I remember uttering these words to my nurse manager after she encouraged me to pursue an open position as a clinical nurse educator. This came after I requested a meeting with her during a time that I was trying to navigate a period of restlessness, eagerness to contribute to my unit, while simultaneously experiencing a feeling of career confusion.

The joys of being a bedside nurse are endless. There is nothing more satisfying than delivering care that you would hope your family and friends would receive during tender times. There is an immediate satisfaction in knowing that you are advocating for your patients and families in the moments they need you most. Every patient was my brother or sister, every mother or father was my own.

I would arrive at my shifts ready to work and give everything my patients and their caregivers deserved and more. I was involved in my unit, eager to find solutions to problems, and was enthusiastic about making my work environment better. I felt ready to do more.

However, I often felt limited because of feelings of self-doubt and because I just felt so… new. While I had taken my fair share of difficult assignments, trained newer nurses, and taken on informal leadership roles within my unit, I was still what you would consider newer in my nursing career. I had these self-imposed ideals of what it meant to be a leader in a healthcare environment because I worked with so many of them: someone who had decades of experience, had “seen it all,” was tough as nails, and inexplicably knew the answers to every problem. I was simply a newer nurse with a few ideas and an optimistic attitude. On the outside, I’m sure the perception was that I was a stereotypical, bright-eyed “millennial.”

Millennials in the workplace have received quite the reputation, gaining much more attention in the media. Millennials have perplexed leaders in the workplace so much that it has inspired over 12 million search results when anyone searches for the terms “Millennials in the Workplace.”

I’ve been told that we are a generation of contradictions: wanting positions of higher responsibility, but entitled to our days off and fearlessly asking for things that we shouldn’t. I’ve been told that technology has corrupted us and social media even more so.

Regardless of these preconceived notions and my anxieties of not being taken seriously, I took that manager’s advice because I figured, what have I got to lose? The worst thing that someone could tell me was “no” and I could go get those decades of experience I always thought you needed to do the things I wanted to do eventually: teach, inspire, and support nurses transitioning into and developing themselves within the endless potential of the nursing profession. One where you could improve the lives of your patients, but also inspire real changes in healthcare.

I have since been in the role of a clinical nurse educator for over three years now, and I’ve struggled in the last few years to reconcile the reality of what society thinks of my generation as a whole with the person that I truly am and the kind of nurse leader that I want to become. Throughout my journey, I have learned a few things…

Defining Professional and Personal Boundaries 

While this is no novel idea for any new leader, it has been an especially new experience during a time when social media is omnipresent. As someone who essentially grew up in the world of social media before “social media” was even a term, I found myself navigating the terrain of professional boundaries in the workplace and the internet, too. While there have been many challenges to doing both, the resources are endless now on how to do this skillfully.

Professional Development is Invaluable

I love taking advantage of opportunities that help me not only be a better leader, but also help me to connect with our frontline nursing staff as well. Continuing education and really committing to personal and professional growth is what helps me come back every day. Finding ways to make things better for my peers and the people that I serve is exciting and that would be impossible without equipping myself with the tools necessary to initiate and support change.

Work/Life Balance is a Real Thing

No, I don’t mean I need a ping pong table in our lounge, but I do need to make it a personal commitment to step away from work that can seem never-ending. In healthcare where services are literally provided 24/7, it can be easy to get caught up in feeling like you need to be accessible all of the time. However, after my first year of nursing education and working a traditional 40 work week with employees calling me at 2 a.m., I simply realized that it wasn’t a sustainable model. Everyone needs intentional rest and time away to be able to come back and be at 100%. It has been especially important to work with executive leadership members and supervisors who are supportive of this notion.

Experience is important, but so are many other things.

Of all the lessons I have learned, this has been the most important. I do not want to discount experience – a strong foundation is necessary in order to speak to and have insight on the needs of the people you serve. However, leadership doesn’t rely on experience alone. A willingness to serve a purpose greater than yourself and the willingness and optimism to work towards solutions are even more important. A commitment to the people you serve is important. The willingness to listen more than you speak is even more invaluable.

Intentional Authenticity

I recently went through an old journal and found a quote that I had written down that stated, “am I failing or am I being refined?” There were many times through my first two years where I felt like a complete failure. Were educators supposed to feel that way? We are, after all, seen as “clinical experts.” However, I’m not anything if not honest. There were times throughout those years that I simply acknowledged my shortcomings, apologized, and addressed it in the best way that I knew how. I wasn’t always the expert, but I was committed to being resourceful. This is what I’d like to call intentional authenticity. I commit to being myself and honest always and being myself within the scope of my role.

I want to commit to always be a learner. It’s why I wanted to be an educator in the first place. And although I’m a “bright-eyed millennial,” I’m thankful for the opportunity to make a difference in whatever capacity I can, ready or not. I don’t believe we are defined by the broad generalizations of our generation. Instead, I’m more interested in what our generation has and will continue to contribute to everyone’s future.

I was just about three and a half years out of college and clueless about a lot, mostly relying on my willingness to learn and my ability to take my time to learn those essential skills that I needed. But while I tried to climb and hoist myself up that steep leaving curve, I learned one thing almost immediately: I love what I do because I get to serve a purpose and a cause that I believe in. I learned that I love and serve our nurses and clinical staff by empowering them with knowledge to care for critically ill children in our community. I love my purpose because most of us, if not all of us, are eventually touched by medicine in ways that can be healing or devastating. Whether it is our loved ones or us that are affected, I would want to be within reach of a healthcare provider that was cared for by their leaders.

