Guest Post: Saluting leadership that both challenges and supports staff

by Linda Renee Brown, RN, MA, CCDS, CCS, CDIP

I almost didn’t become a nurse. I was almost booted out of nursing school. For alleged transgressions too ridiculous to describe, a petty instructor failed me in my pediatrics clinical. While the director basically conceded that the instructor’s complaints were insignificant, she nevertheless put me on probation for one rotation. If I didn’t have a good evaluation for my adult nursing rotation, I would have to leave the program.

I approached the rotation with trepidation.  I was afraid that anything I did or said would be held against me. But I need not have worried. My new instructor was a wiser, older woman who was going back to rehab nursing after that rotation. We students felt blessed to be her final group. She told me not to worry, and she loaded me up with extra projects and additional assignments, not as a punishment, but so that she could write pages  of glowing reviews of all the extra work I did. She challenged me to be brilliant instead of trying to prove that I wasn’t. It ended up being a wonderful rotation, and of course, I eventually graduated from nursing school.

Lately, I have had occasion to think of that marvelous woman, Evelyn Baird. Without going into details, let’s just say it’s been a difficult summer, a summer in which both my professional and my personal lives have been in crisis.

At Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center, our CDI team reports to case management. Last winter Banner hired a new department head. It didn’t take long for me to decide I just didn’t like her. She seemed too pushy, too know-it-all, too focused on capturing revenue and doing whatever it took to keep her job. I couldn’t stand being in meetings with her and I rolled my eyes when she wasn’t looking. I stayed far, far away. But that’s because I didn’t know her.

So how did I get to know her? When my professional and my personal crises intersected, she was right there to tell me I was valuable, I was special, and that she could see that I needed help. She made sure I knew I had her support. She still had a department to run, but she wanted me there and in one piece. So she moved me right where she could see me and I could see her on a daily basis, and she asked me for my opinions, she picked my brain, and she loaded me up with projects.

On the day when everything fell apart, I told her that the one good thing about the whole mess was that at least I was getting to know her. And I get to know her more every day. The only person who hugs me more often these days is my daughter. What about all the extra work and extra projects she’d assigned to me?  I get to add them to the portfolio I’m submitting with my application to our hospital’s Clinical Expert Recognition Program (CERN).

Today, I met with my CERN program mentor for the first time. She reviewed my portfolio and told me I was magnificent. Pretty staggering words for me to hear, barely two months removed from the depths of my summer difficulties. Who dragged me to that moment when I could have just as easily been dragged through the mud? My boss, my supervisor, my leader, and now someone I consider my friend, our Director of Case Management, Kathy Singleton.

When I think of Kathy, I think of Evelyn: wise, smart, and infinitely talented in bringing out the best in their team—leaders. A true leader is not always the person who puts in the most hours or creates the fanciest PowerPoint presentation to the C-suite. In my opinion, it is always the one who teaches others to recognize their full potential and equips them to achieve it.

While such leaders can come from any department, my leader is a case manager; and so in honor of case management week, I’d like to acknowledge those great case managers. Kathy, I thank you, and I salute you.

Editor's note: Brown, at the time of the article's original response, was an independent CDI consultant based in Carrollton, GA. With experience in critical care, nursing education, disease management, case management, and long-term care, she has worked as a CDI specialist, educator, director, and consultant. She is a frequent writer on topics involving clinical documentation and published her own "The Case Manager's Quick Guide to Diagnostic Related Groups" in 2013.