Nursing Leadership Interview

Alicia believes in being up-to-date and continuous education, and therefore, she is active member in American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE), and likes to

“Since we are a small unit composed of mostly RNs, I sit down with my staff and we go over the budget together. It gives the staff a sense of proprietorship. This way I feel we are sharing the responsibilities and it helps them to understand why we cannot afford a piece of equipment at this time. I can usually depend on someone to think out of the box. Once we went “dumpster diving” for office supplies as one employee suggested. It is actually the hospital’s warehouse for materials nobody wanted. We savaged enough office supplies for the year and was able to purchase a high cost item the unit needed. Plus it was a team building effort.”

As Finkelman (2006) stated, “Mentoring, and important career development to that can be used by nurses any type of set or specialty, can be used to develop the critical leadership skills needed by nurses. All successful leaders have had mentors are our mentors” (Finkelman,2006, p. 390).

“Nursing is informed caring for the well-being of others” (Swanson, 1993, p. 352). Kristen Swanson’s relationship-based caring theory encompasses maintaining belief, knowing, being with, doing for, and enabling. Nursing is a profession with vast opportunities for growth and development. Each nurse has his or her individual passions; mine reside within obstetrics, women’s health, and nursing leadership. Nurse leaders play an integral role in the success of healthcare organizations. Nurse leaders shape the roles of nurses within their organizations. Nurse leaders seek methods to improve patient care. They also use innovation to gain efficiencies in care delivery and decrease healthcare cost. Many nurse leaders have an ultimate goal to aspire to be a chief nursing officer in a healthcare

In today’s healthcare system, effective leadership is essential to improving and reaching organizational outcomes. A leader is someone with the ability to influence others but, an effective leader uses positive strategies to inspire employees to work towards the same goal. Leadership in nursing requires a constant effort to motivate others to become part of the organizational transformation. This can be achieved using a transformational leadership style with a focus on communication, motivation, and empowerment.

Slide 2: A Nurse Executive is a master’s educated individual who is knowledgeable and has developed strong interpersonal relationships with the interdisciplinary team. This individual is accountable and compassionate, showing respect and excellence in their practice. The nurse leader is able to adapt to change especially in regards to technological advances and innovative methods of caring for patients. A driven leader empowers their staff to create an environment that is inclusive and ultimately productive using the team-nursing concept. Individual weaknesses are noted and built upon using team training and consistent educational in-services. This

Being a leader in the profession of nursing requires pride and dedication to the nursing career path. This is why I decided to conduct my interview with Pamela Prefontaine, a leader in the nursing field. Prefontaine graduated from Bellin School of Nursing in 1982. She then went on to get her Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 1990 from the University of Wisconsin Green Bay. Prefontaine then graduated from the Milwaukee School of Engineering in 2009 with a master’s degree in medical informatics. Prefontaine was the team leader of pediatrics at Bellin from 2001-2007. She has also been a team leader of a medical and surgical floor at Bellin also. Furthermore, Prefontaine was also the assistant director of the NICU at Saint Vincent’s Hospital. She currently is a consultant for informatics.

Nurse leaders are the background to the nursing care. Effective nurse leaders can promote a positive workforce and a healthy work place for other nurses. Workplace dynamics is an essential part of how each nurse functions. Nurses, being mentally and physically stressed, need to have support and guidance from a nurse leader to feel confident about performance. The impact of nursing leaders can be a positive and guiding force for the younger or more inexperienced nurse. Having strong relationships with solid leaders can instill values in the beginning stages of a newer nurses’ career. Gaining insight and core concepts from a more experienced leader can make a world of difference in the way a new nurse performs, provides patient care, and sets future goals for themselves. A newer nurse with a positive role model and nurse leader can model themselves to become a leader for future nurses.

