Shaping the Nursing Profession Postpandemic Through Reconstructed Leadership Practices

Responding to and navigating the COVID-19 pandemic were demanding and all-consuming for executive nurse leaders. Long-term pandemic challenges will continue and therefore it is important for nurse leaders to develop their reflective practice to increase role competency, gain wisdom, and advance the profession. The complex postpandemic world requires nurse leaders to show up differently, stop ineffective practices, continue best practices, and implement new ideas to improve performance and outcomes. This article offers a framework for leadership reflection, through role negotiation technique, to identify lessons from the lived nurse executive experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specific focus is placed on communication, teamwork, professional governance, posttraumatic growth, gratitude, diversity/equity/inclusion, and social determinants of health. These concepts, along with specific tactics, will help leaders set priorities, aid nursing leadership practice, identify meaningful goals and desired outcomes, and effectively lead to advance the nursing profession postpandemic.