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How Nurses With Emotional Intelligence Promote Safe Staffing

Beth Boynton
December 30, 2016 • 3 min read

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I'm a huge advocate for using Medical Improv for teaching emotional intelligence (EI) to nurses and some of the rationales might surprise you. Many of you know that emotional intelligence helps clinicians demonstrate empathy for patients yet did you also know that it can help us develop a stronger and more collective voice around safe staffing? Emotional intelligence includes a host of what are often referred to as ‘soft skills' – many of which involve communication and collaboration.

A fundamental way to describe emotional intelligence is to say that it involves awareness of self, others and the ability to manage one’s feelings and relationships. However, there is a lot more to it! Daniel Goleman, a prominent researcher brought the term emotional intelligence, into the popular culture with his groundbreaking and best-selling book, “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ”. The book has been a valuable tool to me and a great resource you can use for learning more on the topic. Goleman explains the importance of knowing ourselves in terms of self-awareness, managing emotions, motivating oneself, knowing each other in terms of recognizing emotions in others and handling relationships. If you are willing to explore a little deeper, there are three compelling ways that developing your emotional intelligence and will contribute to safe staffing!

First, self-awareness is a key skill that you will develop. This will help you to know what your limits are, respect them and manage them. This will empower you to ask for help, refuse a work assignment that will put you in overload and maybe even prevent an unsafe act.  

Second, as you know, emotional intelligence is also about developing empathy and that includes reading other people’s emotional cues and honoring them. As noted previously, we often see this as a benefit to patients yet there is much more to gain. For instance, when your colleague looks like she is stressed to the max, you will sense that she could use some help and if you can, offer it.  Even if you cannot help, this same awareness can lead to other supportive interventions such as, holding back from asking her to help you in that moment, letting her know you see she is stressed, suggesting that others who may be less busy offer her help and keeping it in mind should you have a free moment to help later.  

Third, emotional intelligence promotes respect for self and others. What I can do Monday morning might be very different from what I can do Thursday afternoon and what I can do Monday morning might be very different from what you can do any morning. Rather than judging myself for being inadequate or others for being lazy or some other derogatory term, we can learn and practice respect for ourselves, each other, the practice of nursing.  

The idea of recognizing and honoring our own and each other’s limits is absolutely critical in determining safe staffing ratios at any given moment. The more nurses who develop emotional intelligence and practice the respectful communication it supports, the stronger our individual and collective voices will be to ensure we have enough staff to provide safe care and go home feeling good about our work!

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Beth Boynton, RN, MS, is the author of Successful Nurse Communication: Safe Care, Healthy Workplaces, & Rewarding Careers (F. A. Davis 2015) and Confident Voices: The Nurses’ Guide to Improving Communication & Creating Positive Workplaces (CreateSpace 2009). She is a speaker, medical improv practitioner and clinical advisor for ManageUp. She can be contacted at beth@bethboynton.com. Find more about her work at Confident Voices in Healthcare.