Whose leaders equipped them with the proper tools to serve with compassion, grace, and humility? Not just knowledge. Not just skill. But who encouraged them to listen by role modeling that concept? I would want to be within reach of staff whose leaders cared for them so that they could properly care for my loved one or for me.

However, I have come to understand that being a leader in health care isn’t easy and I feel obligated to tell you a secret: my confidence is sometimes clouded by self-doubt and there are times that my purpose gets lost in the noise of day to day distractions. Even coining myself as a “leader” is something I still struggle with on a day to day basis because I still equate this term with “expert,” and that’s not a title I confidently own. And you see, this can be quite an obstacle when you are trying to be an agency for change and a role model for good. But what I’ve learned from surrounding myself with compassionate, knowledgeable, confident, and empathetic leaders is this: there’s no such thing as a perfect leader and the best thing that a leader can do is to live in a space that forces growth, openness and commitment to the obligation you have to those that look to you for solutions. Here is what I want to share in the hopes of encouraging someone navigating this same space.

Don’t Sacrifice Outcome for the Sake of Your Insecurity

In my experience, any new start I’ve had in life came with a call to “prove” myself (whether it was self-inflicted or not). However, I’ve come to realize that as long as the patient or the staff member receives what they need, it doesn’t matter who was able to support them. I’ve learned that celebrating my colleagues’ or staff members’ talents are more important than feeding the need to prove something to myself or to others just because of my fears. Growth means knowing your resources and acknowledging that somebody else may be better suited to fulfill that job and celebrating their successes and positive outcomes that benefit the patient. In fact, the greatest joy I have found within my role is the growth that I am able to observe in others both clinically and professionally.

You Can’t Please Everyone

Eventually, whether it has happened for you already or not, someone is going to be unhappy with a decision you’ve made. The questions that I ask myself when this happens are usually the following:

• Did I make this decision to the best of my ability using the information I was provided?
• Did I ask the appropriate questions and do the proper research to arrive to this decision?
• Did I evaluate and analyze all possibilities?
• Did I arrive at this decision reflectively and not in a reactionary way?
• Did I objectively evaluate the information I was given?
• Am I functioning from my core values and does this decision reflect those values?

If I was able to answer yes to all these questions, then I have to have confidence that I did the best that I could to address the situation at hand. Of all these questions, the most important is the last. I highly value respect, collaboration, and caring. If any decision I consider acting upon doesn’t align with those values, I often need more time to evaluate or reflect or seek assistance to reach alternative solutions.

Conversely, you’re going to make mistakes. When this happens, own up to it. Apologize if you need to. Learn from it and remedy it if you can. Move on.

Nothing That Was Ever Worth it Started Out Comfortable

Many people that have met me in adulthood are surprised to learn that I was painfully shy and noncommunicative growing up, especially because I earn a living constantly communicating with others and where the level of my effectiveness highly depends on how well I communicate. But I didn’t wake up one day and decide “today, I’m not going to be shy anymore.” This took years of stepping into uncomfortable spaces that would traditionally terrify the type of introvert I am: speaking up in any classroom despite the fact that English was my second language, auditioning for the lead in the musical in 5^th grade, singing in my middle school talent show in the 8^th grade (by myself!), trying out for section leader in band in high school, starting a club in college that forced me to talk in front of 200 students each week, starting a job in a medical unit that terrified me, and becoming a clinical educator.

The decision to step into these uncomfortable spaces has forced me towards the most important concept in my growth as a leader: I need to ask for help. Because I love my job and respect the responsibility that it entails, I have sought out mentors and participated in professional coaching. I read books. I practice crucial conversations with someone better equipped to handle them than I am. I hope to maintain the level of humility and openness that I had when I began this journey. I recognize my weaknesses. I constantly remind myself to listen more, speak less. I remind myself that this type of learning will never be done—that in my heart I am glad to be this type of novice. And the reason for that is that people are dynamic. You can’t master people. You can learn and grow with people and that means that our leaders must be dynamic as well.

Give it Time

In this day and age we want to be the expert now. We want to be the best now. And no one knows this better than me (raise your hand if you’re a perfectionist, overbearing, overachieving millennial!). But what I’ve come to appreciate is to look back on my time since starting out as a clinical educator and valuing my trajectory. I value the times that I told myself “I’m not ready” and how I gave myself grace to grow during that period. I have appreciated the patience that I have given myself to do a serious job for our staff nurses and our patients. I appreciated the times that I fumbled the most because it gave me a chance to build my professional resilience and gave me an opportunity to rise to the occasion.

End

I want to state a disclaimer that the content of this article was just as much a reminder to myself as it was information sharing to an audience. This hasn’t been easy, but nothing that was worth it ever was. I want to be the type of leader that I often see: caring, committed, humble while simultaneously innovative, solution oriented, and creative. No, I don’t have to be perfect. But the people I serve deserve that type of ownership and commitment and so do our patients, families, and overarching community. I am so appreciative of this opportunity to serve and to grow. It’s the best challenge I’ve ever taken on.