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Episode 63

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Published on:

18th Dec 2025

063: Self Doubt to Confident Leafer with Michelle DeRoubaix

This episode of The Happy Nurse features returning guest Michelle DeRoubaix, a nurse educator, leadership coach and mentor with over 40 years of clinical nursing experience and more than 20 years developing nurse leaders. Drawing on her work and her ebook “From Self Doubt to Confident Leader,” Michelle and Elaina explore the realities of modern nurse leadership, the impact of COVID-19 on leadership pathways, and how nurses can lead themselves first to create safer, kinder workplace cultures.

Summary

In this conversation, Elaina and Michelle dive into the changing face of nursing leadership, including how nurses are being pushed into senior roles earlier than ever and what that means for confidence, burnout and workplace culture. They discuss practical, strengths-based strategies to navigate imposter syndrome, give feedback with compassion, step out of the Drama Triangle and build psychologically safe teams where everyone feels seen, heard and valued. Michelle also shares simple tools for regulating the nervous system, setting boundaries and reconnecting with the core “why” of nursing so leaders can sustain themselves and their teams in a demanding healthcare environment.

Key topics discussed

  • How COVID-19 and workforce shortages have accelerated nurses into leadership roles (often within 2–3 years) and the stress and skill gaps this creates.​
  • Why Michelle chose to focus on associate NUMs and emerging leaders rather than senior executives, and how her Master’s in Business Coaching helps bridge nursing and organisational realities.​
  • Common confidence challenges for nurse leaders: imposter syndrome, fear of errors, and the discomfort of giving feedback to colleagues.​
  • Practical approaches to feedback that are honest, kind and brief, and why timing, calmness and follow-up conversations matter.​
  • The harm of “favourites,” roster manipulation and mean-girl culture, and how these behaviours erode integrity, trust and psychological safety.​
  • The Drama Triangle versus the Winner’s Triangle, and how shifting from drama to solutions can protect energy and culture.​
  • Leading self first: knowing your strengths, values and core needs (including feeling safe, valued and connected) as the foundation of effective leadership.​
  • Simple team practices to rebuild connection on busy wards, such as brief appreciation circles, mindful moments after a death or code, and small rituals of kindness.​
  • The impact of shift work, acuity and ageing populations on nurse wellbeing, and why boundaries, rest, movement, nutrition and relationships are non‑negotiable.​
  • Nervous system regulation tools for nurses: diaphragmatic breathing to activate the parasympathetic system, short pauses to “respond not react,” and regular micro-moments of decompression.​
  • The importance of vulnerability in leadership, and how a leader’s openness makes it safer for staff to be honest about challenges and mistakes.

Resources and links

Michelle’s ebook: From Self Doubt to Confident Leader - https://lp.michellederoubaix.com.au/roadmap-download-page

Previous Happy Nurse episode with Michelle on the Drama Triangle and leadership - Episode 004.

If today's episode resonated, I have a burnout prevention course and anxiety relief handbook waiting for you at elaina-s-school-fc1d.thinkific.com — practical tools built specifically for nurses, by a nurse.

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About the Podcast

The Happy Nurse
Winner — APAC Insider Australian Enterprise Awards 2024 | Most Empowering Self Care Provider for Nurses. Burnout, compassion fatigue, and stress are rising in healthcare. This podcast exists to change that — one practical, honest conversation at a time.
Nurses are the backbone of the health system — always there to care for a stranger as if they were one of their own, forsaking precious moments with their own families to ensure others' loved ones are in good hands.
Compassion fatigue, stress, and burnout are rising across healthcare. Self care has never been more important — or more overlooked.
Elaina Mullery McDonald RN has 25 years of clinical nursing experience, a Postgraduate Certificate in Psychology, and a Master of Business Psychology in progress. She is a certified NLP Practitioner, hypnotherapist, and mindfulness practitioner — and the founder and host of The Happy Nurse podcast. Having experienced burnout firsthand, she is passionate about equipping nurses with practical, evidence-informed strategies to protect their wellbeing and sustain the career they worked so hard for.

About your host

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Elaina Mullery


Elaina Mullery RN has spent 25 years working across some of nursing's most demanding clinical environments — orthopaedic trauma, operating theatre, endoscopy, recovery, and day surgery. She knows firsthand what it feels like to run on empty, and it's that lived experience of burnout that drives everything she does.
Elaina holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Psychology and is completing a Master of Business Psychology at Edith Cowan University. She is a certified NLP Practitioner, hypnotherapist, and mindfulness practitioner, and has developed the 3R Framework — an original evidence-based methodology for building sustainable human performance at individual, team, and organisational level.
Through The Happy Nurse podcast, her online courses, and her white paper No Margin for Error, Elaina is on a mission to change the way healthcare treats its most valuable resource — the people who show up every day to care for others.