In healthcare it is very important to have strong leaders, especially in the nursing profession. A nurse leader typically uses several styles of leadership depending on the situation presented; this is known as situational leadership. It is important that the professional nurse choose the right style of leadership for any given situation to ensure their employees are performing at their highest potential. Depending on which leadership style a nurse leader uses, it can affect staff retention and the morale of the employees as well as nurse job satisfaction (Azaare & Gross, 2011.) “Nursing leaders have the responsibility to create and maintain a work environment which not only promotes positive patient outcomes but also

Not all nurses go into the profession with leadership ideas. The nursing profession must produce leaders throughout the health care system. Leaders must function as workers, and administrators with leadership qualities, while still meeting their budgets and running effective units with high functioning and happy staff members. They need to trouble shoot necessary and work with the medical faculty while pleasing their staff and the administers.

Nurse leaders are faced with issues or problems on a daily basis that are often expected and sometimes unexpected. It “comes with the territory” so to speak. If there were no issues to solve or hurdles to overcome the necessity of designating a leader would not seem quite as important. Nurse leaders can tackle issues that occur in their work environment using nursing theory to guide them. Nursing theory provides a framework that nurse leaders can use to implement interventions or changes to positively impact the staff they lead. This framework of the theory will set the standards for achieving the desired outcomes and is based on knowledge that is gleaned from practice and/or research.

Leadership traits associated with nurse executives are honesty, credibility, supportiveness, visibility, and flexibility. Nurse executives analyze nursing functions and empower nurses through participatory decision making, shared governance, and employee involvement. Nurse executives share the vision and goals of the hospital and promote application of a nursing theory into the nursing care delivery system. They anticipate the future of health care and nursing and serve as monitor, role model, and preceptor to lower level management (Upeniecks, 2003). Nurse executives in the Magnet program are required to have advance practice degrees with certification in their specialty (ANCC). Understanding evidence-based management and enabling the use of evidence-based knowledge provides the nurse executive with the tools to improve patient outcomes. The transformational leader will remove barriers to improvement and encourage outcome based thinking. While nurse leaders are charged with questioning the status quo, nurse managers in the transformational approach to leadership are charged with maintaining the status quo.

Leadership may mean different things to different people, the consensus opinion of experts in this field is that leadership is using power to direct and influence activities of people to achieve set goals or targets. Nursing leadership is all about every nurse providing, facilitating and promoting the best healthcare services to client and to the public. Leadership is a shared responsibility. (CNO 2012). The nursing profession need leaders that can build the capacity of nurses through mentoring, coaching, supporting, developing the expertise and management skills of nurses to make a difference to the quality of patient care at all levels of the profession ( McIntyre & McDonald, 2014 ). At the core of every leadership either political or managerial is power and how the leader uses it. While it is practically impossible to lead without power, how the nurse leader uses this power not only determine the leadership style but also the results or outcomes of what is achieved through the process.

In the healthcare field, nursing leaders and managers face consistent issues in their respective practices that force them to alter the way they work and the way they think. In taking on a role as a leader within the field, nursing leaders and managers also take on the role of ensuring that work within an organization runs smoothly regardless of new issues that may arise in the healthcare arena. For instance, in today's healthcare environment, the issues of nurse shortage and nurse turnover have the capacity to alter the healthcare field and many of its respective branches and organizations should these problems not be managed properly by the leaders in the field. In viewing the issue at hand and in discovering how nursing leaders and managers are expected to act, and do act, in order to approach this issues, along with pinpointing the best approach possible to aid this issue, one can better understand which leadership styles are necessary for leaders to function.

Nursing is a very complex career that at many times requires one to be a leader. Nurses can be leaders in formal roles and also on the unit during any given shift. Nursing is a career that truly tests the character and attributes of those who choose to enter this career. Leadership in nursing is vital in creating a successful environment for patients. According to Stichler (2006), “effective leadership is essential to transforming organizations into environments that are safe for both patients and staff” (p. 422). Therefore, it is vital that as new nurses start out his or her careers that they learn from great leaders who are already in the profession. There are several great leaders working in the field who have a plethora of