Take me to your leader: Phil from Forensics has landed the Te Henga Section of the Marxist Nurses' Union in a spot of bother with his tirade against Nursing Leaders, published in an obscure communist rag.

"I believe I am a leader ... New Zealanders don't understand leadership and I think that's amazing ..."

Christine Rankin talking to Michele Hewetson in the New Zealand Herald, August 11, 2007. (1)

The Te Henga Section of the Marxist Nurses' Union found itself in a bit of a dilemma at our last meeting.

What happened was that Phil from Forensics had written an article for The Spartakist Spark. Now, this is a bit of a radical rag (unlike our own dear Kai Tiaki) and Phil had obviously got a good head of steam up. It doesn't take much--a couple of rough reds will usually to it. His article was called "The Christine Rankin Syndrome" (TCRS). In it he had a go at what he said "passes for Nursing leadership in this lovely little country of ours". He wrote that Nurses who claimed to be "leaders" suffered from TCRS. He said he was sick and tired of jumped-up, non-mandated nobodies claiming to be "Nurse Leaders" and talking on behalf of Nurses. He said nobody he knew who claimed to be a Leader was elected or accountable to Nurses.

'A modicum of democracy'

He did make an exception for the good fork at NZNO, Te Ao Maramatanga and The College of Nurses. But, he said, the first has the greatest claim. The latter two are more mouthpieces for Managers and Academics, and they represent a pretty truncated constituency. But at least there is a modicum of democracy for them to fall back on.

As we read this, in our little meeting, we were gripped by a variety of responses. The major one was "oh dear".

But wait, there's more.

Phil wrote that these so called leaders were shameless self promoters, more interested in their career prospects than the welfare of Nurses and Nursing. He maintained that what this collection of self-serving crass traitors had in common was both an avaricious narcissism and a lack of any real constituency.

These snout-in-the-trough exploiters get appointed, he wrote, they don't get elected. And who appoints them? Why, DHBs (whose attitude generally is that their Nursing staff are expensive and troublesome encumbrances), Universities and Polytechs (who see Nursing students as a source of funds to subsidise their conference attendances) and governments (who only care about anyone enough to spin really good ties every three years). Whew!

I can't really repeat any more, in the interests of propriety and to avoid any legal consequences. But maybe I could summarise. Phil did say some unfortunate things about Nurses who, in positions of authority, became more identified with the bosses than Nurses. He also put forward the opinion that when these leaders talked about "strong leadership" and "firm decision making" and "making the hard calls", they were usually using weasel words to excuse bullying.

"Don't talk to me about horizontal violence", he wrote "it's vertical violence that's endemic in Nursing: all the smiting photos and platitudinous slogans in Koi Tiaki can't disguise that stone cold fact" and so on.

It must have been a good night at Phil's. Well, alright, Phil's entitled to his point of view. But it left us with a bit of a problem. Phil had identified himself as a member of TTHSotMNU. Any reaction to his--let's call it intemperate--article was bound to affect us. We're in enough strife as it is.

However, we have a policy of Compassionate Collectivism and, as someone once said, if we don't hang together, we will surely hang separately, and with Phil obdurate, saying he'd sooner die on his feet than live on his knees and so on, we sort of felt obliged to acknowledge him as ours and take the lumps.

Louise the Lecturer was not so keen. She's been around the tertiary sector long enough to know that there, opinion is treachery, conformity is Queen and moral timidity her constant companion. She very well knows that loose lips sink careers.

However we talked and talked, as is the way with people of goodwill and great desire to go to bed, and we came to a consensus by the end of the night. We decided that there might be some comment (Nick from NICU said "comment! They'll bloody murder us !!) from affronted parties. We decided to stand firm.

I have to say to Louise's employing Polytech that she doesn't really believe art that Phil wrote (she wanted me to put that in).

But like all of us, we believe that opinion is best expressed openly. The dialectic is the most honest process. That you may be offended by what is said, should not limit anyone's ability to say it.

We'll go with that as a position. It shouldn't get us into too much trouble, don't you think?

Note: The Spartakists were (are?) a splinter Communist group. There are more sects and schisms in leftist movements than parliamentarian press releases.

Reference

(1) Hewelson, M. (2007) The New Zealand Herald, August 11. Auckland: APN News and Media.

Chris Cottingham, RN, BA, MEd, DipSocSci, PGDip (Hlth Sci), is a staff nurse working for a district health board which prefers not to be identified. In his spare time, he writes a bi-monthly column of alternative (sometimes amusing or irreverent but always challenging) musings on our profession.