how would you as a manager/leader do both while attempting to not get fired?

I believed experimenting and taking risks are very important for leaders to grow or take the department to the next level. If you don’t try new things or new methods to challenge the old process, productivity is inevitable to stay at the same level for the coming years, no growth. For many leaders, fear of failure is the stumbling block for experimenting with new things. Leaders need to bring new ideas into lives by facing the challenge and by realizing the setbacks. They do this by creating small wins, setting increment goals, making safe boundaries that promote taking a risk and learning from bad experiences (Kouzes & Posner, 2017). We know there could be many ways to get from point A to point B. You could take the highway or local roads to get there. Both will take you to the destination, but one will take you quicker and better than the other, as long as you drive safely. Likewise, in our hospitals, we sometimes see old protocols or processes that do not align with the current literature or evidence-based practices. Even though the process is not harming the patient, exemplary leaders can challenge it to bring a better patient care outcome. For example, in our hospital, the layout of the patient’s room, where we put the high-frequency oscillatory ventilator (HFOV), is not a convenient place to reposition our patients to avoid complications, such as skin ulcer. Due to this problem, high-frequency oscillatory ventilator (HFOV) patients are not repositioned as often as they should, and the setting forces to disconnect patients from the ventilator when turned (supine, prone, or side-lying). Coming from a different hospital and knowing there is a better way to resolve this problem, I have to challenge the process, but if something happens, I could be blamed. Changing how we practice could help us to give the best care for our patients and ease the work of the caregivers. It is important to start from the ground up to get support from the people who are the front in line doing the care, nurses and respiratory therapists. Explaining and sharing the idea to them will gain acceptance and get feedback and concerns. Then, present the idea to management with supporting literature and evidence-based practices, maybe benchmarking to other hospitals. Kouzes and Posner (2017) showed that experimenting with the team will “give people a tangible sense of what success looks like, boosting morale and confidence” (p. 178). Small wins make the project to be possible, less stressful, and decrease the risk of failing (Kouzes & Posner, 2017). So, start the process in the NICU department first and then to other units. Educate the staffs on a baby mannequin to get them comfortable and to avoid harm to patients and create a reporting system to evaluate the process. If something goes wrong such as accidental extubation, instead of blaming the system, learn from the failure, find the root cause of the problem and make an improvement. I think following these steps will put me in a better position than losing my job. How many times do you have to fail on the same thing before you move on? References Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. z. (2017). The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organization (6th ed.). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.