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Welcome to this episode of the NLN podcast Nursing EDge Unscripted the Surface track and thank you for joining us. This episode is entitled 'Lean on Me: Finding Inspiration to Lead from Experts, Colleagues and Within. Our conversation today will focus on finding the inspiration to lead from industry experts, our colleagues, and even from within ourselves. We will be revisiting the lessons learned from four keynote speakers that energize participants at the 2023 NLN Leadership
Institute retreat. Each leader shared words of wisdom, stories, mantras, and guidance to inspire strength and perseverance in leadership roles, especially when leaders find themselves needing a boost of encouragement to keep on. And to help us today we have a very special guest, Dr Sabrina Beroz. Sabrina has over 12 years of experience in simulation based education most notably in delivering professional development programs for academic and practice educators across the globe.
She led a three million dollar statewide simulation consortium leading a team to build a curriculum model on best practices in teaching the pedagogy of simulation. Dr. Beroz is an alumnus of the NLN Leadership Institute for Simulation Educators, a contributor to the NLN Nursing EDge, and also served on the INACSL Board of Directors. Sabrina is also honored by the NLN as a member of the Academy for Nursing Education Fellows. Welcome Sabrina and thank you for joining us.
I'm really excited to be here. I thank you for inviting me and I look forward to having this conversation and just talking about leadership.
Fantastic. Let's dig in. So you know when you and I put our heads together about what we wanted to talk about, we really wanted to highlight some of the key takeaways from the NLN Institute for Leadership we most recently had a retreat with our 2023 cohort of LEAD participants and also the Sim Leadership program participants and it was really a collective group and we just wanted to, I think both of us in our conversations felt inspired we walked away feeling energized from
our keynote speakers that came to share their expertise with us. I thought today we could talk about maybe four themes. We had four speakers and each had a theme.I think that they brought to the table and I do hope in future episodes we can invite many of these keynote speakers as guests and we can dig into their stories and their expertise a little bit on a deeper level. Today I was hoping just to talk about some bigger themes and sort of what resonated with
us with you and I Sabrina. So how does that sound? That sounds great, yeah really looking forward to it. I too walked away with a lot of knowledge as well as kind of affirmation for leadership, you know, my own journey and where I needed help and and how at going through and just listening to all of these speakers just how I can even enhance my own leadership so it was a great experience the retreat was inspirational
I think for everybody who attended. Exactly and I think it's even fun for us, because we were there co-facilitating in many regards but when we were in the presence of these keynote speakers, I think we quickly became
the student too, right? Like we felt like we were participants equally because we got to, we I think benefited just as much as the participants did in many regards maybe in a different capacity because we were listening from a different lens but I think it was it was fun to sit back and receive as well as to give during that retreat. Absolutely, absolutely. So the four leadership themes that I thought we could highlight today would be creativity,
connection, strategy, and advocacy. So I think these four themes resonate through much of our work as nurse educators but we also know as as nurse educators we lead where we are. We often have to rise to the occasion of leadership sometimes in an informal way, sometimes in a formal capacity, but in I think no matter how you look at it, on any given day, we have to function as leaders at some point. I just think that's the complexity
and the probably the privilege of our work. I think just being a nurse educator we're stepping into...you're saying yes to leadership. Would you agree? I would. What are your thoughts? Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree and I think that you know we often think about leadership as being on this pedestal and that people will kind of climb a ladder to get up there, but we lead from where we are, where
we stand. And I think we have to remember that and then we have goals in mind for where we want to go and and what we can learn from others who have gone before us in leadership and I think the four themes that we're going to talk about you need to be definitely you need to be creative you know in your approach or just as you as an individual making decisions as a leader. You need creativity in order to do that and to work with your teams.
You know, connection clearly is really important because you can't work as a leader in isolation because then you wouldn't be a leader, you'd be a lone person. So I think themes that we have selected - strategy is always important.
