, and ensures you include diverse ideas and solutions. The results include a highly functioning and empowered team, as well as time and space for you to focus on the problems and work that are truly yours to own.
Key takeaway: Pause before offering advice and find out what others need. Sometimes advice is the right intervention, especially in urgent or high-risk situations. But much of the time, you can support your team in ways that will empower them, reduce demand on you, and lead to stronger, more timely outcomes.
Recognize and choose
Formal leadership will challenge you and push you into new, uncomfortable situations, which may tempt you to assume the role of protector and defender, lead with fight-or-flight-inducing “why” questions, or spin up your automatic advice dispenser. But as helpful as these approaches may seem in the moment, they can undermine trust, stifle the growth of the nurses you manage, and ultimately, create more work and challenges for you and your team.
By recognizing these pitfalls and choosing a more productive approach, you can support and empower your team, retain great nurses, build strong relationships, and develop positive habits that contribute to your current and future leadership success.
Karen Steinbock is a leadership and personal and professional development coach at Karen Steinbock Coaching in Klamath Falls, Oregon.
American Nurse Journal. 2024; 19(6). Doi: 10.51256/ANJ0624138
References
American Organization for Nursing Leadership. AONL nurse manager competencies. 2023. aonl.org/system/files/media/file/2019/06/nurse-manager-competencies.pdf
Bungay Stanier M. The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious & Change the Way You Lead Forever. Toronto, ON, Canada: Friesens; 2020.
Richardson C, Wicking K, Biedermann N, Langtree T. Coaching in nursing: An integrative literature review. Nurs Open. 2023;10(10):6635-49. doi:10.1002/nop2.1925
Schein E., Schein P. Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling. 2nd ed. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers; 2021.
Shah MK, Gandrakota N, Cimiotti JP, Ghose N, Moore M, Ali MK. Prevalence of and factors associated with nurse burnout in the US. JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(2):e2036469. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.36469
Taylor-Clark TM, Swiger PA, Anusiewicz CV, et al. Identifying potentially preventable reasons nurses intend to leave a job. J Nurs Adm. 2022;52(2):73-80. doi:10.1097/NNA.0000000000001106
