Working in healthcare, specifically the nursing field, I feel as though gender biases and the barriers of the “leadership labyrinth” (Northouse, 2018, p. 424) that women encounter are not as apparent compared to the corporate world. Nursing, being a female dominated profession, historically has attracted more women than men. I was challenged to consider how I could foster recognition and integrate practical inclusion ideas in a field that already embraces women in the workplace, so I focused on inclusion behaviors in general.

My results of taking the Gender-Leader Implicit Association test (ITA) (Northouse, 2018) was insightful as I ended up with a negative score. Although I am aware of gender stereotypical associations that contribute to the biases against women as leaders, I feel incredibly grateful to the environment I work in, as I am surrounded by strong, influential women. To elaborate, in my 10-year career as a nurse in the areas of medicine, perioperative and palliative care, all the program managers, clinical nurse specialists and directors of care have been female. This is also represented in the higher numbers of female palliative physicians over male ones in my organization. Interestingly, the area of hospice care characteristically attracts compassionate, caring and supportive people, which in my experience, has generally been women. This confirms those stereotypical pairings that the gender ITA test captures.

Nugent, Pollock, & Travis (2016) highlight that employees report feeling included when they are recognized for their uniqueness and experience a sense of belonging to the group. I can see the challenge this carries for large corporations and organizations to recognize individuals for their contribution and ensure they feel valued. This article explores ways in which leaders can make inclusion visible on a day-to-day basis. I particularly liked the analogy of inclusion “being like air: all around but ungraspable, intangible, invisible” (Nugent, Pollock & Travis, 2016, p. 4).

As a nurse leader in my workplace, I am gifted with the luxury of time to be visible and interact with my team on many levels and frequencies. Personal communication is front and center in my day-to-day priorities as a leader. It is that time I spend with staff and team members that “speak to strong relationships and respectful, collaborative, or transparent interpersonal communication” (Nugent et al, 2016, p. 6) which fosters that sense of inclusion. I am aware of how I model inclusion behaviors and besides taking the time to connect with staff in a one on one manner, I make it a priority to give “credit where credit is due” (Nugent et al, 2016, p. 10). Recognizing individuals for the incredible work they do is something I am passionate about. This recognition could take place in the form of a team email, posted on a communication board, delivered in a team meeting or individually. I think the biggest compliment I can receive as a leader is when my team provides exceptional holistic end of life care and families are indelibly grateful. Additionally, asking for everyone’s’ input with decisions that affect them is something I place high importance on. I support inclusion by ensuring I hear the opinions of those that may not be the most outgoing to share in a team meeting or training session as I value what contributions they can make. For staff, the opportunity to share their experiences about times where they felt included and excluded brings awareness to how exclusion impacts individuals, which helps bring a common vison of inclusion to light (Nugent et al, 2016).

To summarize, I feel that the leaders in my workplace do a great job at fostering and modeling inclusion behavior. They engage in personal communication, validate employees’ experiences, seek feedback and show that people matter through their actions. I am aware of just how crucial this is, because the results are clear. Feeling valued and a sense of belonging are two important reasons that many of my teams I have worked on have been very close knit and functioned at a high level. I couldn’t imagine dealing with some of the emotional and physical challenges without having a solid peer group to count on.

Daneen

References

Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership: Theory and Practice, Eighth Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Nugent, J., Pollack, A. & Travis, D. (2016). The day to day experiences of workplace inclusion and exclusion. Retrieved from http://www.catalyst.org/system/files/the_day_to_day_experiences_of_workplace_inclusion_and_exclusion.pdf