Making room for leadership in nursing

At Waipapa Marae, a bittersweet farewell took place as Professor Julia Slark stepped aside from her role as Head of School of Nursing in the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, making way for Josephine Davis to lead the School into its next chapter.

“It was time,” Slark says.

A tangata Tiriti from London, Slark says leading the School of Nursing at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland has been one of the great privileges of her career.

“I have always loved leadership,” she says. “For me as a leader, you don’t need to know everything. You surround yourself with the best, most amazing people.”

But when she first stepped into the role, the inequities were obvious.

“We didn’t have a very good reputation as a School,” Slark says. “I received feedback that Māori and Pacific staff and students didn’t always feel safe to be here. So that immediately became my priority.”

Her focus became shifting the culture of the School in a way that was authentic. She says it’s important to not be performative.

“It’s so important that people don’t “tick box”, but actually walk and work alongside people,” she says. “Now we have more students coming in. That’s why authentic action works.”

Slark says that work was only possible because of the people who walked alongside her, including Whaea Erana, Poutaki Māori for the School of Nursing, who she describes warmly as her “partner in crime”.

“She took a leap of faith and put herself out there,” Slark says. “I would not have been able to achieve much of what we have without her.”

For Slark, prioritising Māori leadership was never difficult to understand but a responsibility.

“We’re in Aotearoa New Zealand. This is tangata whenua. It’s the way it should be,” she says. “If I have a role, it is to use my privilege. The fact that I can walk in here and have these leadership roles, to support equity and create how it should be.”

“What is good for Māori is good for everyone. I will not stop having Māori as my priority until we have equity,” she says. “When you create the space and the opportunity, you get the most amazing leaders.”

Slark says the growth of Māori nursing leadership nationally proves what is possible when that space is created. She points to leaders such as Lorraine Hetaraka, Nadine Gray and Josephine Davis as examples of the future of the profession.

Now, after seven years as Head of School, Slark says she feels confident stepping aside.  

“To get us to a place where I can step aside and now work alongside the most impressive wāhine Māori – Josephine – that feels right,” she says.

“Josephine is wise and holds so much clinical expertise. Her work is so important for Māori workforce development. I feel confident leaving this space and letting Josephine take the School in a whole new direction.”

Davis, who was one of the first Māori nurse practitioners in the country, brings decades of clinical expertise, leadership and advocacy for Māori health equity to the role. She’s also the first Māori to be appointed as Head of School of Nursing.

Slark says she recognised Davis’s leadership early.

“You meet a woman like Josephine and you kind of just know,” she says. “She is so good at looking after people. She will bring people with her, she will grow and nurture them, and she will lead.

“To have wāhine Māori leading this School, I think she will do it so beautifully.”

While leaving the role is emotional, Slark says the School is ready for this change.

“For all the things I’m going to miss, I know it’s in safe hands.”

Slark will now move more fully into research, including her longstanding work in stroke research and fundamentals of care. Her clinical career began in neuro nursing in London, where she became a strong advocate for specialist stroke services after seeing how devastating stroke could be for patients and their whānau.

“The brain really is the hard drive of everything,” she says. “Any neurological disease or disorder can be so debilitating, and it doesn’t just affect one person, it affects their whole whānau.”

At Charing Cross Hospital, Slark helped develop stroke services from ward-based advocacy into a specialist service with inpatient stroke beds, hyper-acute stroke beds and a team of clinical nurse specialists. After moving to Aotearoa, she helped establish the country’s first stroke nursing course, which has since developed into an interprofessional postgraduate stroke pathway.

She is looking forward to returning more fully to that work, while continuing to support leadership development across the University.

But for now, Slark says the moment belongs to Davis and to the future of Māori nursing leadership.

“I’m proud that I was able to meet Josephine and go, ‘This could be someone,’” she says.

For Slark, succession is not about holding on, or gatekeeping, but knowing when to make room.

“I feel like I succeeded in that.”