Nurse managers and leaders: differences and customary characteristics

Across the health care continuum, no matter your role or practice location, you embody the qualities of each a nurse leader and manager. As a nurse, you’re taught to steer and direct peers, supervise care teams, and be accountable for patient care outcomes. Additionally, you’re chargeable for managing your personal goals, skilled development and private performance.

“Every nurse, no matter how long they have been in the field, has the opportunity to become a leader,” said Cara Lunsford, RN and vp of community affairs at Relias. Let us add that leaders are also individuals who motivate and encourage their colleagues, creating a snug work environment.

With these skills, some nurses move into management positions informally, while others tackle formal management and leadership roles. However, not all leadership roles are the identical, and while the titles are sometimes used interchangeably, they aren’t synonymous.

Nurse manager

Whether it’s managing a unit, department or service line, the nurse’s role is to be certain that each day operations run easily. They are involved in countless each day tasks and details related to patient care planning, quality improvement, and goal setting.

They also oversee staff schedules and assignments, performance, skilled development, and the continuing provision of educational and skilled development opportunities. The manager can be chargeable for ensuring that staff complete all tasks and is held accountable in the event that they don’t.

According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ): nurse managers perform two important functions – providing clinical care and administrative leadership. Nurse managers must oversee not only the executive facets of their position (e.g., budgeting and recordkeeping) but additionally their staff. However, managing a nursing workforce involves rather more than simply overseeing schedules, training, and supervising patient care.

Being a team player

Staff members – nurses, certified nursing assistants (CNAs), technicians, etc. – are an integral a part of the nurse manager role, and their manager needs to be a voice of support and encouragement. As a result, employees may have certain expectations from their managers, expecting clear communication, guidance and support. They also want them to be accessible, open and honest.

Nurse managers are most closely related to bedside nursing, and in these positions it can be crucial for them to be certain that staff needs are met. Study on relationships between nurse managers and nurses’ job satisfaction suggested that nurse managers should manage and organize the work of staff in a way that ensures their support, motivation and safety. Nurses want – and deserve – encouragement, clear expectations, guidance and mentoring from management. And above all, they wish to be included within the decision-making process, appreciated for his or her contribution and thought of vital to the team.

Additionally, nurse managers should support their staff by helping them manage patient care. “The number one characteristic of great nurse managers is the willingness to step in and provide care when their staff needs help,” Lunsford said. “Nurses will always be willing to help their managers when they are in need if they feel it is reciprocated.”

The nurse manager role is powerful because they’ve a more practical and direct impact on their staff, patients and the organization. Seeing each major events and on a regular basis challenges, nurse managers hold a key place within the nursing occupation.

Nurse leader

Nurse leadership roles aren’t one-size-fits-all. Due to differences in positions resembling nurse administrator and chief nursing officer, nurse leaders have different responsibilities depending on their role. For example, the chief nursing officer manages his department’s budget and implements recent policies and practices, including training, for nursing staff, while the chief nursing officer researches and integrates recent health care technologies, manages additional financial assets, and reports collected data to strengthen function of the organization.

However, generally, senior nurses have fewer each day operational tasks to perform than their managerial counterparts. While nurse leaders may appear less engaged, they deal with setting and maintaining standards, leading transformation, and galvanizing and influencing their teams. Their task is to satisfy the mission, vision and long-term strategic plans of the organization.

Lunsford added that through their roles, nurse leaders can share their leadership principles with a wider audience. “These are nurses who advocate for the most important issues that nurses face every day, such as health care reform, safe working conditions and workplace violence,” she said.

Their role includes setting policy, overseeing quality measures, ensuring regulatory compliance, assuming fiscal responsibilities, and more. They are chargeable for the general quality of patient care delivery, patient and staff satisfaction, and organizational performance. Both employees and management turn to them for his or her knowledge, experience and guidance. Their role is expansive and applies to your entire organization.

Strong cooperation

Nurse managers and leaders complement one another. Together, they strive to satisfy ethical and regulatory standards, improve the standard of patient care and increase the job satisfaction of their nurses. Managers function best in the corporate of excellent leaders, and each roles needs to be filled by individuals who benefit from the respect and admiration of their employees, are captivated with their work and instill this passion in others.

Although each role comes with different responsibilities, they’ve an identical skill set to get the job done. Both managers and nurse leaders:

• They have to be motivators who positively influence and mentor their employees, while developing passion and commitment
• Must have excellent decision-making skills and give you the option to coordinate teams and delegate responsibilities
• He have to be committed to the organization and people he leads
• Must think innovatively and critically with regards to patient care outcomes, organizational procedures and processes, and staff satisfaction, retention and engagement
• Must possess strong communication and interpersonal skills with all nursing staff, patients and families, and other interdisciplinary teams

Nurse leaders take the reins for elements resembling developing treatment plans and techniques to enhance patient care, while nurse managers support frontline staff and ensure patient safety and satisfaction. Dividing these responsibilities not only promotes stability throughout the organization, but creates strong and cohesive working relationships.

A call to leadership

Leadership in nursing can take you to higher levels of responsibility and accountability, with or with no management or leadership title. This call is inherent in all nursing positions, from staff nurse to CEO. No matter what role you play as a nurse, you have got similar goals and responsibilities for patient care.

With all of the changes that proceed to occur in healthcare and the nursing occupation, it can be crucial to emulate the qualities of excellent management and leadership and never stop working on skilled development. It’s also essential to stay awake to this point with information, have a way of politics, know what skilled journals and nursing organizations are writing, and understand how one can improve your education.

“The best work environments are those in which senior nurses utilize and practice excellent leadership because it creates an incredible culture of safety and learning for all new nurses entering the profession,” Lunsford added, reinforcing the leadership qualities seen in all nurses.

After all, every nurse can lead, and daily you display that you simply are a visionary, a critical thinker, a talented communicator, and an educator. On every shift, patient and task, you apply and develop your skills, demonstrating that nurse leadership might be achieved with no formal title.

Editor’s note: This blog was originally published in May 2017 and has been updated with recent content.

How to develop your leadership potential (1.25 contact hours)

The goal of this course is to equip nurses with practical strategies to assist them develop tailored plans to develop their leadership potential.

Transformational Leadership: Transformation from Manager to Leader (1 contact hour)

The purpose of the CE series specializing in charge nurses is to supply nurses with the data and skills that may enable them to achieve success as a charge nurse.

Transitioning to a Charge Nurse: Basics (1 contact hour)

All nurses are leaders when caring for patients. Nurses excel by working autonomously to support patients after they are unable to look after themselves. They plan, organize and manage the care of patients to assist them achieve higher health. When a nurse takes on the role of charge nurse, their responsibility increases significantly. New nurse leaders must understand the leadership and management principles which might be critical to the transition to the charge nurse role and the impact of culture on unit dynamics.