Unlock Your Creativity (1 Hour)

The title "Unlock Your Creativity" caught my eye when looking through the list of Continuing Education classes under leadership and management. I was curious how creativity could be related back to leadership. The course explored the concept of creativity and how important it is to be creative as nurse leader. The authors of the course said nurses have to think outside the box toward the ultimate goal in order to achieve goals in leadership and healthcare. I really loved this quote from the course, "Nurses as individuals and nursing as a profession must be willing to shift easily and to adapt creatively to the tsunami of ongoing change." The profession of nursing is constantly changing. The day to day work for a nurse is always changing. Nurses have to be able to adapt to the change and create solutions for problems that arise. In order to be creative, the course listed these rules:
- Claim creativity as your birthright.
- Value your own uniqueness.
- Avoid mental ruts.
- Recognize freedom and play as the DNA of creativity.
- Learn to minimize the fear that impedes creativity.
- Go with the flow.
- Exercise your creativity muscles regularly.
- Join other people to power creativity.
- Disregard all rules that fail to stimulate new insight and creativity.
The course then listed these questions to consider and realize creativity is needed in nursing:
- How can we attract and retain highly competent, enthusiastic nurses?
- How can we create conditions of unity within the profession?
- How can we promote diversity of thinking within nursing?
- How can we most effectively promote ourselves as the healthcare champions that we are?
- How can we blend technology and human compassion to the advantage of our patients and ourselves?
- How can we promote interdisciplinary collegiality and collaboration?
- How can we integrate spontaneity and creativity into nursing practice?
These questions really helped me to understand the link between creativity and nursing leadership. Nurse leaders need to be creative to be good leaders.

Course was taken on http://ce.nurse.com