Regina Cunningham, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, and Kevin Sowers, MSN, RN, FAAN, both started their nursing careers as staff oncology nurses. Today, Cunningham is chief executive officer of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; Sowers is president of the Johns Hopkins Health System and executive vice president of Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.

As they told AJN in our May Profiles article, neither necessarily envisioned themselves as high-level leaders. So how did they get to where they are today, and what can fellow nurses learn from their experiences?

TAKING CHANCES

After getting a master’s degree in nursing administration, and while earning a doctorate, Cunningham (photo at right) worked her way into progressively larger leadership roles within oncology nursing. Her experiences as a nurse manager and a nursing director led her to become the chief nursing officer at a New Jersey cancer center. Then, after serving as senior director for cancer nursing at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, she worked in nursing leadership at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

It was there, when the hospital’s chief nurse retired, that Cunningham took a chance she wasn’t sure about by applying for the open position.

“It was risky because I didn’t have anything but cancer expertise in my background,” she recalls, “and this would be essentially running the nursing service for an 805-bed hospital.”

But she got the job, and flourished—from there she went on to become chief nurse of the entire Penn Medicine system, and in 2017, chief executive officer of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

MENTORSHIP

Sowers (photo at right) was happy as an oncology clinical nurse specialist at Duke University Hospital in Durham, North Carolina. It was one of his earliest roles within the Duke Health System, which he’d spend 32 years working for.

When he was asked to open a new inpatient pilot unit, he hesitated: “I did not see myself as a manager. I loved being a bedside nurse and I loved being an oncology clinical nurse specialist.”

Luckily, Sowers had an mentor who helped him realize his potential as a leader. She pushed him to take the job, and the role catapulted his career: he climbed the ladder into a series of bigger positions, eventually becoming president and chief executive officer of Duke University Hospital.

CONTINUOUS LEARNING

When asked what advice they’d give aspiring nurse leaders, both Cunningham and Sowers emphasized the importance of three practices:

  • seeking opportunities
  • being open to new experiences
  • continuously honing skills and knowledge

Cunningham, for example, stresses “agility, emotional intelligence, and communication skills” as critical to success. And Sowers says that taking on new endeavors that push you beyond your comfort zone is key. “It will engage you in a new world that can be very exciting and present opportunities that may not have existed when you began your career.”

For more, see “Nurses at the Top” (free until May 23).