Reflective Journal - Week 16

1. What did you actually learned from the unit.

This week I learned about the important of risk management in our healthcare systems. 

2. Discuss your feelings/experiences from the team activities? Did it change your opinion on the subject? If so, how? If not, why?

I thought the discussion was helpful in putting myself in a specific situation of where risk management would be involved. It is helpful to understand what their roles are and what they could do in a specific situation to make something better. 

3. How you will utilize the information learned in your nursing practice.

I think it is important to remember that risk managers are there for us to be able to use them when needed. A lot of times, we don't utilize them as much as we should in some cases, when they can really benefit us from having further harmful outcomes to the facility that we work and our patients as well. 

4. You personal feelings about the material covered.

I feel that risk management is very important in nursing practice. I feel like they are great people to help us from bigger problems to help us in the overall problem becoming better. 

Reflective Journal - Week 15

1. What did you actually learned from the unit.

I learned different ways in how to motivate employees, especially as a nurse manager. 

2. Discuss your feelings/experiences from the team activities? Did it change your opinion on the subject? If so, how? If not, why?

This has always been a passion of mine. I have worked on units that have really great employee retention and I try to take what they do and use it on other units that I work on. The problem I have noticed, is that managers aren't as passionate about it as I am and don't really consider it. 

3. How you will utilize the information learned in your nursing practice.

Well one day when I am hopefully working as a nurse manager, I hope to adopt some of the practices that I believe so firmly in and also use some of the skills that were taught in this week's lecture. 

4. You personal feelings about the material covered.

I like the different ideas that discussed motivation techniques for employees. It was definitely important information for me to understand and hopefully be able to adopt in my practice one day. 

Reflective Journal - Week 13

1. What did you actually learned from the unit.

I learned more about collective bargaining and how to better communicate with people. 

2. Discuss your feelings/experiences from the team activities? Did it change your opinion on the subject? If so, how? If not, why?

I thought the collective bargaining assignment was interesting. It was cool to see how things worked out based on the numbers I put in. I also enjoyed learning about different types of conflict and the different forms of communication. 

3. How you will utilize the information learned in your nursing practice.

I think this will be good information to know if I go into nursing management, so I will know what to purpose for raises to bosses. I also thought it was good to learn about the different forms of communication. Especially as a nurse leader it is good to know how to communicate properly to avoid conflict with my team.  

4. You personal feelings about the material covered.

I feel like this was really interesting information to learn. I think it will be valuable information to know in general and not just in my nursing practice. 

Reflective Journal - Week 12

1. What did you actually learned from the unit.

This week I learned about strategic planning. 

2. Discuss your feelings/experiences from the team activities? Did it change your opinion on the subject? If so, how? If not, why?

This week it was good working at a team on the strategic planning assignment. I think it gave us all a great perspective on what strategic planning entails. We had to consider the big picture and what was best for the whole big picture. 

3. How you will utilize the information learned in your nursing practice.

Since I plan on working in Nursing Management, I am sure I will at some point in my career be involved in strategic planning. This gave me a general overview on what that might be like in the future. 

4. You personal feelings about the material covered. 

I feel this is valuable and important information for nurse leaders to be aware of. Strategic planning allows for much growth in organizations, and this should be brought to attention of those seeking those career opportunities in the future. 

Reflective Journal - Week 11

1. What did you actually learned from the unit.

This week I learned about the importance of being able to accept change, especially as a leader. 

2. Discuss your feelings/experiences from the team activities? Did it change your opinion on the subject? If so, how? If not, why?

The team activities were hard to do this week. Everyone has such different schedules outside of school, so it was hard getting all of the team assignments done this week as a team. I also notice that people in my team tend to procrastinate, for me, I don't like to pinch everything in the last second. So it can be stressful. But I believe that this goes along with the lesson. To make a good leader, we need to be able to accept change, and if procrastination means changing some of my ways, then I had good practice in that this week. 

3. How you will utilize the information learned in your nursing practice.

I will take what I learned about changes and being able to adapt to them and be a leader with new changes instead of being a "Haw," in Who Moved My Cheese?

4. You personal feelings about the material covered.

I feel like I am a person that adapts to change fairly easily. I know that changes are generally for the better, so I try to look at changes from that light. I feel that nursing is a forever changing profession, and it is something that nurses should be able to do. Change is a quality that every nurse should have to best at their profession. 

Reflective Journal - Week 10

1. What did you actually learned from the unit.

I learned about staffing and how difficult it is. I also learned about nursing career development, and what steps it takes to continue career goals. 

2. Discuss your feelings/experiences from the team activities? Did it change your opinion on the subject? If so, how? If not, why?

