I learned a lot from this interview about leadership in nursing. I think the most important takeaway is that all members of healthcare are leaders. A leader is not only someone singly defined because they did something remarkable. Working in healthcare is something remarkable. Leaders are people who advocate for others, stand up for others, work at something their passionate about, and most importantly nursing leadership can mean more to the people they surround than they may realize. I found this very clear in my interview with my subject. My subject valued communication, the support of other incredible leaders in their professional career but also their personal life and built connections and found support as a new nurse.

Thinking about their self-awareness vs their social awareness, I think both these qualities are critical to have. To be a leader in nursing it’s important to be self-aware of how you present yourself in not only stressful situations, but all situations. This also reflects in social awareness because you must look inward at yourself and how you present yourself and align with how others are feeling, and in this case with their patients. As a pediatric nurse, you must be sensitive to the youth mindset and keep true to yourself. There really is an importance of being true to yourself and how to bring that truthfulness and caring personality to the profession. That is something I found inspiring in my subject. I felt their love for the pediatric population, so much that they admitted to finding the work/life balance to be more of a challenge than a “freedom” you could say.

There were two things that surprised me, one was that my subject participated in the Maine LEND program, and in this program, they learned about leadership in the health profession field and education in children with neurodevelopmental disabilities. Through this program they were interconnected to a wider range of leaders across the state and still has connections with those resources. I think the importance of this program is the foundational leadership skills they learned but more importantly the connections to more leaders. During these times, but especially in this field it’s important to have an outreach of professional wisdom and I found that surprising because I didn’t know this program existed and how impactful it can be. Another surprising moment was the second day off their orientation they were the covid nurse on the unit. That day they had to call a code blue on a 2-month baby who stopped breathing. This baby had covid, my subject was only two days freshly off of orientation, yes, they’ve had experience in home health, but this was a moment they had to quickly shift to that leadership position to make sure the team knew what tasks needed to be done or what someone needed to do because covid patients have precautions so you can’t easily run in and out they highlighted. What surprised me the most was the debrief and support they got after the code. This is similar to what we do in simulation, we debrief what went well, and they did the same for their situation, and what could be improved on. Again, this happened for my subject as well. That connection to simulation and real-life code scenarios surprised me in an eye-opening way.

Many of my subjects’ responses reinforced my knowledge about how truly impactful they are in their profession but also as a leader. Another response that reinforced my knowledge was the opportunity to be the leader extern has widened their work and allowed them to be closer to nurses is different fields of nursing than the field of pediatrics that they are in.  Another response that reinforced my knowledge was how impactful our professors are in our nursing career and how they continue and will continue to be throughout our nursing career. I see this now.

This interview has made me respect this leader even more than I already did. Not only are they a part of the programs I knew about, but there is so many other programs they have been a part of and faced numerous challenges. To quote one, “being a new nurse has made me less likely to be trusted or respected due to my lack of experience.” I find this response so open, raw, and truthful. I appreciate hearing the truth behind being a new nurse and how yes, we are needed in this profession, but we are new, we are still learning no matter the experience we had before the job, and also we need to build trust with those other skilled leaders and professionals we are now working beside. I will take all the wisdom, guidance, words, and stories from this leader and apply the new knowledge I’ve also gained about the different paths and opportunities of leadership to my student future and nursing career. I’ve learned how important leadership is no matter the position or task, being a leader is impactful and powerful.