You know, you need to know where you're going and then of course the whole budget side for advocating for yourself or budget purposes, expenditures, you know, is is really key in many of the things that we do because we need to be able to advocate for items that we need. Excellent and I also would add that I think you know I think as a nurse educator we're coming into this role being nurses first and
foremost, right? I think that's what brings us here is being nurses and that being a nurse can be challenging in many regards and very rewarding but I know we often talk about the challenges because we're trying to help teach the next generation of learners to navigate the challenging environment in which they enter. I think being a teacher has its challenges and and again its rewards with regard to really being able to give back to our communities in which we're serving our
learners. But I think with that comes a lot of daily challenges that we try to navigate and then you add on this a third layer. It's like this cake of professional work that we do which is leadership. And I think, when we think of ourselves as leaders, when we step into that role whether again, informally or formally, we can find ourselves in some tough situations. I think sometimes it can be challenging and we can feel stretched
beyond what we feel comfortable. I think we can feel a little strained maybe because of some limitations in our role or in our circumstances. I want to talk a little bit about how these four themes and how these four expert leaders, what they came and brought to us at the retreat, how the inspiration...where can we go for inspiration, where can we go for mentorship,
where can we go for support. When we find that our our work and our day has become a little challenged because I think when we get challenged I think it's our human nature to like seek comfort like that's what I do. I'm like, wait, no, no, I don't, I didn't sign up for this. I don't like being here. I don't like being uncertain. It's uncomfortable and get me out of here. And that's what I do...I kind of just panic a little bit.
But I think the inspiration that these keynote speakers shared with us is that we can we can lean into this a little bit the challenge right. Right. Right. So I have a quote, Nelson Mandela, it's his quote and he said that that we shouldn't be judged by our successes that we should be judged by how many times we fell down and how many times we got up so I think that's kind of leaning into what we're going to talk about today, is just that, you know, how do you get up?
Right, when things get a little bit difficult or maybe you are in a new role and you're not 100% sure how to manage or or to traverse that new role that that you've been given and where do you go and what kind of inspiration can you gather from today as well as from those speakers who will come in further in this series.
That's great and by all measures and by Nelson Mandela's words of wisdom I get I think I get an A. Many times as I've fallen down you know gotten back up right there is that good side of it too, so I thank you for sharing that. It's a perfect segue and foundation for what we want to talk about today. Our first theme I thought we'd start with creativity and Dr. Sarah Szanton who is the dean at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing
in Baltimore, Maryland. She came and talked to us about really finding creativity and leadership, which I thought it was very refreshing to hear and very hopeful to hear that there is ways that we can navigate the challenges in leadership and sometimes the isolation we feel in leadership. We can really be inspired to find help and support in a creative way that we just don't often think about and we can only get these ideas and this creativity from I think other people sometimes.
It comes from within us. We might be trying to navigate a problem and have like an idea like, oh okay I'll give that a try, but I think a lot of times these ideas or how to push through
tough times in leadership come from other people. I think sometimes in our professional work the other the people closest to us in our professional circles aren't always able to give us that energizing renewal we need when times are tough because it's probably tough for them too, like we're in this little bucket of
toughness. I thought what was inspiring about what Dr. Szanton shared was that she said that she really has learned to incorporate her family and her close personal circles and blur the lines a little bit with like family and your personal circles with professional our
professional work. The one example she gave was how she might include, like if you have children, she might you know include her child in helping cheer her on to recruit a certain number of participants for a research study. The research study is your professional world and you're just grinding away trying to get recruits and participants to meet this goal, right?
It can feel rigorous and frustrating and hard but yet if you turn to your family and like a child especially and they're cheering you on at home.
You've got this...what did they use like a little thermometer gauge and you've got...you're incorporating your this child, who has a very natural propensity for I think playing and fun, and they can make this feel more fun for you as a professional and then I think that shines the light into our professional world and then that light gets reciprocated back home too. I never thought of blurring the lines
like that. I always thought we had to keep them like super separate in order to keep it healthy. But I was inspired by Dr. Szanton and that maybe that's not the case, I mean what are your
thoughts about that? Yeah, you know I... I just reverted back in my memory just thinking about when I was a clinical instructor and I had all this paperwork that I had to do after the clinical experience and looking at their care plans and and going through and making comments and I can remember coming home and having these stacks of paper that I needed to go through and my son would be doing his homework at the same time so I would do my paperwork while he was
doing his homework and we would kind of share back and forth what we were doing. So I do think that that's important because it helps to make it more fun and you're actually doing something together while you're doing separate work. They can understand a little bit more about your world and you can understand theirs as well. I did appreciate that when she talked about how important it is to try and maybe just have...
you be a little more creative in how you work. Try and strive for that work-life balance. Yeah and I think it's about being creative or a little maybe open about setting our expectations and like framing our thoughts around it. It was a good reframe for me that you know, I worry sometimes because I do work hard and I worry sometimes that I'm sending a message to my family that work is hard because I come home with like a scowl on my face.
