After the interview with my dad, he gave me a great insight in what it means to be a leader in nursing. The number of working parts that need to come together to be a successful nursing leader were a lot more extensive than I first imagined. He told me that he would really made sure that he tried to take into consideration who he was working with that day and what those people’s strengths and weaknesses were while making assignments. He found that once he was able to know the people, he was really working with helped him to try and avoid conflict and made the flow of the floor was very positive. However, he did say that this wasn’t always an easy thing to do. There would be times when nurses wouldn’t be happy with their patient assignments or nurses were having a bad day and it would throw the flow of the floor off completely. He liked to say that “if one gear is out of place, the rest of the machine can’t run”. If he noticed that people were upset, he would try to make sure they could get some time to try and collect themselves to make sure that the patient is getting the best care possible. This could even be covering their patients for just 5 minutes while they went and got a cup of coffee or went and grabbed a snack. After this interview it gave me a new respect for my dad’s leadership skills. Before the interview I always knew he was a natural leader and people liked his leadership skills. Watching him do things like coach soccer games to becoming a captain in the Navy it was very clear that he knew what he was doing. This interview gave me an insight to how he made sure that the people he was in charge of grew to respect him as a leader. In regard to my future nursing career, I while make sure to apply some of the positive leadership skills I was able to obtain from my dad as he showed me that this was a very effective way of running a floor. I always had interest in becoming a nursing leader and after this interview it only has increased the want to become a leader and I now know some successful skills that can help me do so.
