Today’s healthcare environment is experiencing unprecedented, intense reformation. Unlike yesterday’s leadership, which required stabilization and growth, today’s leaders must assist their organization to transform their values, beliefs, and behaviors. It has been said, that it is relatively easy to lead people where they want to go. However, it is the transformational leader that must lead people to where they need to be in order to meet the demands of healthcare today.
Our senior leadership has planned and created a vision for the future, and ensures that the systems and environment is conducive to achieve that vision. We must guide the organization towards necessary change and communicate each department’s part in achieving that change. In order to accomplish our goals and vision, we must listen to, challenge and mentor our staff to affirm that Mather makes its way into the future.
The nursing culture at Mather has been built on tradition, history and nursing quality excellence. When we were planning the format of our annual report, we wanted to visually illustrate the preservation of Mather’s history and tradition as well as our journey on the path to nursing excellence. Florence Nightingale represents nursing tradition and transformational leadership. Nightingale envisioned the ideal professional and led nursing from a profession that was once known as undesirable to excellence. She was revolutionary in her leadership and is considered one of the first women founders of social sciences. Nightingale called her work, “a must” and has left us with a need to fight for standards of practice, education, research and excellence. Quoting the words of our nursing leader, “Unless we are making progress in our nursing every year, every month, every week, take my word for it we are going back.”