Editorial

Abstract

In our professional lives we meet many people and it is important to be cognisant of all network development possibilities and learn to see everyone as a potential collaborator, colleague or mentor that can be drawn on throughout an entire career. There are some people with whom connections will be formed that are able to be maintained as close relationships with regular ongoing contact. Others may be more casual, and exist to meet a particular need, and these relationships, while productive for a time may come to a natural conclusion. Thus, we draw on the analogy of the season, reason or lifetime, and in so doing think it useful that we regularly take the time to reflect on what sort of colleague we want to be to others, and what sort of colleagues we want for ourselves.There is a saying that people come into our lives for a reason, a season or a lifetime (author unknown), and we argue that this idea can also have currency in the professional realm with colleagues and other professional connections. As an editorial team, we are geographically distant from one another and between us, we have had successful international careers that have spanned clinical, administrative and academic environments. We have faced our share of challenges along the way. In preparing this special issue of the journal, we reflect on our own careers; the importance of developing and maintaining positive, strong and resilient collegial relationships and the role these relationships have played in our own careers.Nursing is undoubtedly a very rewarding career choice. However, it can also be high pressure and like other professions, there are a number of workplace challenges that can influence career satisfaction and progress. The literature is replete with evidence that the nursing workplace can be affected by all manner of problems that can impede the formation of productive collegial relationships. These problems include negative and highly pressured work environments that are sometimes complicated by factors such as breaches of trust, bullying, harassment, workplace incivility or other negative issues (Hutchinson, Vickers, Wilkes, & Jackson, 2009; Jackson et al., 2010). Such difficulties are commonplace; they are reflective of poor leadership (Cleary, Horsfall, Deacon, & Jackson, 2011; Jackson, Hutchinson, Peters, Luck, & Saltman, 2012), and can affect the clinical, administrative and academic working environments, and render the workplace less amenable to the creation of positive collegial relationships.Given that the work environment can be experienced as unsupportive and even hostile at times, it behoves all of us who are interested in building a sustainable career, to explore strategies for self-care and self-nurturance in the working environment. We argue that positive collegial relationships can not only mitigate the negative effects of a noxious or unhappy working environment, but are fundamental to the development of a successful career. We look back over our own careers and recognise the importance of our positive collegial relationships and suggest that these relationships can also be an invaluable strategy for sustaining self and maintaining performance and output, even in the face of lack of workplace support, or organisational and workplace difficulties. These important professional relationships survive tests of time, differences of opinion, periods of adversity and endure changes in jobs and location. These are relationships that are not swayed by changing circumstances or the perceived power of either partner - these are relationships that are honest, durable and authentic.These special relationships can take various forms. Some will involve sustained and regular close contact, while others may have a more distant quality, with partners dipping in and out over the course of a career, but with a shared understanding that the relationship is there to be drawn on when needed. Furthermore, in the current context of high workplace mobility comes the need to nurture and maintain the good relationships we have. …