It’s Humpday!

WEDNESDAY - September 30, 2026

HUMPDAY

Weekly Insight & Inspiration for Purposeful Leaders

THIS WEEK’S FOCUS

Only Surviving is Not the Goal

How are you and your team really doing and what does it take to move from getting through the day to growing through it.

A team rarely thrives past the level of its leader. If you are only surviving, that is the ceiling you are quietly setting for everyone who follows you.

Over the years I have had the privilege of working with some really amazing people in healthcare. One of the most memorable was a young pharmacy leader. She is hands down one of the smartest people I have ever met! Every time she spoke it was like a firehose of research, data and next-level information. She literally knew everything about every drug ever made and even those that were yet to be made. Her research and knowledge had a direct impact on the safety of the care we provided to our patients. Despite all of this great work and impact, she wasn’t thriving at work. How do I know? Every time I would see her in the hall or in a meeting, I would ask her how she was doing. Her answer every time, “Just surviving, not thriving.”

I also was recently at a conference where we asked participants to rank their work life by placing a sticker beside one of four categories; Thriving, Surviving, Struggling and In Crisis. I was surprised how many said they were only surviving or were struggling.

From the outside, a leader in survival mode can look exactly like a leader who is thriving. From the inside, it feels completely different, and eventually, so does the team.

The Four Places We Lead From

It helps to be honest about what each of these states actually look like.:

Thriving - You have energy for more than just the essentials. You can think ahead, not just react. You are curious, you are growing, and your work still connects to why you chose it.
Surviving - You are functional, but running on reserves. Everything is urgent. Planning gets pushed to “when things calm down,” which never comes. You are getting through, not getting better.
Struggling - The strain is showing up in your sleep, your patience, your health, or your relationships. Small problems feel heavy. You may be pulling away from the people and things that usually restore you.
In Crisis - You are past what you can carry on your own. Getting through the day is taking everything you have, and sometimes more than that.

None of these are a character judgment. People move between them, sometimes in the same week or month. But where you are right now matters, because it shapes every decision you make and every interaction your team has with you.

Why Your State Becomes Your Team’s State

Here is the uncomfortable truth: teams can feel their leader’s state long before the leader names it.

A surviving leader tends to lead in survival mode. Huddles become lists of problems. Rounding becomes a checkbox. Recognition slips because there’s no bandwidth for it. Decisions get made in reaction instead of with intention. None of this is deliberate. It is what happens when a leader is running on empty. But the team absorbs it, and before long, they are just surviving too.

The good news - the reverse is also true! A leader who is steady, present, and clear about priorities gives a team something to stand on, even when the environment around them is hard. You cannot give your team stability you don’t have.

That’s why thriving isn’t just important for the leader’s wellbeing, it’s necessary for the team’s wellbeing.

Leading Yourself Out of Survival Mode

Moving from surviving to thriving rarely happens through one big change. It happens through a few deliberate choices that stop the slow drain.

Get honest about where you are. Ask yourself the same question we asked at the conference and answer truthfully. You cannot change a state you aren’t willing to name out loud.

Protect one piece of your time for thinking, not reacting. Even thirty minutes a week that you set aside and protect on the calendar and use to plan instead of respond. Survival mode feeds on the absence of that time.

Stop carrying what isn’t yours. Survival often comes from over-functioning: solving problems your team could own, attending meetings you don’t need to be in, saying yes to avoid disappointing someone. Every one of those is energy you’re taking from somewhere else.

Reconnect to the work that fills you. For many healthcare leaders, that’s time with patients and frontline staff. It is easy to lose that when the administrative load grows, and it is often the very thing that reminds us why we do this work.

Don’t do it alone. A mentor, a coach, a trusted peer outside your organization. Leaders who thrive over the long run almost always have someone helping them see what they can’t see from inside the pressure.

Building a Team That Can Thrive

Once you are steadier, the question becomes how to create conditions where your team can thrive too. National organizations like the ENA and the AACN define standards for a healthy work environment that include good communication, true collaboration/teamwork, clinical excellence, staffing, nurse wellbeing & meaningful recognition and authentic leadership. Ensuring these practices exist have been shown to be very effective in promoting a healthy, thriving culture in a department. In practice, here’s what that looks like:

Ask the question out loud. Try the thriving-surviving-struggling-crisis check in with your team in huddles or one-on-one. It gives people permission to be honest and it gives you real data instead of assumptions.

Fix the friction you can fix. You may not be able to solve staffing this quarter. You can probably fix the broken process, the equipment that’s always missing, or the meeting that wastes an hour every week. Small wins tell a team that their leader is paying attention.

Make recognition specific and frequent. Not “great job team” but make the recognition personal and specific. Meaningful recognition costs nothing and is one of the first things to disappear in survival mode.

Advocate upward. When your team is struggling because of conditions outside of your control, your job is to name those conditions clearly to the people who can change them, with data, not just frustration.

Watch for the people who have moved past surviving. Someone who is struggling or in crisis often doesn’t announce it. Notice changes in behavior, withdrawal, or irritability, and follow up privately. Know your employee assistance program well enough to share it confidently and treat reaching out for help as a strength. That applies to you too!

3 PRACTICES FOR MOVING FROM SURVIVING TO THRIVING

Name your state, then your team’s. Ask yourself honestly where you are right now. Then ask your team the same question and listen to the answer and the “why” before rushing to fix it.
Reclaim one hour. Find one recurring hour this week that is draining you or your team without adding value, and cut it, shorten it, or give it to something that restores energy instead.
Replace one reaction with intention. Pick one area where you’ve been leading by putting our fires and make one decision this week that prevents the fire instead of just fighting it.

A Final Thought

Surviving got many of us through some of the hardest years healthcare has ever seen. It was necessary. But it was never meant to be permanent, and it was definitely never meant to be the standard we hand to the next generation of leaders.

Your team will rarely rise above the state you lead from. Chose to lead from a place where they can thrive with you.

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This week ask yourself one honest question: am I thriving, surviving, struggling, or in crisis. Then ask your team. What you do with the answers may be the most important leadership decision you make this month.

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I’d love to hear from you. Please reach out and share if you found this insight helpful, if you’d like to talk about it more, or if there’s a topic you’d like to see in a future Humpday. Stacie@LumisLeadership.com

~ Stacie

Previous Humpday’s can be found in the Newsletter Library at www.LumisLeadership.com

The “Humpday” was an e-mail originally created by a great leader and mentor - Marc Strode. He used the Humpday to bring insight and inspiration to his team every week. With his permission and at his request to Keep the Spirit - the Humpday lives on. Marc, thank you for being a leader worth following. Despite your love for camels, you truly are the GOAT!