Ranting!
Sorry had to rant for a second. I meant "political pull". Admittedly I was not perhaps the best canadate, but the other two quit, because of her already. So have eight other good nurses. The CEO is blaming it on administrative transition phase. I know that does happen. Still I gotta think that there is someone watching the retention numbers at the head office who would ask questions eventually? All of this in the last four months really. If anyone has real insite I would apprieciate it. Including the idea that maybe I need to learn to play the fiddle too, if that is what it takes to get thre? Some one suggested that, but I am having a hard time buying it. Thanks.

If the situation you describe is accurate, why in heavens name would you want to join that leadership team??? It's certain to result in nothing but failure, and leave you feeling disgusted with the whole process. You don't need to sell your soul to the devil to progress in your career.

If you are serious about making the leap to management, then you need to do a serious self-assessment about your weaknesses. Don't know your educational background, but if you start working on your MBA, and start taking some leadership and teamwork classes, you'll start moving in the right direction.

These kinds of jobs are always about who you know and how you are perceived by the leadership team. So, yes, to a certain extent, you have to "play the fiddle", but you need to do it with your heart in the right place. Really good leaders and managers are always looking to develop other leaders, so you need to find someone to mentor you through the process. But these people only want to mentor people they trust and have faith in, because their risk is so much greater. If they perceive you as less than sincere, or untrustworthy, they won't take the risk.

My suggestion is that you start reading some books by John Maxwell (Developing the Leader Within You, Developing the Leaders Around You, 21 Qualities of a Leader, etc, etc). A couple of other books to look at include "QBQ: The Question behind the Question" and "The Oz Principle". The people that you want to run with have almost certainly already read them.

As far as "getting back on the floor" with your troups, there is a time and a place for that, but the job of someone in a leadership/management position is to make sure there are enough fully qualified troups available to get the job done. In nursing, this is always a tough thing to accomplish, because of shortages and turnover, but if you create a good, supportive environment, people will stay. That means building a strong team. Which means you have to have some idea of the kind of team you want to build. And that's a leadership/management job (hire the right people, train them correctly, encourage and support them as they grow in their jobs). So a good leader is also a resource person. If you have people who are jumping ship, then your leader is failing in many of these areas. However, if you want to show your current leadership team that you would be a good candidate for the job, you need to think of things that you can do right now to strengthen your team.

Once you've accomplished all of that, you still have to deal with the details of administrative jobs (budgets, payroll, staffing, compliance with regulatory agencies, dealing with doctors, other departments, your immediate supervisor, etc, etc). And work an average of 50-70 hours/week usually in a salaried position (no overtime). If you think this is a challenge you want to take on, then go for it.

And remember that to be a good leader, you will have to play to the crowd. You have to learn how to make people feel good about working with you and for you.

Thanks ginger. Why would I want to join that team? A good question I had not considered about this situation. First it would not be the first time I have done it, only to be the last man standing. Acctually it would be the third time I can think of off the top of my head. The other times I was not a nurse. I seldom know when to quit, that is one of my faults. And no it was 10 not 8 now that you made me count names, but two of them really weren't a loss. As for the perception thing I am making some ground on that. As for my education, I have an AS of course, AA and some specialty certs. None of them at this institution have anything higher either, witch I found shocking. Not a BSN in the bunch. No kidding. Maybe that explains some of it. ( I don't know about the CEO.)(Yes it is a hospital.) Instead of taking my BS in nursing I was going to take it in healthcare administration. I already do more than 50hrs a week, but not every week. When I was in sales I did 12hrs a day often six days a week and worked part of Sunday too. So that part of it is not a big deal, for me. (No wonder my wife got sick of it.) The leadership classes I could really stand, between the now and when I restart my BS. I was going to check that out there is a small business school here that teaches them, not sure where they get there accretiation, but that I will look into of course. Nice thing is they are less than a mile from my house. I have read some books, How to win friend and influence people, but I admit it has been years since I read anything like that. As for team building, I have never thought of myself as a team person. Well got to go type latter. thaks