Lea Lee
August 2024
Lea
Lee
,
MSN, RN, CNOR
Ambulatory Surgical Unit
The Hospital of Central Connecticut
New Britain
,
CT
United States

 

 

 

Lea Lee is a well-educated professional with an extra dose of compassion and caring towards her staff.  Through her dedication to excellence, she has created an environment of trust and caring professionalism that makes all of our unit work as a team. Her communication skills helped bring trust and autonomy back to our unit.
She treats every employee with respect and ensures that we have the education and resources necessary to properly take care of our patients the best and safest way possible. She is open to questions and easy to talk to.

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Lea is a great leader, she leads by example. She is always doing her best and trying her hardest to help not only patients but her staff. Somehow, she finds a way to make things work no matter how difficult they appear at first. Lea provides great support to her units but is not micromanaging every little aspect, which shows she has confidence in her staff. She always has a smile no matter how busy her days are, and we know how busy they can get. Work is a better place when you know you have the support of your manager and the confidence that someone as good as her will be there for you!

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From the day Lea took over as our manager in Endoscopy, she hit the ground running.  Lea has gone above and beyond to support her staff.  She has trained in all areas of the GI department to be able to cover sick calls, vacations, short staffed days, or just provide additional support on very busy days.  She is always professional, courteous, diligent, and compassionate to her staff and our patients that she encounters.  She attends educational workshops with us and encourages our growth inside and outside of our roles as nurses.  As a previous manager myself, I appreciate her dedication to her staff and the lengths she goes to ensure that we are all reaching our own professional goals and aspirations.  I respect her as a leader who works alongside her staff instead of one who just delegates and truly doesn't know the flow of the departments they manage.

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Lea is very supportive to all her staff. She goes above and beyond to accommodate her staff.  She manages 3 depts with ease and is always willing to pull her sleeves up and jump in with patient care.  Lea works above her hours to help staff and patients. Lea is so supportive to her staff, always listening and continuously making changes to improve our dept.

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Lea goes above and beyond for her entire staff daily. She is an asset to her departments. You can find her emptying linen carts, cleaning and dressing stretchers, and bringing down patients to the lobby for discharge.  No task is too great or too small for her. She is always ready to assist each and every one of us in ANY way. She is a strong leader who exudes confidence and compassion! We are so very lucky to have her as our boss, and she deserves this award!

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Lea, is an exceptional, strong leader and a better nurse, she holds herself to a high professional standard in all that she does and advocates the same for those around her.  She is not only a great manager but a beautiful human being with a beautiful heart, always willing to listen and always has the right words to motivate us and brighten our day.

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Lea is the most helpful and caring manager. She is extremely supportive, will be the first person to come and help with anything. She is always there to listen and is so easy to talk to. She is the best manager I have ever had. 

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Lea is one of the most supportive leaders I know. Lea and I have laughed so many times together when I have called her a farmer. I call her this because she is someone who plants a seed inside someone, waters it and steps back while it shines. She is selfless and does things not for personal or professional gain but because she truly wants an idea or a person to grow. You can see this in the people that she has developed. If I were to name off all of the reasons why she should get this award, I would have a bestselling novel so I will try to keep this as short as I can. To start, on the 4 units that she manages, she is never in her office. She is always out on the floor, turning rooms over, helping with lunches, or talking with patients. Beyond her units, when you are on a committee or a task force with Lea the ideas that she comes up with inspire others around her. The most impactful committee that we are on together is the employee engagement committee. She has spear headed coat drives in the winter, Mother’s Day flower donations in the spring, and other community outreach initiatives. I have heard many individuals say to her something to the effect of "thank you for allowing me to be part of this" or "this has given me faith in humanity again". She gives someone an idea and supports them in making that idea a reality. I personally have benefited from Lea's "farming". When Lea approached me, encouraged me to take the educator position, and then again supported me in becoming a manager, little did I know what type of plant she was thinking I would be. One of the first conversations that Lea and I had when I was a new educator was about an idea she had. This idea was to create a nursing student pipeline that essentially slowly trained nursing students to be OR nurses. She gave this idea to me and supported me in developing it, and it has been one of the greatest programs for not just the recruitment of new nurses but for the reduction of orientation time, unit morale, and, again, individual development. I personally would not be where I am today without Lea's encouragement, support, and friendship.

