A Pause to Care
By Melissa Gehl, MSW, Chief Operating Officer at Synova Associates
I just got off our final group coaching call with this year’s Advanced Nurse Leader Certification (ANLC) cohort, and I’m still thinking about it. I had to call Lori to debrief my own feelings, as it reminded me of our debriefing calls during COVID, where the sense of community and support just oozed out over Zoom, and I was overcome with a feeling of pride that Synova had created such a safe space for leaders.
Over the last five months, the nurse leaders on this call worked through two open-ended group coaching sessions and 12 live sessions: six focused on learning and six on coaching across our pillars. We didn’t record the final call because we wanted everyone to feel safe to speak freely, so I won’t share names or personal details, but what I can share is what I saw: a group of leaders who showed up, got vulnerable, and walked away different.
Every leader came in with a goal
At our very first coaching session, each learner set a personal goal. Some wanted to protect their time. Others wanted to become more decisive leaders for their teams.
That’s by design. People come to the ANLC with different strengths, backgrounds, and levels of leadership. A goal gives each leader a lens for everything they learn, so the program meets them where they are.
One leader described the certification as “sneaky.” She’d be learning something and suddenly hit an aha moment she didn’t see coming. For her, it came in the operations pillar with our faculty member Bobbie Smith. Bobbie talked about how much time nurse leaders lose to administrative work, and how few have protected time on their calendars.
Then she offered an idea I love: a calendar block called “Freedom of Mind.” Time to think about strategy, goals, and who you want to be as a leader. That session landed right as this leader was coming back from vacation and she reflected how much she needed to hear that she could and should protect her time off. As the operations person here, I’ll admit I need to sit in on that session myself.
Your leadership style is your own
We kick off the ANLC with the mentorship pillar. It always surprises me how few leaders have a great mentor to lean on. We ask them all to identify who currently mentors them, and most of them struggle with who that is. The higher up they go in the leadership ladder, the less mentorship they seem to have access to.
One learner made finding a mentor her mission for the whole program. It took time, but she found one. That mentor helped her see something important: her leadership style is her own. Her personality results didn’t match what people expect a “typical” leader to look like, and she’d been holding that against herself. She realized she doesn’t need to be a cookie-cutter leader. We all bring different strengths to the table, and trying to fit a mold can hold us back. Watching her share that with the group was one of my favorite moments of the call.
We stand together
Synova’s events can draw around 250 people per event, and although that can seem small event-wise, it is a lot of leaders in one room. The ANLC is different, as it is a cohort of up to 30 leaders who get to know each other well over 5 months.
This year, we asked learners to post their reflection questions publicly in the group chat instead of keeping them private. It was a leap and something the Synova team really stressed over. But sharing openly with other nurse leaders built a bond that felt new. Life doesn’t pause for a certification, at work or at home, and this group saw each other through a lot.
One leader went through something very hard in her personal life during the program and was falling behind in the workload. She shared how she still wanted to be pinned at Perinatal Leadership Forum, but she had a lot to catch up on. Her cohort told her, “We’re not done until you’re done. We’re going to finish together.” There wasn’t a dry eye on the call. Community.
Well-Being was a Fan Favorite
Several leaders said the pillar they loved most was well-being, which surprised them. Many of us assume we’re doing fine there.
Our faculty member Diane Rogers asked leaders to think about the energy they bring into a room, using colors. What color are you showing up as today? What color does your team need you to be? And how do you get yourself there? When you lead a team of 400 or 500 people, your energy and intention matter. One leader took Diane’s lesson on recognition straight back to her unit. Instead of “great job today,” she now tells team members exactly how their work helped the unit, the families, or the flow of the day.
That’s the ripple effect. Well-being doesn’t stop with the leader. It spreads to the whole team.
“I’m not the same person I was in May”
One learner said that on the call, and everyone agreed. You could hear it in how the group talked: more confident and thinking about problems in new ways. Another leader has had five or six colleagues go through the ANLC. She said it has changed their whole unit.
We’ve run the certification for four years, and it keeps getting better. Adding personal coaching with our executive coach, Lisa Jentsch, has made a real difference in people’s lives. At a conference last week, one leader told us that of all the certifications she’s earned, this one meant the most.
None of this happens without our faculty and coaches. And it doesn’t happen without the nurse leaders themselves. They could show up and phone it in. Instead, they get everything they can out of the experience and give a lot back to the group. That shared learning is what Synova is all about.
The ANLC is a program built on a very special idea that community is and can be the most important tool in your toolbox as a leader. Calls like this one remind me why we keep working to make it better for the leaders we serve. Perfection is not the key here; evolution is.
