Nurse leadership: why compassion can work wonders for your morale

Should nurse leaders rule with a rod of iron – or kindness and a helping hand? Well, Florence Nightingale knew the answer

Nurse leaders, I decided as a student, fall into several categories.

I feared the older ones the most. The ones who fooled you by their likeness to your favourite granny, and then – wham! – they struck. Nothing a young nurse could do was right, however hard you tried. If they couldn’t fault your practice, then it was your hair that was wrong, or your shoes, or… you get the drift.

Patients were shown warmth, but the nursing team… not so much

Kindness was