Lindsey Casole

I attribute a lot of my success to my determination to show that it can be done. Being a first-generation college student, I didn't have anyone to bounce off of growing up. Nobody in my family went to college, so I really had to create the blueprint myself and figure things out for myself. But even though I didn't have anyone who was knowledgeable in schooling and college and how to do things and get to where I'm at, my family has always been very supportive. They're my number one fans. And especially now, my husband is so supportive and loving. He knows if I need to go to work, I need to go to work, and he handles home. I would not be able to do all this if I didn't have a support system at home. Professionally, I've really been blessed to work with really great leaders and mentors, and I feel like I picked up a little bit of each of their leadership styles and mended my own. I come with that compassion and empathy type of leading, but I also come with accountability and firm leadership as well. So I attribute a lot of my professional success to a little bit of each of my leaders that I've reported to over the time.

The best career advice I ever received is never say no, and always take the opportunity. No matter what, you'll never think you're ready, but you never know until you do it. If you fail at it, you at least tried, but if you don't, you never know. So always, always take the opportunity that comes your way. Worst case scenario, you learn as you go.

The advice that I would give is that anything is possible. Never take no for an answer. There's always another way around something, and just go for it. It might take you 2 years to complete a degree, or a project, or you're implementing something, but in 2 years, would you rather look back and say, I should have started 2 years ago, or I'm glad I started 2 years ago, and I'm almost done? It's really just go full force and just do it. You have to believe in yourself.

I think some of the biggest challenges is that things do take time. The saying, Rome wasn't built in one night, and it goes for healthcare, too. Healthcare is constantly evolving, so you also yourself need to evolve with it, you need to grow with it. There are new innovations and evidence-based practices, so you need to be able to be flexible in that sense. If it's hard for a healthcare leader to be flexible and accept challenges, it'll definitely make it even more challenging. Healthcare is just changing so much, and you need to be flexible and open-minded at the same time to grow with it. You need to be ready, and then you need to pivot your plans and change things up. You might have thought it was going to happen one way, and you're like, nope, you gotta change plans. It's really about fostering a culture of accountability and collaboration, not shying away from the challenges, because they're going to happen, and you're going to be naive to think that they weren't. But just building solutions from it.

The values that I try to live by is to lead with love and empathy. Everyone has a story. Everyone goes home to something. It's really just being mindful when I'm dealing with personal issues on the outside of work, meeting new people outside of work, or having one-to-ones with my employees. I really try to first remember that they are human, and they have their own things going on, and I'm lucky that they're here working in my department. So I really try to lead like that. I really just try to have that connection with them, and really say, I understand if you're going through something at home, how can I help you? Is there something I can do that will help you be better at work, to make you want to come to work? Is there something I can do to make it easier? I'm not here to make it harder for you. And I often believe I work for them, and they don't work for me. I was raised by my grandparents, and unfortunately they both passed away at young ages, so I didn't get the opportunity to take care of them. I really poured a lot of that void into my patients. When I was bedside, I kind of felt like, if this was my grandmother, this is how I would want to take care of her, or if this was my mother or grandpa. I always treated my patients as if they were a family member of mine, and if we were on the other side, how do I want my family to be treated by another healthcare provider? I really think that's what kept me grounded as a nurse, and not losing that compassion, and not dreading my career. You're really there to help people in the most vulnerable and scary part of their life.