The nurse that I found to interview was fairly easy to find, it is my dad. My dad has been one of the charge nurses on a cardiac floor for 5 years. While I think that my dad has great qualities as a parent, I was able to witness his leadership skills when I was floated to the floor he worked on as a PCA. I was not expecting my dad to be the charge nurse when I arrived to the floor but when I did he quickly demonstrated his skills as a leader. The first thing I noticed was that he treated everyone on the floor as equals. Even though he was working with his son, he never missed a beat and treated me the same way he did everyone else. He made the staff feel that they were respected, and he wasn’t going to have favorites. The second quality I found that made him a good leader was his leadership style. He has a combination of an authoritarian and lassiez faire attitude. He allowed for the staff to do what they needed to get done for the day but if things weren’t getting done, he seemed to make sure that people were getting back on track. I could tell this made for the rest of the staff respect him and his leadership, so they listened to him and followed his instruction. While he is my dad, I am still excited to interview him and see him in a light I have not seen him before. I am interested to learn how he was able to get comfortable leading and taking charge of the floor, how he deals with any conflict that may have come up, what is the biggest challenge he has had to face while being a charge nurse. I have talked to him plenty about some of the experiences he has had as a nurse, but he never really talked about the specifics of being the charge nurse. I think that at the end of this interview I will have a better idea on what it took for him to become a charge nurse of the floor and a better insight on his leadership skills.
