Seven Essential Skills to Become a Successful Nurse Manager

In the past few years, we have all observed a surge in demand in the nursing sector. With that, there has emerged a great competition among nurses. Many applicants are up for job openings as nurse managers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there is a 22% growth in job openings for health and medical service managers. Stepping into a management role as a nurse manager requires more than just strong communication, critical thinking and clinical skills. They take on new responsibilities, including planning, cost calculation, time management, quality assurance, and staff relations. The nurse manager primarily focuses on nurse recruitment and retention. The manager’s leadership role urges them to be responsible for the nursing unit and everything related to it such as, personnel, resources, budgeting and patient care issues. They team up with doctors regarding patient care issues and their treatment, acting as a bridge between doctors and patients’ families. Moreover, a nurse manager leads a team of nurses and presents the team’s ideas, needs and concerns to the hospital management.

Registered nurses who dream of becoming nurse managers need to prepare themselves to meet societal healthcare requirements in various settings. Working as an RN, you might be hesitant to acquire education. No doubt, balancing work and education was previously difficult for nurses. However, with the introduction of online Registered Nurse to Bachelor of Science in Nursing programs, you can continue your job and study from anywhere, at your schedule. A BS in Nursing provides learning opportunities for registered nurses to make transitions smoothly to management. They also provide a base for ethical, legal, and professional standards for nurses to commit to excellent nursing practice, respectfully taking social and diverse responsibilities.

Nurse management is quite a challenging job. Registered nurses have to acquire many skills, in addition to the degree program, to succeed in this field. In this article, we discuss a few of these essential skills:

Open and clear communication

A nurse manager serves as the wheel’s hub, communicating information between management and their staff while ensuring that their patients and consumers are comfortable. They are required to communicate effectively and clearly to the patients and their staff, in addition to management and the doctors, even under pressure. Successful communication relies mainly on active listening skills to ensure that the staff can easily approach their manager when they require guidance. It also includes paraphrasing comments to clear everything and to avoid negative comments. Additionally, it includes adjusting to the environment with patience to absorb what is said and taking input from all healthcare team members. Developing strong communication skills help managers to interact competently with their staff, patients and hospital management. 

Leadership and professionalism

Nurse managers need to develop leadership and professional skills so that they get to know how to confidently and decisively lead a team of professionals, especially under pressure and tight deadlines. They must know various leadership styles since one style can not work in every health facility. Depending on their staff and facility, they can become affiliative, democratic, authoritarian or transformational leaders.

• Affiliative leaders give primary importance to patients’ and staff’s needs.

• Democratic leaders work simultaneously with the staff to set and achieve goals.

• Authoritarian leaders issue orders and expect them to be fulfilled without reasoning.

• Transformational leaders aim to develop staff members.

Furthermore, the nurse managers must maintain their professional image as they have to represent their team and organization. They can accomplish this by consistently following hospital policies and treating everyone respectfully.

Mentorship

Mentorship is one of the essential skills necessary for nurse managers to develop. It is important for the managers to guide their team to seek leadership roles and empower them. They teach nurses in their team how to successfully move up and lead a team of healthcare professionals. In addition, they share their experience with nurses in their unit who want to boos their nursing careers. They do so by providing insight and wisdom that includes teaching them ways to move up in the health care career.

Computer skills

In this technological world, industries are shifting their paperwork to cloud storage. Similar is the case with the healthcare industry. Internet-based cloud storage program lets users upload, download, print and update documents. Medical facilities can save money and access patients’ medical records quickly by storing the data electronically. According to research by healthIT, online medical records have boosted patient care by 74 percent and allowed 74 percent of physicians to access patient charts remotely. Therefore, the nurse managers have to develop typing skills and learn computer software navigation on portable devices.

Conflict resolution

The nursing staff looks up to nurse managers during times of stress. Strong conflict resolution skills make you quickly identify problems that need to be addressed immediately, apply rules of crisis management and encourage teamwork. The managers help their staff to resolve conflicts with patients and other people. The healthcare industry must opt for the best treatment for patients even if all team members have different opinions.

Some financial knowledge

In addition to working with patients, staff and medical records, the nurse managers need to develop basic financial management skills like managing expenses and revenue. They must have knowledge of:

• Financial planning

• Forecasting

• Performance ratios

• Cash flow

• Budgets

• Billing

Business skills and decision making

Successful nurse managers are essentially required to get knowledge about the business side of the field. Since medical facilities are also a business, they must be aware of how decision-making is influenced in the corporate sector. Moreover, everyone expects them to know how these decisions impact the staff and patients.

Furthermore, when nurse managers make decisions, they should ensure that decisions made should be aligned with the medical facility’s goals and are based on policies.

To conclude, nurse leaders, are encouraged to continue seeking education opportunities for career growth. Successful nurse managers keep exploring their roles and responsibilities in healthcare and continuously work to improve themselves. Moreover, due to similarities between nurse managers and business leaders, nurse managers need to acquire the skills mentioned above along with their medical training to excel in their careers.