“Just Dive Right In!” Nurse Leaders’ Experiences of Challenging Times in Clinical Settings: A Phenomenological Study

Aim: To increase understanding and describe nurse leaders' experiences of challenging times in nurse leadership in clinical nursing context. Design and Methods: A qualitative, explorative-descriptive phenomenological approach design with inductive elements. The data material consists of semi-structured in-depth interviews with six experienced Norwegian nurse leaders from a somatic healthcare context. The interview texts phenomenological reading act and interpretation are inspired by Husserl's philosophy and Colaizzi's data analysis. Findings: A phenomenological interpretation of the nurse leaders' narratives resulted in the following thematic units: uncertainty and information overflow, self-confidence and the will to act and prioritization and collaboration. Conclusion: Prolonged challenging times in nurse leadership in clinical settings such as crises related to public health (COVID-19), staffing shortages, budget cuts, organizational restructuring, implementations of major changes or regulatory scrutiny are sometimes unexpected. They require special efforts, strategic planning and resilience from nurse leaders since they are complicated to predict, they affect changes, routines, norms and functionality of systems. The confusion caused by the challenging times is reflected in the activities of nurse leaders, healthcare organizations and society. Nurse leaders need clear communication, instructions, actions and understanding from the administration to maintain the ambidexterity of the healthcare organization and individual support in challenging times.