Making effective decisions is essential for nurses, especially when in a leadership role. Successful nurse leaders are also able to involve the right people. This is while considering the impact of those decisions on patients, team members, and the organization as a whole.
It is important to consider the process of decision making rather than just focusing on the decision itself. Are you able to analyze options, risks, and consequences? Are you proactive? Do you use your experience and generate many potential options? In this way, you build a system in which you can make effective decisions.
Making decisions is not just about the decision itself, rather it is building a system in which you can make good and effective decisions in the midst of your daily challenges. Here are considerations when building your system for effective decisions:
A Positive Work Environment
First, it is important to have a positive work environment. This is so that you will involve the right people, generate a variety of potential solutions, and evaluate those solutions. Then you will be able to make the decision and communicate it with a solid plan for implementation. Can you see that the actual making of the decision is just one small part of the process?
Making decisions happens in the course of the nursing shift, in the midst of pressure, deadlines, emotional turmoil and overload. To build this positive environment, start with yourself and develop a strong foundation of emotional intelligence, including stress tolerance, optimism and flexibility. Managing your reaction to stress helps you see beyond your own artificial sense of urgency. This enables you to build the decision making system providing the space for others to share opinions, ideas, concerns and feedback as well as generate potential options and explore risks.
Involving the Right Persons
As you evaluate the impact of the decision on individuals, the team and the organization, ask yourself, have I involved the right people? Have you also identified the right problem? Do you have an objective that others can work together on and communicate effectively, without one person dominating the process?
You want to be creative and identify all the potential solutions. If you simply adopt the first good alternative you come up with, you are missing many good options. You are also potentially misrepresenting the problem. If you ask yourself, “What other good options are out there?” you go deeper and look at the problem from different angles. And it is also important to know when it is time to wrap up the process and make the decision.
Having this system in place to make decisions builds confidence as a nurse leader. This then translates into greater confidence in the process you set up. It is important to contribute to grow and develop as a leader and in particular in the area of effective decision-making for nurses.