I'm like, maybe sharing something frustrating or just have like tension, right? Kids especially are very sensitive to that. That's right. That's right. I think I felt I walked away feeling inspired and to be more creative about how I share my work-life with home-life.
You know, it's interesting because I took away from her just the importance of your perspective and being kind of creative in your ways of thinking when your expectations get to be so great and that people may come to you and ask you for a requests that they want you to do something. It kind of creeps into your life, right? It creeps into, it adds to what I call your stack - all the things that you need to
do. It is a balancing act. She had this statement that I thought was really meant, it resonated with me. When people ask you to do things and then you think, I have to add that on top of what I already have as requirements for my own role, that instead of saying oh I have to she said "I get to," which means that you put a positive spin on what people have asked you
to do. They don't ask you to do things because...they ask you to do it because they admire you or they admire your work or they they really feel like you could be helpful. So if you can say that. It also reminds me back a little bit, my 91 year old mother-in-law who was always very positive and you know I said to her, I said, how do you stay so positive? She said,
"It's attitude." That's what Dr. Szanton was talking about are these creative ways of thinking about these expectations that were not initially on your radar and then all of a sudden requests come in and they kind of creep into your job requirements. I think that being positive about that resonated with me. Yeah. I appreciate these little like mantras or short little word like I get to kind of that quick reframe or you know, I'm not able to do this and I
know who can, right? And, not but, right? Not but. My dad would always say, "I smell a butt coming," which is like a perfect dad joke. I know someone who can or and I have an idea of how this might be we can go about this differently so I think that's really helpful. Yeah I do too. The second theme we had was around connection with Dr Olenda Johnson. She is a professor of strategic leadership and leadership development at the U.S Naval War College in
Newport, Rhode Island. Dr. Johnson was such an inspiration. I hung on like every word she said. I just felt so connected to her talk and I think one of the themes, she had a few themes, but one of the themes she shared was around connection. I think personally it resonated with me significantly because I went through as part of the Maryland R3 initiative with Dr. Cynda Rushton.
We went through an exercise of identifying our core values and you know you start out with this like paper with like a hundred different potential core values and then some that aren't even probably listed there and you go through this series of very reflective questions to help you narrow down to maybe two or three core values that become the pillar, like the pillars of your professional and I would even say personal life.
Like what really drives your decision making, what influences how you navigate your life. So when I did that exercise I came down to one of my core values was actually connection so when she came out and talked about the importance of connection I felt very like validated in that because sometimes that's not seen as an important trait. Sometimes it's more about achieving a goal or kind of more, I don't know, I just felt, I just felt seen.
What also resonated with me about feeling and seeing is that she talked a lot about the importance of mentorship in the context of connection. She talked about how mentors and a really important role is to hold up a mirror to the people that you're working with either a team or to an individual that you hold up a mirror and allow the person to see the parts of themselves that they can't always
see. It's like in their blind spot, especially the really positive parts of how people contribute but they don't know that they're contributing in this very specific, meaningful way. I think holding that up to people to allow them to see those parts of themselves, it can be so powerful. Dr. Johnson shared a story that
I think exemplified that. A personal example I can share of what how this kind of has played out for me is that I was invited to do a keynote presentation and I don't, I really shy away from any public speaking even though I know I'm a teacher and I'm on a podcast right now. I really have a hard time rising to the occasion because I just get so nervous and when I was asked to do a keynote. I said yes,
thank you. And then inside my inner toddler was kicking and screaming and saying no, no, no don't do that. You can't do that, like you cannot get up on that stage and you can't do that. And it was through mentorship where I had someone that kept holding up that mirror to me saying you can do this. You are ready. You have something to contribute and only you can contribute this thing because it's you. It's coming from your authentic self.
I needed that person to hold up that mirror time and time and time again to get me to get on that stage, which was still really hard but I did it. I think Dr. Johnson shared a similar story about how we can really in connection and in mentorship, we can really support one another and help people grow in a super meaningful way. What are
your thoughts about that Sabrina? You know, when you were talking about your inner toddler you made me think about I was in a leadership development institute at the college I worked at prior to changing my role from there and we had to we all had to get up and and speak about the project that we were doing and because I had already been an educator it wasn't quite as overwhelming as it was for this one person who was selected to be the speaker for the whole class.
