Charge Nurse Graduation Speech and Outline 2025

 

Key Points I Learned during the Charge Nurse Meeting Series.

1. True leaders develop other leaders

⦁ promote visible value creation 

⦁ builds trust and mutual support 

⦁ engage in meaningful recognition 

2.   The importance of partnership power versus positional power.

⦁ Commitment versus compliance

⦁ Deeper self awareness of my own implicit bias 

⦁ leading with authenticity/transparency  

⦁ Scaling influence through positivity to create change.  

3. Building credibility by demonstrating expertise.

⦁ Leading by example: Leveraging the ability to create change and influence 

⦁ Certifications: A tool to build influence and self confidence in my craft.

⦁ Leadership is about availability, not perfection

Thank you for the platform to share my takeaways from the charge nurse leadership series.  First and foremost, I would like to commend the leadership that organized this series in doing an amazing job.  True leaders develop other leaders and your investment in the charge nurses shows your commitment to promoting visible value of our work and worth to this organization.  Inviting key nursing leaders to share knowledge and their expertise with us helped me build trust in the stewardship of our leaders and also have assurance in knowing there is mutual support among my peers. Thank you for this graduation ceremony which highlights your engagement in meaningful recognition to all of us which gives us confidence to be agents of influence and change to the rest of the staff. 

One of the key points I learned is the importance of how we exercise our power as nurse leaders and the importance of distinguishing positional power from partnership power. This was exemplified when we participated in the peer review exercise.  I learned that scaling influence with my peers to create change needs to be done with authenticity, transparency and positivity.  It helped me realize that it's not enough to just get our staff to be compliant with their job duties but we want them to have commitment to being here. We need to foster an environment where they look forward to coming to work because they know they have a supportive team instead of having nurses dread coming to work in fear of making mistakes and getting fired. In short, we as leaders should want to foster commitment and not just compliance. The peer review exercise also helped me to develop deeper self awareness and check my own implicit bias regarding difficult situations and it gave me practical tools on how to approach problems.

The second takeaway is inspired by the idea of leading by example. With the added confidence this series provided and Kaiser's partnership and generous tuition payment for the review course offered by the American Nurse Association,  I took my board certification exam for my specialty and passed. I didn't do it to show how smart I am but as a means to build credibility by demonstrating expertise in my field and use it as a tool to leverage influence by helping others solve problems and help them to succeed.  

Lastly, I  takeaway the knowledge that leadership isn't about being perfect but about being available to offer guidance, support, and expertise in the trenches and frontline alongside with other nurses. 

Thank you.