Coaching Leadership, from Bedside to Boardroom (and everything in between)

About Let’s Lead

With a vision of vibrant healthy communities inspired by accomplished leaders, Let’s Lead was established in 2019, by a healthcare leadership dyad, Jill Berry Bowen, RN, MSN, CEO, and Elisabeth Fontaine, M.D. with a clear understanding that nurse and nurse clinician voices need to be at the forefront to impact the health of the community. As former healthcare nurse executive and physician leader, we have felt the joys and disappointments of working in this field. We understand the priority of the nurse – clinicians leading in strategy and decision-making to shape the future of healthcare with new insights and perspectives from bedside to boardroom. Grounded with 30 years of healthcare leadership, with international credentials in leadership and team coaching, we have evolved our practice to coaching individuals and teams to provide leaders with the tools they need to co-create a better future for themselves and for the communities they serve. In our work we focus on nurse/clinical leaders as whole individuals and help them uncover and leverage their unique qualities to create sustainable impact in their organizations and their roles of influence in board rooms throughout their communities. We have engaged nurses and clinicians in our work to coach communities to health with collaborative lifestyle interventions which is a strong component for any future health oriented leadership.

Let’s Lead and Board Service

Communities thrive when nurses and healthcare teams feel reignited and fully supported in their mission to provide excellent care. We inspire nurses to find their voice and influence to shape a better future. Through our research in coaching women and nurses, the key to nurses becoming better board members is to provide space for them to discover who they are and how they want to show up in their roles on boards and teams. As coaches and trusted partners, self-discovery focuses on finding clarity, courage, and conviction, believing in themselves that they belong and are worthy of sharing thoughts, experiences, and wisdom to shape a culture and priorities of their community. It all begins with finding and believing their voice not only matters; it is critical in shaping the future from bedside to boardroom.

Through coaching we become confidential thinking partners allowing the space to reveal the answers inside of them. Our work supports nurses and clinicians in:

Advancing their career without losing sight of their own values
Promoting the well-being of patients, teams, and communities
Discovering next steps to make a greater impact in their sphere of influence
Finding their own passions and discovering their purpose
Pursuing a fulfilling career from bedside to leadership
Becoming the best leaders they can be and impacting strategy and decisions
Inspiring the courage to challenge the status quo in a world of uncertainty

Jill’s Personal Board Journey

As a nurse and nurse leader, Jill has been on many boards from shaping nursing practice to influencing the priorities within communities. From Board member to Board chair, it has been a volunteer commitment to shape the greater good for the organization served and the collective impact to create healthy infrastructures and policies. A commitment to caring for our community is ingrained in who we are as nurses. We are trusted voices in our communities. It is about never stopping to shape an environment where healthy living is the norm supported by sustainability for the future forward. Nurses have so much desire to give yet often have not discovered how to. For many, they feel the real work of nurses is at the bedside. Our only hope is to coach the nurse to a new level of understanding of their value at the strategic decision making table. So much is about creating a safe space and supporting nurses to find their voice and realizing how the board or committee is in great need of their authentic insights. The greatest gift of the nurse is to share their world views with confidence, to show up with their teams, and in the board rooms across their communities. The willingness to be a bit vulnerable and believing that the voice of the nurse matters not only at the bedside yet shaping the future of the world around them.

A Note About Women in Leadership

As we reflect on our work and research with women from diverse backgrounds and insights, what we have discovered and validated with women/nurses is these voices need to be at the leadership level in their organizations and boards to have a greater impact at the decision-making table – board rooms, policy making, community building, leadership impact teams.

Often women fear their words will be minimized or not seen as credible. Together women sponsoring women provide the confidence to be brave, leveraging relationships, networks, and experiences trusting they are good enough. To promote diverse thinking to create new solutions. We need nurses partnering with other clinicians and executives to shape the priorities for healthy communities. It is these key voices of nurses at the tables of influence that will inspire a community of women to change the culture in a world of uncertainty.

Elisabeth Fontaine, M.D. Dip ABLM, FACLM, ACC

Jill Berry Bowen, RN, MSN, MBA, PCC, FACHE