Equanimity: An Essential Leadership Practice in Challenging Times

As economist Daniel Kahneman's1 research reveals in Thinking, Fast and Slow, humans are hard wired to choose cognitive ease over strain, to look for the familiar and find comfort in it. Instead of having the discipline to rigorously challenge assumptions leaders may instead associate familiarity with past experience, give it more power than is warranted and potentially create bias in their thinking. 1 When this inherent human tendency to seek familiarity instead of truth surfaces in the uncertain, turbulent health care environment, susceptible leaders are tempted to go solo for the quick fix. In his book Team of Teams, General Stanley McChrystal 2 sounds the alarm on decision-making in a rapidly changing combat environment. Over-reliance on expertise does not work when faced with the unknown, uncertainty or a crisis; in fact, trying to use expertise in a crisis will surely impede or short-circuit our ability to see what is actually happening. When it is the leader's default position to make decisions solely based on knowledge and past experience objectivity will be lacking and most likely the input of others will be ignored.2 In the field of battle, as in our health care systems, one cannot afford to revert to command and control leadership, rely solely on past knowledge or experience, or to allow biased thinking to over-shadow objectivity. Henry Mintzberg famously said, “Setting oneself on a pre-determined course in unknown waters is the perfect way to sail into an iceberg.”3 A leadership practice that can help nurse leaders navigate the whitewater of health care is the practice of equanimity.