The team activity of the staffing assignment was hard. It was hard putting 4 heads together to put up a decent schedule. It wasn't super organized by doing it that way. What I realized is that it really ultimately needs to really only involve one person to think hard about it and figure it out, because if you put too many cooks in the kitchen, per se, it is ultimate chaos trying to accomplish the ending goal. 

3. How you will utilize the information learned in your nursing practice.

I learned to appreciate more what it takes to develop a schedule. Luckily we didn't have staff complaining about it either. That could make it even more hard. But it is more important to meet the demands of the unit. 

4. You personal feelings about the material covered.

I learned the importance of PRN staff to be used especially when they are needed to fill in the gaps in the schedule. I worked for a unit once that refused to allow me to go to PRN status to meet the demands of my family. So I reached out to my old boss who allowed me to come back and work for her as PRN. After completing this week's activities, I realized that it is important to have that filler staff to ensure that the gaps can be filled when necessary. 

Budget Interview

For this assignment I interviewed my brother-in-law who does the budgeting for his CFO for Vivnt Solar. He is a business analyst and works on all of the budgeting for the company. It was really interesting to hear everything he had to share in regards to the budgeting for the company. He knows how much everyone makes and knows what cuts they decide to make as he works hand in hand with the CFO of the company. It was interesting to hear everything that goes into the budget of a large successful company.

Reflective Journal - Week 9

1. What did you actually learned from the unit.
I learned the direction that nursing is headed. It was interesting to hear that soon more places will require bachelor's degrees. This was interesting to me.

2. Discuss your feelings/experiences from the team activities? Did it change your opinion on the subject? If so, how? If not, why?
I honestly feel that Utah is a little bit behind in requiring that. I think if they came forward and required this, that there would be a significant nursing shortage. I know on our floor whenever there is a new leadership position opening, there is always a difficult time filling it because of the lack of people that currently have their bachelor's degrees.

3. How you will utilize the information learned in your nursing practice.
Well I am currently working on my bachelor's degree, and my intentions are to be in nursing management. With bachelor's degrees coming to be a new standard, it makes me wonder if eventually it will be required to have a master's degree for nurse managers.

4. You personal feelings about the material covered.
I think it is valuable information to share. As mentioned, while I don't see that this will be something required anytime soon here in Utah, I do know that it is starting to be requirements more and more in other states. I do think it is important to bring this to light to all current nurses without BSN's so that they can start working on their degrees.

Reflective Journal - Week 8

1. What did you actually learned from the unit.

I learned about budgets in a hospital setting and the importance of budgets in the hospitals. 

2. Discuss your feelings/experiences from the team activities? Did it change your opinion on the subject? If so, how? If not, why?

I appreciated this week's learning experiences. This was all new for me. I did have a hard time actually understanding it all without being in a face to face classroom, there was no room for discussion and asking questions, but it was interesting to learn about this information and the value of using it in a hospital setting, because it is essential for the success of hospital organizations. 

3. How you will utilize the information learned in your nursing practice.

Well since I eventually am hoping to be in nursing management, I will definitely be using the tools I used in this week's lesson. It also made me think of ways that I could cut back personally in my job. Thinking about only bringing the supplies I need into the patient's rooms and trying to minimize the supplies I need to get my job done. I also realized the biggest expense was for staff. With this in mind, I will try to be better at sending staff home when I am charging to make sure that I am keeping us within our budgeting needs for my unit. 

4. You personal feelings about the material covered. 

I feel that it is extremely valuable and essential information especially for leaders in health care. I hope to learn more about it in the future. 

Firing-Discipline Interview

For this assignment I interviewed my Step-Mom who works as an office manager for Allstates Landscaping. It was interesting to see the perspective of someone who fires people. It is not something people like to do and are very uncomfortable with letting people go. It seems like there are a lot of processes in place before just coming straight forward and letting someone go.

I learned that there are interesting people out there that do interesting things to cause grounds for firing, but what it comes down to for this company anyway, is if people are causing a lot of problems with other employees and costing the company  a lot of money, then they don't like to keep people around. People need to be able to do their job expectations, and if they consistently are not doing that, then they aren't worth it to keep them around.

Reflective Journal - Week 7

1. What did you actually learned from the unit.

This week I learned about the many characteristics that potentially make a woman a better leader than a man. I also learned about the various leadership roles in hospital settings. 

2. Discuss your feelings/experiences from the team activities? Did it change your opinion on the subject? If so, how? If not, why?

I personally feel that we were trying to be persuaded that women can be better leaders by the articles and videos that we had to watch, but in our team's discussions, we all have had better experiences with male leaders. Everyone feels that women are more emotionally charged in general and make a lot of decisions based on emotions, and because of that, we felt that men would be better as a leader. 

I personally feel that a mix of men and women is always best. Everyone has great things to bring to the table, and a good mix of the two genders can create a better balanced work environment. 

