Compassionate Leadership and empowered nurses
The steadiness you only understand when you’ve lived it: compassionate leadership and empowered nurses
The whiteboard was already full by 9am. And the phone kept ringing with new trauma calls.
Not “a bit busy” but charged. The kind of shift where the pace lives in your shoulders and the team is constantly scanning: what’s next, what’s risky, who needs what, right now?
In those moments, nursing becomes something you can feel in the air – a quiet, determined steadiness. A kind of strength that doesn’t announce itself but changes the temperature in the room. And it isn’t only about having answers. Often, it’s about how we hold uncertainty, together.
“Things just always feel calmer when you’re here.”
As a Lead Nurse, I once arrived for a shift and the Lead Consultant said something that stopped me in my tracks: “Things just always feel calmer when you’re here.”
Over time, other colleagues said similar things: that they felt safer when I was around, that they trusted my judgement. I was proud but also caught off guard. I hadn’t fully considered that others might experience my presence as a form of safety.
Because the truth is, I didn’t always have the fix.
Some of what I had to offer were answers that were uncomfortable, but necessary. Some were tough calls made under pressure. And I learned that in those moments the most important thing wasn’t perfection, it was staying human.
That is how I understand compassionate leadership: doing hard things in a human way. Not avoiding difficult conversations. Not smoothing over reality. But being clear and kind. Honest and respectful. Steady and compassionate. This is what surprised me – when I led that way, when I named what needed to be named, while holding onto humanity, people didn’t respect me less, they respected me more.
That felt grown up. Real!
International Nurses Day 2026: Empowered nurses save lives
This year, International Nurses Day carries the theme: “Our Nurses. Our Future. Empowered Nurses Save Lives.”
It’s more than a celebration – it's a call. Nurses save lives every day, but our impact is greatest when nurses are properly empowered, with safe working conditions and genuine influence and leadership opportunities.
What I appreciate about this theme is that it makes something explicit - empowerment is not a feeling; it’s a set of conditions. It’s whether the environment makes safe care possible, whether teams can speak up without fear, whether nursing expertise is included at the point decisions are made.
The RCN Foundation has long been committed to this conditions-based narrative, shifting away from “how do nurses cope?” to “how do we build workplaces where nurses and midwives can thrive?” With the newly created RCN Foundation Centre of Compassionate Leadership for Nursing and Midwifery central to how we move from the ‘knowing’ to the ‘doing’.
The Courage of Compassion: empathy that moves into action
In 2020, the RCN Foundation commissioned The King’s Fund report, The Courage of Compassion: Supporting Nurses and Midwives to Deliver High-quality Care. It examined the wellbeing of nurses and midwives during the pandemic, and importantly, it focused on changing the workplace factors that cause stress, rather than simply helping people cope with unhealthy conditions.
The report is underpinned by the ABC framework – the three-core work needs that must be met if people are to thrive:
- Autonomy: control over work life and ability to act consistently with values
- Belonging: feeling connected, cared for, valued, respected and supported
- Contribution: being effective and delivering valued outcomes
And it sets out eight recommendations covering; authority, empowerment and influence; justice and fairness (including psychologically safe cultures); work conditions and schedules; multidisciplinary teamworking; culture and leadership; workload; management and supervision; and learning, education and development.
There is a line of thinking that is seminal from this work – compassionate leadership is not complete until it changes something. The work recaps the definition of compassionate leadership as listening, reaching a shared understanding, empathising and then acting. Taking action is the bridge between empathy and empowerment.
Stepping into the unknown: bringing nursing into the design, not the afterthought
One of the most formative periods in my career came as the digital agenda accelerated. The pace was fast, the language was new, and it would have been easy for nursing to be brought in later and asked to implement decisions we hadn’t helped shape. I decided to put myself there, on behalf of the nursing team, at the design stage.
So, I read… and read, I learned the language and I asked questions when I didn’t know.
I wasn’t ashamed of not knowing. Because asking didn’t make my voice smaller – it made it stronger. I became more confident, more credible, more empowered. But I also learned something else: empowerment grows when it becomes collective.
So, I brought colleagues with me. I made sure other nurses had a seat at the table, so they could see themselves not only as deliverers of care, but as designers of systems. In those moments, I saw how nursing leadership expands, particularly when someone realises there are more paths than the ones they thought were available.
Leadership as creating possibility
I have always thrived on watching other nurses rise. Development conversations were rarely only about the job in front of someone. They were also about the future:
What next? What do you need? Where could you go? What might be possible if you believed it was?
Nursing is varied and incredible. There are so many ways to lead; in clinical practice, education, research, quality improvement, digital transformation, policy, service redesign. Yes, systems must create pathways, but I also believe it’s up to us, as leaders, to remind ourselves across the nursing workforce of the possibilities, and to invite each other into rooms where voices can shape outcomes.
Sometimes the most compassionate thing we can do is lend people our belief until they can hold it themselves.
My “you can” moment
I often think about the moments when my own leadership became possible because someone believed in me.
Because there were times, especially when stepping into spaces not traditionally centred on nursing, when I wasn’t sure my voice would be welcome.
A nurse leader once said something simple and direct: “You can.” You can lead. You can apply. You can take up space here.
Those words are a form of empowerment. And it’s also a reminder that we need cultures where nurses don’t have to wait for permission to influence the future of care. We need workplaces that meet autonomy, belonging and contribution and leaders who have the courage to implement the changes needed.
Our nurses. Our future.
International Nurses Day is a celebration, but it is also a decision point. If we truly believe empowered nurses save lives, then we must invest our leadership energy where it matters most: the conditions that enable nurses and midwives to thrive.
That means taking seriously the agenda set out in The Courage of Compassion Report, the ABC framework and the eight recommendations, not as something to admire, but as something to implement.
It means compassionate leadership that turns empathy into action, and it means recognising nurses as both the constant presence in daily care and the strategic leaders who must shape care’s future.
Because the theme isn’t just true. It’s instructive.