Emerging Nurse Leader

A leadership development blog

Setting a Hard Stop to Your Day When The Work Isn’t Done

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By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN It’s 5:00 PM. You tell yourself you’re going to shut down your computer, but then you see one more email. Or you remember a task you forgot. Suddenly, it’s 7:30 PM, you’re exhausted, and you're still working. Does this sound familiar? For busy professionals who carry a heavy mental load, the brain doesn't have an off switch—it needs … [Read more...]

The Hidden Reason Length of Stay May Be Increasing

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By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN If you ask any Chief Nursing Officer what is driving their stubbornly high Length of Stay (LOS), you will likely get a familiar list of macro-bottlenecks: delayed physician orders, transportation challenges, physical therapy clearances, or a shortage of post-acute nursing beds. But there may be another explanation that is happening … [Read more...]

Managing the Perfectionist Nurse

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By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN Managing perfectionist nurses is a big challenge for nurse managers. On one hand, you love their attention to detail and clinical accuracy. On the other hand, perfectionism in nursing is a fast track to severe burnout, delayed charting, anxiety, and sometimes friction with you, their leader, when you try to give them performance … [Read more...]

Inverted Pyramid Workshop – Open to All Leaders – June 17 2026

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Just a few slots left. I am pleased to partner with the New England ONL on the workshop that's generating a lot of discussion, as leaders now see that the nursing workforce has undergone a structural change in acute care. The traditional staffing pyramid — anchored by a deep layer of expert clinicians — has inverted. Today’s acute care units often rely on novice-dense teams … [Read more...]

Losing Ground: Why the Sudden Drop in Male Nurses Matters

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By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN Becker's Hospital Review recently reported on a stunning reversal. After almost a decade of improvement, the number of men in nursing is now declining. Men represented 10.4% of registered nurses in 2024, down from 11.2% in 2022, according to data from the National Council of State Boards of Nursing’s 2024 National Nursing Workforce … [Read more...]