The interview process with my chosen nurse leader went smoothly as we discussed the experiences and challenges, she faces each day and how much she has grown after being in the practice for 30 years. I learned through her how we as nurses are all leaders and take responsibilities each day. She showed me how she as an older nurse, she has multiple occasions where she gets to teach and mentor the newest nurses coming in and how she leads them to becoming competent nurses on the unit. This leader also spoke to me about how leadership can be as simple as taking the initiative to go and educate yourself on another topic and to advance your skills, to then bring them back to the unit as a benefit. She has been involved in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion educational opportunities lately that are helping her change the way she thinks as far as biases go and how she can teach her fellow peers to better treat their patients with safe and individualized care. I was excited to hear about this educational opportunity and how she plans to use this towards her nursing career, as this is something, I am passionate about and plan to do as well. As a future nurse, plan to take the initiative to better educate myself on current and rising topics in the field as well as develop policy/procedure on units I am on that will ensure all my coworkers do the same.

She has worked on several units throughout the hospital and has had to adjust to new teams and new team members constantly, and now holds leadership positions within these groups. She is well respected by her fellow nursing peers and interprofessional hospital coworkers, but it has taken some time to gain this respect and she still feels as though some do not. Thinking about some of the challenges she faced, she was a nurse who stepped up to float to COVID ICU units during the beginning of the pandemic. This person and some of her peers to the initiative to go and help where it was most needed in their hospital, as well as helped coordinate how the care would be distributed to their original unit of the PACU. With lots of mobbing parts, they ended up being some of the most trusted people of their unit in the sense of how the care was going to be distributed, and how many assignments they needed to take on each day. She spoke to how there were times when her coworkers wanted to give up, or that they felt the COVID ICU was too much, and she stepped in as a token of motivation and dedication to spark these peers into pushing forward. She also spoke a lot to the tune of how there were younger staff on the floor who took advantage of her skill set by giving her more than necessary to do when those other nurses are fully capable, as well as PA’s not treating her with respect as she has a wealth of knowledge and insight on situations, and knows how to guide a team. She also spoke a lot on how scheduling and sign off sheets for overtime are often taken advantage of when she is not around and when the floor manager is not there, and this is something she is trying to navigate and take the lead on to ensure proper processes follow through as they move forward. These are thing I have heard often from nurses as they feel less respect from their younger peers at times when it should be more respect given due to the amount of knowledge an experienced nurse can provide as long as they gain that respect through proper leadership.

After seeing and hearing experiences from this leader on multiple occasions, she is someone I look up to as there are so many ways to do and practice leadership in the nursing world. This person has given the ups and downs of a job like nursing how important teamwork is, as well as how important it is that there are people within those teams who are willing to step up and be a support system and listening ear to help make change within. As we think about units and hospitals we want to work at as new graduates, I believe it is important to ensure you get a feel of the units and their management and leadership, and to know if you would succeed there or not, and if you feel supported or not. I plan to do this work in finding a unit I know I will be comfortable on, as well as work my way up in building these leadership skills throughout my career.