Nursing

Leadership in an age-diverse nursing workplace

Nurse Leader Insider, August 24, 2017

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Book excerpt from Managing the Intergenerational Nursing Team.

Your challenge is to keep all generations engaged, motivated, and satisfied in their jobs in order to increase productivity, morale, and job satisfaction. It is expensive to replace a nurse employee, so you must also find ways to decrease attrition and turnover. You are going to need to build more personal relationships with your staff nurses to increase team morale and make them feel needed and wanted.

Great leaders have a vision of the future that they can sell to others to get their buy-in. Your managerial style will benefit from having a vision of the future that your staff will support. Then you can persuade them to join as a team to bring that vision into reality. Your job is sales—selling your vision. Your job is production—giving them the tools to do the job right. And your job is cheerleader—motivating and supporting them in their efforts.

Successful and fair management of an age-diverse group begins with an open discussion of the differences between the generational cohorts while you maintain a positive attitude. Generational stereotyping can be a risky practice, so look at the needs of your diverse team in the context of their generation with caution. It would be a mistake to assume that everyone in that generation thinks the same or wants the same things. You will need to tailor your leader­ship techniques accordingly, including communication styles, conflict resolution, coaching, and motivating. Some of your staff will eagerly follow your leadership. Some of them will question and even dismiss your efforts. Knowing the preferences for each generation can provide insight to help motivate and affirm yourself during the rough times.

Generational considerations can also show you the path to solidify your work team and bring out the potential in every individual. When the team wins, you win; so set them and yourself up with every advantage to be a productive and effective work team by attending to their genera­tional needs. It will be time and energy well spent.



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