Nurse Leader Resiliency: Arming Nurse Leaders with the Skills and Strategies to Lead

The current rate of change in healthcare is increasing daily and with it adding additional stress to nurses and nurse leaders. Without the appropriate skills, nurse leaders themselves are not prepared to be resilient in the face of the increased stress and pressure that comes with change. This project involved the creation of an evidence-based resiliency toolkit for nurse leaders at a 178-bed community hospital. The nurse leaders participated in a 2-hour long workshop focusing on skills and strategies to increase personal resilience. This workshop was followed up by weekly email reminders on specific skills and strategies to focus on for the coming week. Following the workshop, nurse leaders' perception and implementation of the skills and strategies were assessed weekly. After the six weeks, nurses self-reported resiliency was assessed using the Connor-Davidson RISC 25 (CD RISC 25) survey. Seventeen nurse leaders participated in the initial workshop, while eleven participated in at least one week of the review and post assessment. These eleven nurse leaders reported 79.18 average CD RISC 25 score compared to the average nurse score of 66.5. All participants found the resiliency toolkit useful and applicable to practice. In order for nurse leaders to meet the challenges of a changing healthcare environment and to create resilient cultures that promote safe patient care, they must first be armed with skills and strategies that lead to personal resilience.