I would like to nominate my Nurse Manager, Leah Painton for the DAISY Nurse Leader Award and will describe her qualities based on Healthy Work Environment Standards.

Skilled communication: our Nurse Manager is very proficient in her communication skills and has provided feedback along all service lines effectively in oral and written form.  Personally, I feel she is extremely good at circling back to conversations and emails to be sure issues are addressed, solved, and being followed through on.  Her clinical skills are excellent, and she has prioritized patient care as needed and has readily participated in serious clinical events.  She works an earlier shift so that she is accessible to all shifts throughout the week.

True collaboration: our Nurse Manager has spoken with other departments and disciplines in a truly respectful and collaborative approach.  She realizes the necessity of interdisciplinary approaches to patient care and also involves all those who help run ancillary services as well.  She is quick to pass on compliments to other units, staff, doctors, housekeeping, and other departments to maintain healthy working relationships and flow of care to the patients within our unit. She is also willing to have difficult conversations if needed to provide opportunities for growth and improvement within the facility. Collaboration also comes in the form of empowering staff to realize and obtain a goal.  Earlier this year, we decided as a unit to apply for a critical care recognition award.  With a dedicated team and review of our quality data, we were able to apply and receive the award, at a higher level than we had anticipated.  Throughout the process, she encouraged an supported us and when it was time, proved the decorations and food to celebrate our team.

Effective decision making:  She has had a voice and role in policies regarding our area and how we respond to situations within the hospital.  She has been influential in addressing the needs of specific policies such as competency development or program changes, such as surgical care, and makes any updates immediately available to staff.  She creates opportunities for engagement with information within our weekly unit huddles and monthly council meetings. She has an open-door policy, and staff easily talk to her regarding issues, problems, or updates.  This is both professionally and personally, as it affects the employees' work ability.  The benefit of this is that the employees are extremely respectful and accepting of her decisions, as she has always made an effort to provide the best solution.

Appropriate staffing:  She allows opportunities for self-scheduling thus creating employees to have a healthy work life balance.  Due to her recognized fairmindedness, we have witnessed the staff also being more flexible in order to cover unit needs as she is forward in allowing our home schedules to be balanced effectively. Our unit also gets pulled to help other areas and she had been very fair and creative  in those areas of staffing.

Meaningful recognition: During huddles, she always asks, “What is working well and what is not working well?” By addressing these topics, she has opened some very meaningful conversations regarding the improvements we can make as a team. She is extremely effective at treating each staff member like an individual and addresses everyone in a professional yet personalized manner.  Although she doesn’t have to, she provides recognition each month to an employee and provides a small token of appreciation, such as a coffee card or small gift, as a reward. She also makes holidays and Nurses Week feel special and goes out of her way to make staff feel appreciated.  More importantly, on a daily basis, she is excellent at following up on emails when a question is asked.  Although a lot of managers don’t realize it, there is an element of anxiety when addressing a problem or issue in writing to a manager.  I have never experienced her not getting back to me with an answer or solution. This makes staff feel she is very approachable.

Authentic leadership:  there is a quote about leaders and managers, “When I talk to a manager, I feel like THEY are important, when I talk to a leader, I feel that I am important.”  I truly believe our manager lives this and sees each of our staff as individuals and truly respects our differences. She does not try to change people, yet creates criteria for a professional environment.  We recently did personality assessments to try to understand each other more, but I suspect she already knew what we might learn.   It created some really good conversations regarding how we can respect our personalities, yet remain professional.  She role models the ICARE goals and criteria on a daily basis for all the staff.  She sets an example of this every day.  

Thank you for reading about our exceptional nurse manager.