Putting First Things First: Priority Matrix for Hospital Executives and Clinical Nurse Leaders

Are you focusing your time and energy on the right things?

Most nurse middle managers feel helpless, and they don’t see what I see.

Did you know many of your leadership team are wanting to leave??

A 2023 study by AMN Healthcare showed around a third of nurse leaders plan to leave their roles in the next year.?

It is no wonder with the amount of stress both leaders and teams are under with low staffing and tightening budgets.?

I don’t know about you, but as the President as a Surf lifesaving club, I have a little panic inside when I hear a number of my directors need a break and want to step down. Then my focus and time is shifted from the core business of the club into ringing around to get some fresh people to be interested in the role.

In my circles clinical nurse leaders are saying “It’s soul crushing when you are fielding complaints from your staff and upper management”.?

They feel like they are the meat in the sandwich, and they don’t have the skills to deal with it.?

How are you planning to mitigate the risk of this happening, especially when it is predicted to cost between $22,000- $110,000 to replace nursing staff, depending upon their experience level.?

Try these?two quick self-assessments?to discover the quality of your focus and what you are prioritising unconsciously.?

1. Where are you on this continuum where reactivity is at one end and proactivity at the other.??

A reactive approach is you jump into action once a leader is resigning or giving indications they are burning out or not feeling they are getting any traction.?

A proactive approach is where you understand this issue and are ahead of the game, with a plan to coach your teams thinking and energy so they stay motivated, and it all feels doable.?

Unfortunately too many nurse leaders and executives are so busy with their mind on the important and urgent and they lose focus on the important and non-urgent. The proactive activities and thinking.?Makes sense as?the things you react to are the stressful and??the most visible ones.

Stephen covey’s priority matrix is a powerful tool for managing both time and prioritising tasks. A proactive approach fits into?the important and non-urgent, Quadrant 2.?

Check out the Matrix I created for Nurse executives and Clinical leaders?you can use for the next assessment.

2. Second assessment:

Where do you spend most of your time?

What do you consider to be the financial impact of that? Impact on patient care??

• Leadership burnout
• Lack of feeling of purpose
• Lack of sense of impact
• Missed opportunities for improvement
• Weakening decision making
• Aligned clinical and cultural change initiatives?
• Poor morale and engagement?

Could you be making yourself vulnerable to one third of clinical leaders leaving your team?

If you want to put first things first, connect with me.

Michelle

P.S. Click here to grab the first two chapters of my book, 'Transformational Nurse Identities', FOR FREE and apply the strategies that successfully guided many nurse leaders and their team to become transformational leaders.