Nursing Leadership: Compassionate Care In Nursing

It is curious that we question and perhaps judge that it might not be considered professionally appropriate to express emotion, to be authentic as a leader, to be transparent in our workplace. Sidney Jourard (1964) discussed the concept of transparency, defining it as the ability to make yourself known to others by sharing who you are, what your personal thoughts, values and feelings are. It implies first a level of self-awareness and then a willingness to be vulnerable, sharing ourselves with others, beyond the professional role. President Obama, both in his speech on gun control and throughout his presidency, was able to balance sharing his emotions while still maintaining his position as a powerful leader. An important balance for leaders

As stated in the question posed (Fox, 2017), Dewar further identified compassion as “a complex process requiring a range of skills including noticing, engaging emotionally, connecting with the person, and showing humility and humanity” (Dewar et al, 2014, p. 1741) Nursing leadership is uniquely poised to provide compassionate care, at multiple levels. While I am sure there are leaders who fail to be compassionate in their role because of time constraints, focus on productivity, or failure to identify compassion as a core value in their work, that has not been my recent experience. I have seen nursing leaders provide compassionate care in ways similar to direct nursing care and in more complex ways. The leaders I have had the privilege to work with have taken compassion into the system they function in and made changes in the system. Examples I have seen include interventions such as entering into negotiations with patients and family members who are complaining – listening to what the patient’s needs are and working to meet those needs. It changes the patient, family, nurse and team