Top director of nursing skills needed to get the job.

What are the top 3 traits or skills every director of nursing must have to excel?

Can you suggest any tips or insights to develop your director of nursing expertise?

1 Organization and followup
2 Patience
3 Commitment

The DON position is not taught in a school, instead it is often a promotion usually without much preparation. Some seminars can prepare a new candidate for some of the demands and expectaions but usually the position will be the education. If one is fortunate and is in a facility that has a great medical records and business office team, much of the documentation process can be smoothed out-which is about 70 percent of the job. The other 30 percent is people skills-meeting/greeting/smoothing/consoling/teambuilding.

The position is often demanding, consuming much of your mental energy both at work and away. It also requires a few degrees of seperation to maintain neutrality, and a healthy dose of skepticism to sift through some of the baloney.

To excel as a director of nursing you need to be committed , daily follow up on issues ,delegate and empower your nurses
Position is very demanding and challeging .
Need a good assisstant who will be committed just the same .