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Lea Lee is a well-educated professional with an extra dose of compassion and caring towards her staff.  Through her dedication to excellence, she has created an environment of trust and caring professionalism that makes all of our unit work as a team. Her communication skills helped bring trust and autonomy back to our unit. Her door is always open for everyone who ever needs her. She supports the staff, listens to our concerns, and looks for solutions. Our unit has never run more efficiently, and the staff have a much brighter morale. I was thinking of early retirement before she became manager. She turned my situation around and encouraged me to come back and be a part of our unit. She made us not just a unit of coworkers but a work family.  Lee has changed our unit for the better. I have nothing but high praise and admire for her and her management style. She is so deserving of this award.

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Lea Lee embodies the true meaning of a leader. She is a person who influences her staff to work together as a strong team, providing a safe and pleasant work environment, ultimately creating an optimal setting for outstanding customer service.  By supporting staff, being caring and genuine, she shares her vision for greatness.  She is someone that staff can rely on.  She is dependable, always willing to jump in and help in any area that she is needed. Without reservation, and full transparency she shares feedback and asks for suggestions on how to better our department. Her vision to constantly provide exceptional customer service to our patients and her optimistic personality are contagious, the staff wants to better themselves, this department, and our THOCC environment. Leading by example in a caring manner, always seeking ways to opportunities to engage staff and strengthen the team. That is Lea.  She developed the employee engagement committee, working with staff to provide community outreach help and create fundraisers.  She shows her commitment to our THOCC community by involving staff and promoting events that engage multiple departments. Under her leadership, we are stronger, happier, and enjoy what we do. We thank her for her dedication to us as our leader. "to me, a leader is a visionary who energizes others. this definition of leadership has two key dimensions: creating the vision of the future, and inspiring others to make that vision a reality." Vince Lombardi.  And that is why our team is a success, we have a coach leading with vision, passion and respect for those that she leads.

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Lea is a steadfast advocate for her patients and staff. She is well-known by her teams to not only support them but always encourages them to find creative solutions to problems or challenges they face. Her efforts have empowered her teams to make the departments even better and stands as a model for effective leadership. When it comes to patient care, Lea's genuine care reminds us all of why we entered healthcare - we are here for our patients and she treats each one as a member of her family. Her interactions with patients and surgeons during her frequent rounding provide a caring atmosphere and demonstrates to our providers the level of dedication she has to her departments. We are all very fortunate to have Lea Lee leading our ASU and endoscopy departments - she is the epitome of the DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurse Leaders!

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Lea is always involved in the care of all the patients in the ASU, pre-op, intra-op, and post op, and endoscopy unit.  She is present and approachable at all times so that her staff can speak their feelings and concerns regarding staffing, challenging patient care, and immanent high-risk events.  Lea is always available to help our staff at all levels, it may be patient care, listening to our concerns, or helping clean stretchers during high volume times.  I had the opportunity to be part of her staff during Covid when I was reassigned to the ICU, and main PACU 12-hour night shifts.  Lea was understanding and very supportive during that difficult time. 

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Lea Lee, as a Manager, serves as the bridge between the company and her employees. What I admire about her as a manager is that she never just sits at her desk. She comes out to make sure everything is going ok and helps with room turnover so that they are ready for the next patient's surgery. She is an incredible manager to be around, she is respectful and trustworthy. She goes above and beyond for the patients and her employees, makes herself available so that patients and employees can ask Questions or Request help with tasks, has very strong Communication skills and active Listening techniques, is a Team player, and has Emotional stability. Lea's staff truly appreciate and respect her.