Earlier we saw an example of a head nurse with a diagnosable unstable personality disorder who bullied and belittled her team of over 200 nurses. Over time senior leadership came to realize that even though her bullying management style may have saved the organization thousands of dollars in audit fines, her toxic behavior was costing them far more in staff morale, engagement, and the ability to retain top talent. The leadership team made a commitment to stop enabling or ignoring her destructive behaviors. The executive director contracted with an organizational development professional to devise a program to turn around a damaging situation.
A key part of the proposed interventions required the bullying nurse to participate in leadership assessments, coaching, and retraining both as an individual and as part of peer cohorts. The assessments revealed for her a shocking realization of how negatively she was showing up as a leader. Over an 8- 12-month period of time as a direct result of intervention and training, this leader’s behavior began to change. The number of anonymous complaints being sent to the regional and national office went from 10-12 per month to an amazing 0. Staff reported they were learning from this very talented nurse leader and work was actually fun again.