Empowering a Culture of Vulnerability Through Focused Nursing Education Leadership

Brown (2015) noted that, generally speaking, individuals’ needs for cognitive certainty, accompanied by often-desperate, simultaneous needs to ‘be right,’ have resulted in widespread fear of personal vulnerability. In common parlance, vulnerability is seen as a relatively negative state, something to be “overcome” (deChesnay, 2005, p. xix). From a perspective that views vulnerability as ‘susceptibility to harm’ (Sellman, 2005; Mechanic & Tanner, 2007; deChesnay & Anderson, 2016), vulnerability becomes a negative circumstance, one that threatens possibility of attack or harm. In fact, within nursing, overcoming vulnerability is a focus for a number of nursing theories (Boyle, 2008; Smith & Liehr, 2008).

It can be readily argued, however, that vulnerability is not inherently negative; rather, vulnerability is neutral, reflecting merely “an interaction between the resources available to individuals and communities (including workplace communities) and the life challenges they face” (Mechanic & Tanner, 2007, p. 1220; parenthetical phrase added). Viewed from a point beyond the mantle of a positive/negative dichotomy, vulnerability can be understood to reflect a state of openness to environmental features, whether those features portend threat or opportunity (Brown, 2012). “All people are vulnerable,” as Sellman (2005, p. 3) noted, because vulnerability is the essence of the human condition. Moreover, “being more-than-ordinarily vulnerable may also provide opportunities for more-than-ordinary flourishing” (Carel, 2009, p. 216).

The investigators present an evidence-based model of leadership that supports ‘more-than-ordinary flourishing’ that exploits the vulnerability of both students and faculty members. Abductively derived from metasyntheses of published literature and lived experiences, the model demonstrates the centrality of vulnerability to personal and professional growth in academic settings. Integrated within the model are notions from several theories that, when applied comprehensively, interact to guide nursing education program administrators toward openness for the betterment of all. Specifically, the model combines features of vulnerability, itself (Brown, 2015; Mechanic & Tanner, 2007), with concepts from Cross’s (1981) model of adult learning, Meleis’s (2010) theory of transitions, and Shelton’s (2003) model of academic support. Implications for development of policy and for future research will be addressed.

The implementation of “new leadership” (Grossman & Valiga, 2017, p. vii) through the proposed model enables nurse educators and administrators to shift “the distribution of relative advantage and disadvantage” (Vladeck, 2007, p. 1231). The model undergirds success among education stakeholders, thereby strengthening the successes of the academic setting, itself. Reflecting findings of the literature they reviewed, the investigators argue that as it supports vulnerability, the model simultaneously supports authenticity and courage. As, through the model, students and faculty alike are empowered to embrace a sense of personal legitimacy (Brown, 2012, 2015), inspiring more-than-ordinary flourishing.