He got up there and he actually went blank. He had a real difficult time with his just being comfortable being up there and he was so nervous. The president of the college got up and said to him, "I always am nervous before I speak because if I'm not it doesn't mean anything to me." That really resonated with me. To me, she was really providing mentorship at her role as president of the college to this person who was so nervous about speaking and he went on and he
continued. The value of mentorship and having that mirror and somebody saying you can do that and it's okay this happens to me too, normalizing some of those feelings, I think sometimes is also important because that's exactly what she did with him. I also think you know when you think about connection mentorship is so important and you may have a mentor at one point in your journey. Usually that first mentor you're with for a longer period of time than you would be.
Then they become friends and colleagues because you now have moved into a different relationship with that mentor and then you will have more than one mentor in your life because that mentorship is so important. You need different things from your mentors as you go along and as your journey through your leadership. I think that's important to consider because your connections change with with your mentors and they can become you have a different relationship with
them. I find that the longer or the more you go through your journey sometimes that mentor is not as long as they were in the very beginning because you needed so much development at that point and and having people give you the confidence as you build and move through the other point I think is really important with connection is to think about succession planning and that when you are in, you know, working on committees or I was on in
a board position at one point and just thinking about the connections I had to get me there, how can I help others who are coming up behind me to be able and make that connection with them so that you can help them grow and move. Remembering about diversity equity and inclusion and how important it is to develop everybody in your organization to
help it be representative. I kind of took that away with connection and how important that is with mentorship and then succession planning.
The other thing that I took away to was how important it is to be your authentic self and because we often look at ourselves as but trying to emulate somebody that has been our mentor but you still need to be yourself and you were put there for a reason and that connection you had with somebody who put you there saw something in you that was important
to move into that particular role. I think that's important and to use your strengths and know what your strengths are so that when you're in a team everybody values the strengths that you bring to the team and leverages those for for the purpose. The connection you can have with people within your strengths is so important. One story I'll tell you about my strengths were really high in strategic planning and
process abilities. I worked with a person who had a really strong relationship strength and so she would come into work and she would greet everybody on the way into the office and I usually got in early before everybody to get my work done and then I felt like I was comfortable to go greet everybody and say hello. It's just different ways but together we were a really good team and had a great connection
together. That's awesome and you know what Sabrina, I want to go back to what you were saying about mentorship. I think the word when I hear about the word mentorship I think I always think of a traditionally like long relationship that builds over time but I think what you described was also that there are maybe opportunities...it doesn't have to be about time, maybe it's about quality
and that connection piece, right? Because what the word that came to my mind when I was listening to you was maybe there's the one minute mentor. Maybe there's somebody you meet and your life intersects for like one minute and you get some feedback or you get some words of wisdom and it just hits you.
You walk away from that person, you go your own separate ways but that whatever they said or whatever they did just keep spinning with you and spinning with you and lays some real meaningful groundwork for something you go do or direction that you go in life. I think the one minute mentor, I don't know if that's even a term but we can make it up today , is that I don't think it's about time and I always thought it was. I appreciate what you're saying
because it maybe it's expandable. This time to build a mentor, maybe it can be quick and down and dirty. I don't know. Right. Yeah. I think sometimes you need different things as you go through your journey and your work and then your connections will always be there. Your connections are always going to be there. Networking and how important that is your connections and then you may go back to that mentor and say tell me a little bit more about how you see me
and you know what can I change with that mirror? I love that metaphor. Just put a mirror in front and what do you see? I think that that's key but you may even go back to that person so I agree I don't think it's time, I think it's more if you recognize an area or they help you recognize an area that that you don't see in yourself but they do then I think that's important. We want to be conscious of our time boundaries. This conversation could
go on and it will. We will pick up with our conversation with Sabrina discussing key themes from the 2023 NLN Leadership Institute Retreat on our next episode. Thank you for joining us on this episode of NLN Nursing EDge Unscripted Surface. We hope you join us next time. Until then remember, whether your water is calm or choppy, stay connected, get vulnerable, and dare to go beneath the surface.