Nursing 490 – Nurse Leader Interview

Purpose of Assignment

To assess leadership style and skills in a current nursing leader and identify areas for personal growth related to nursing leadership.

Approach to Assignment

To begin this assignment, I first had to choose a nursing leader who inspires me. This proved to be very easy for me. While in nursing school, one of my teachers became my mentor and essentially lit a passion inside of me for cardiac nursing. She has remained my mentor and friend every since. Once I had chosen Cheryl Riley as my interviewee, I then had to set up the interview. We met one afternoon after Cheryl had finished work. The interview was professional and very friendly. After the interview was completed, I had all of the information I needed to create the nurse leader interview paper.

Reason for Inclusion

I included this paper as one of the additional assignments completed during this program to show my ability to conduct a professional interview, even when speaking with a friend. I wanted to highlight my views on leadership and compare them to someone who has mentored me into becoming a leader myself. I also wanted to use this paper satisfy the requirement of one assignment from this current semester being included in my portfolio, seeing as I just wrote this paper in nursing 490.

Curricular outcomes

Communication

• Expresses oneself and communicates effectively with diverse groups and disciplines using a variety of media in a variety of contexts.

        This paper exemplifies my ability to communicate with others in the form of an interview. In this paper, I interview someone who was once a superior to be in the form of a teacher, then became a peer and mentor as a co-worker and now has become a friend and ally in the workplace as an IT specialist. I show that I am able to successfully communicate within many disciplines including face to face interviews, paper writing and as a leader myself in my role as a charge nurse.

• Produces clear, accurate and relevant writing using correct grammar, spelling and punctuation.

        I received an A on this project in Nursing 490. I received full credit for the grammar, spelling and punctuation portion of the rubric and was able to effectively communicate my thoughts through my writing to my ODU professor.

• Accesses and utilizes data and information from a wide range of sources to enhance patient and professional communication.

        To complete this interview, I did some research on transformational leadership as well as the functional and organizational formats of Riverside Regional Medical Center. I used three different references for this paper. The data I collected from these references was used to enhance my professional interview with Cheryl Riley as well as my nurse-patient communication as a charge nurse.

Teaching

• Provides teaching to patients and/or professionals about health care procedures and technologies in preparation for and following nursing or medical interventions.

        Cheryl Riley was first a cardiac nurse, then a nursing school instructor and now a EMR IT expert. In this paper I discuss that Cheryl has inspired me to become a leader in my own workplace in the form of a preceptor and a charge nurse. Cheryl and I now work together to educate the nurses on my unit about the new EMR procedures to allow them to perform effective nursing care and complete their charting in a timely and holistic manner following nursing interventions.

Leadership

• Assumes a leadership role within one’s scope of practice as a designer, manager and coordinator of health care to meet the special needs of vulnerable populations in a variety of practice settings.

        This paper is centered on interviewing the person who I admire as a leader and feel influenced me to become a leader myself. I explain in this essay that Cheryl Riley inspired me to become a charge nurse on CVT. This means that I play a huge role in managing and coordinating the day to day happenings on my unit to satisfy the needs of several patients from vulnerable populations and various settings. I explain that Cheryl Riley is a transformational leader, meaning she is always open to growth and learning and that, in turn, I am also a transformational leader in order to adapt and meet the needs of the nurses and patients on CVT.

• Articulates the values of the profession and the role of the nurse as a member of the interdisciplinary team.

        I state in this paper that Cheryl Riley and I share some of the same nursing values such as respecting nursing students and co-workers and always being driven by the ethical and moral standards of nursing. I stress that, as a leader within the interdisciplinary team, it is my goal to rub these traits off on others just as Cheryl rubbed this traits off on me.

• Delegates and supervises the nursing care given by others while retaining the accountability for the quality of care given to the patient.

        As a leader, whether I am acting as a preceptor or charge nurse, I am always delegating tasks while remaining accountable for them. As Cheryl Riley taught me, always be a supportive and yet accountable leader. I must oversee care given to all patients on my unit when I am charge nurse as well as care given to patients by nursing students and new hires when I am a preceptor. In this paper, I stress that it was Cheryl Riley who taught me to be an effective leader in delegation.  

Professionalism

• Advocates for professional standards of practice using organizational and political processes.

        In this paper I explain that RRMC and RCC are shares governance organizations. This means that their organizational processes involve committees made up of nurses to make decisions about how the organizations should be run. This gives me the change to advocate for professional standards of practice in daily care and policies in my place of work.