Degrees and Skills Needed for Nurses to Transition into Leadership or Education Roles

Most people don’t think about their leadership potential as they are walking down the graduation aisle to collect their BSN. Healthcare is rarely framed in the context of professional leadership hierarchies. The proverbial “corporate ladder.”

However, there are advanced positions available to those interested in pursuing them. Experience is helpful when trying to get a promotion, but it will only get you so far. You will also need the right credentials.

In this article, we look at what degrees and skills you need to transition into nursing leadership.

What Undergraduate Degree Should I Get?

Good news, your choice is pretty straightforward. You can get a BSN or a…BSN. Nursing at the undergraduate level is pretty simple. The degrees are all the same. You may however have some say in the format.

People who already have an undergraduate degree can opt into an accelerated program. These condense four-year degrees into about eighteen months and can’t be an excellent—though intense—way to pivot into a new job.

If that isn’t an option, you can consider tackling your degree online. This won’t do much to change the timeline, but it may make your educational experience more comfortable. Online nursing schools at the very least will save you time—in the form of skipping the commute—and money, through reduced tuition.

They are also often a lot more flexible. Some skip live lectures entirely in favor of pre-recorded materials that can be completed over a loose timeframe.

Whatever the case, there isn’t a ton of variety when it comes to getting your undergraduate degree. If you want to acquire a leadership position, you’ll need to do it as a Registered Nurse, developing your skills, and acquiring new credentials as needed.

What Skills Do You Need to Be a Good Nursing Leader?

Nursing leaders tend to excel at key soft skills. They are good communicators, able to express complex thoughts in short, easy-to-understand sentences. By extension of this, they are also excellent listeners, willing to take the time to fully understand what their patients and the other nurses working with them are trying to say.

You also need to have good time management skills. Out of all the soft skills, this is undoubtedly the easiest to learn. Show up to places on time. Manage your tasks effectively.

Always think, what is the most efficient, important thing I could be doing right now? Solid task prioritization can save lives in a hospital setting.

Finally, you need to tie all of these skills together and ensure that you are an effective collaborator. Teamwork makes the dream work, and that is particularly true in hospitals. Nurses work with a wide varity of other professionals as they try to accomplish the best possible results for their patients. If you want to be a good nursing leader, you need to be an awesome team player.

Graduate Degrees

It’s through graduate school that you will gain the qualifications for most nursing leadership positions. There are actually tons of different graduate degrees for nurses, and you’ll find different opportunities depending on where you decide to go to school.

There are some graduate degrees that prepare people to work at the administrative level, and others that keep you in the game as a floor nurse. While administrative positions are quite a bit different than what you are most likely used to doing right now, they do have the potential to increase your earnings by the largest sum.

CNOs are C-Suite executives who can make more than $200,000 a year. If your goal is to get rich as a nurse, that’s pretty much the only way to do it. One could argue that administrators actually save more lives than floor nurses, despite the fact that they are removed from direct patient care. While you will no longer work with people on the individual level, you will help develop policies that have far-reaching consequences throughout the community.

Put Yourself Out There

Once you get the credential it’s time to go for it. Tell your employer that you are actively seeking a leadership position. Also, get ready to start applying for jobs at other hospitals. While there are tons of healthcare positions out there, each hospital will only need a few nursing leaders at any given time.

If you just wait where you are currently for an opportunity to find you, it might take years to find your dream job. Take a more active approach.

What About a Nursing Educator?

Graduate school is also a great way to enter the educational aspect of healthcare. All of those teachers you had in nursing school were themselves nurses at one point. Colleges have more flexibility when choosing their instructors than you might imagine.

Did you know that you don’t have to have any teaching training at all to become a college professor? You can get an EdD but that is more for people who are interested in school education. Universities worry more about how well you understand the topic.

That said, you usually won’t get your key to the ivory tower without getting at least a master’s degree. Most college professors also have PhDs, though this is less mandatory for professors who are teaching a specific trade.

Any graduate degree can technically qualify you to work in a University, though you might prefer to choose one that is education-specific if you are sure that is the route you will eventually take.

Conclusion

There are plenty of benefits to being a nursing leader. More flexibility. More power. Greater compensation. However, you should keep in mind that the real reason to do it is because you think you will make a positive difference in the hospital.

While nursing leaders can make good money, it shouldn’t be your objective. Those wishing to get rich should get a degree in business.

Those wishing to thrive as healthcare heroes at the highest level should work hard, get the right credentials, and put themselves out there. Go on now, you’ve got this!