Humanity Is a Leadership Strategy — Healing While You Lead

Nobody tells you that leadership will break your heart a little in the best possible way.

You show up to heal a unit, stabilize a culture, solve the chaos—only to discover that the real work is happening inside you.

That’s the truth behind Humanity Is a Leadership Strategy — Healing While You Lead.

This year has been a crash course in that truth.

The pressure to produce, to fix, to respond, to anticipate — it’s relentless. But healing doesn’t happen in relentless spaces. It happens in human ones.

And I’ve felt that contrast in my own life, especially in two places that couldn’t be more different: the shoreline with “my guys,” and the breakroom of a cardiac floor.

Both of them have been teaching me the same lesson.

Healing is slow, but it’s strong.

When I go fishing with my husband and son, we barely talk about work. They don’t want leadership strategies or hospital politics. They want me present. Quiet. Laughing at the way one of them hooks a tree instead of a fish. Watching the way the sunlight hits the water. Breathing like I haven’t breathed all week.

Fishing has become the one place where urgency shuts off and something softer turns back on.

And I’m realizing — that softness is what my team actually needs from me, too.

Not weakness.

Not avoidance.

Not pretending everything is fine.

Just presence.

Just humanity.

Just a leader who remembers that people heal from the inside out, not the outside in.

The breakroom teaches a different kind of healing.

A moment of rest is the quiet in-between space where people finally tell the truth.

About the grief that followed them into the shift.

About the chronic fatigue they’re ashamed to admit.

About the loss of confidence that sneaks up on even the strongest nurses.

About the personal things that hurt so much more than the work ever could.

In the breakroom, nobody’s charting.

Nobody’s posturing.

Nobody’s playing the role they think a “good nurse” is supposed to play.

They’re just people — hungry for connection, belonging, and a leader who sees them.

And that’s the moment leadership becomes less about productivity and more about presence.

Humanity isn’t soft. It’s stabilizing.

There is a lie many systems believe:

If the leader slows down, the work slows down.

But I’ve found the opposite is true.

When I slow down, the culture steadies.

When I speak gently, the hallway calms.

When I take time to understand someone’s pain, they take time to understand the mission.

When I show up human, people show up whole.

Humanity is not optional.

It is not sentimental.

It is not “nice.”

It is the infrastructure of trust.

Urgency might get you through a shift.

But humanity, gives, patience — that’s what gets you through a year.

And it’s what gets your team through a storm without losing themselves in the process.

Healing while you lead is not a luxury — it’s a necessity.

Because your team will never rise above the tone you set.

And your tone will never rise above the state of your own heart.

So these days, I’m paying attention to the things that heal me:

The shore.

The quiet.

The laughter of my boys.

The talks in the breakroom.

The days when the team leans in instead of dropping out.

The moments we choose humanity over hurry.

Leadership isn’t about pretending you have no wounds.

It’s about refusing to lead from them.

Humanity is a leadership strategy because healing is a leadership requirement.

And if you let it, healing doesn’t just happen to your team.

It happens to you.

🎧 Listen to the podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5KXQ8i8zNZCKjpKfFuN2pr?si=lqjak3XfRZGfgiIm4EFZyA