#52 The Healthcare Leader as a Role Model for Self-Care: Caring for Yourself and Caring for the Team featuring Dr. Jeanne Roode
We begin our interview with our guest Dr. Jeanne Roode, talking about the influence Polarity Thinking™ has had on us as healthcare leaders and the polarities at play during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a healthcare leader amid COVID-19, Jeanne is recognizing the polarity of keeping people safe and rescuing the economy and how this is a polarity manifesting in front of us and on a world stage every day. She’s also experiencing the margin and mission polarity as healthcare organizations face significant economic challenges and try to stay viable and at the same time serve their communities.
Jeanne sees Polarity Thinking™ as a way to give back, especially to new leaders and to help them navigate and manage the ongoing tensions they experience.
These tensions can significantly impact healthcare leaders, especially if they are unaware of them or do not know how to manage them.
During our interview we discuss the crux tension or polarity of taking care of self andtaking care of others. Jeanne shares her journey on the road to sustainable well-being over four years and what she has learned along the way.
From Jeanne’s perspective, 100% commitment to your well-being is not something you wake up one day and decide, it is an evolution. She describes it as, “a number of moments in your life in which you learn and gain wisdom, that come together to one day be enough to push through the barriers”.
Jeanne’s doctoral work focused on the health and well-being of nurses and nurse managers. She studied the self-care practices of nurses and found their lowest scoring areas were nutrition and exercise. In her study, nurse managers had the lowest scores in stress management as well as attending to their own stress and learning more about it. Jeanne has learned what nurses don’t understand, and that is if they don’t attend to their own self-care, and focus on others instead, they are putting everything at risk including attending to others.
Jeanne shares some of the ways she’s found to care for her team while caring for herself is to be a role model, provide appreciation and recognition of their stories, and take interest in their personal and professional success.
Some recommendations for healthcare leaders engaged in day-to-day COVID-19 planning or management is to trust each other to carry the work, encourage self-care, and share stories of what you are doing to take care of yourself.
How you take care of yourself as a leader cannot be hidden. Your valuing of self-care shows in everything you do. You are being watched and whether you are aware of it or not, you are a role model for self-care.
The wisdom Jeanne shares is profound!
Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, we may use your question on a future episode.
We have opened a private Resilient and Balanced Healthcare Leader Community in Facebook to provide a safe space for healthcare leaders to connect, support each other and share their experiences during this time of crisis. To join Click here.