3. How you will utilize the information learned in your nursing practice.

I was actually thinking today about all of the charge nurses on our floor and actually that women tend to do better than men in their roles because they are more willing to help out the staff and to be there when people need them. The male charge nurses we work with on our floor tend to me more authoritative and tend to be more bossy than helpful. 

4. You personal feelings about the material covered.

I feel it was interesting to learn this material. I am interested to see the survey results when we begin to start doing our survey and writing our paper on the power article assignment. 

Reflective Journal - Week 6

1. What did you actually learned from the unit.

I learned about ethics in health care, or in general, and how those issues are addressed. 

2. Discuss your feelings/experiences from the team activities? Did it change your opinion on the subject? If so, how? If not, why?

I thought the movie Sister's Keeper, that we had to watch for this unit was right on track with what we were discussing this week. While it will very likely turn to an ethics committee prior to going to court in real life, it definitely brought to attention a lot of ethical issues that are present in today's society. 

3. How you will utilize the information learned in your nursing practice.

I think it is important to be sensitive to people's wishes. People need to be able to make their own medical wishes, and if they aren't capable, then family members need to be able to make ethical decisions for the patient. If they aren't ethical, then the committee should be involved in assisting the family make a decision. 

4. You personal feelings about the material covered.

I feel this information is very valuable and important for nurses and nurse leaders to be aware of, because there will very likely come an issue at some point in one of our careers that will need to be addressed with an ethics committee, and we should know what that process involves. 

Performance Appraisal Interview

For this assignment I learned the importance of performance appraisal interviews. Everyone dislikes them, including the person conducting the interviews, but they are important to help the team grow and to establish goals.

For this assignment I interviewed my husband who used to work in the marketing department at Utah Valley University, and it was his responsibility to assist in the interviews with the team of graphic designers who worked under him. While he did find this to be very daunting and annoying, he did find that it did help build his team and to help establish good goals for his team. He did work with good staff, so he didn't have a whole lot of negative experiences to report, and the team was a fairly small team.

Reflective Journal - Week 5

1. What did you actually learned from the unit.

I learned about Performance Appraisals this week. I also learned that EVERYONE hates them, but they are beneficial to growth in employees. 

2. Discuss your feelings/experiences from the team activities? Did it change your opinion on the subject? If so, how? If not, why?

Well as mentioned above, I personally hate them, I feel like everyone does them because they have to, and they aren't super meaningful. I do think it is a good time to talk to staff that are having struggles, because it would bring to light issues that need to be addressed. 

3. How you will utilize the information learned in your nursing practice.

I definitely learned more about them. They always gave a bad taste in my mind, but now I have a better appreciation for them from a leadership perspective. 

4. You personal feelings about the material covered.

I asked my dad who is a CEO if he does them for his company, and he says he doesn't and would like to. The information I learned will be valuable to help him start this up for his company. 

Hiring Interview

I actually chose to interview my dad for this assignment. He started a successful landscaping company when I was just a very little girl, and I had never asked him about his hiring process. It was very interesting to hear how his hiring process has been conducted and what he does for it. The biggest thing he focuses on is negativity in his interviews.

He stated that over the years he has hired many people that he thought would be right for a specific position, and they ended up not being a good fit. He said that over the many years that he has been a hiring manager, the one thing that he has learned specifically about hiring is to never hire anyone that has any form of negativity.

He said any candidates can have the best ever resume and skills, but if they have any form of negativity, then they will drag others down with them in the company. He prefers a positive work environment for all the people working for him, because then they will lead the company and provide great customer service to all their employees.

Reflective Journal- Week 4

1. What did you actually learned from the unit.

I learned how to work together as a team and some team building activities. 

2. Discuss your feelings/experiences from the team activities? Did it change your opinion on the subject? If so, how? If not, why?

I was extremely overwhelmed this week seeing that I had to write a 10 page paper. Then after learning that I had to write it as a team did take some of the stress off my shoulders. I think this is a perfect example of working as a team. When someone is overwhelmed, we all work together to complete the assignment and then it isn't so bad for anyone. 

3. How you will utilize the information learned in your nursing practice.

This brings up a lot of things that can be used in nursing. There are times when other nurses and members of the team at work feel extremely overwhelmed and can't complete all of the tasks they need to get their job done. This is when we can step up as a team to help people struggling complete their "10 page paper."

4. You personal feelings about the material covered.

I honestly hadn't ever thought of any of these team building activities until I did this assignment. I didn't even ever think about how many virtual teams are out there in the business world. With technology growing, there are a lot of virtual teams that exist these days, and it is important to know ways how to make everyone come together and grow together as a team. 

Reflective Journal - Week 3

1. What did you actually learned from the unit.

I learned really the whole process involved in hiring. There was a lot of stuff that I knew, but to actually think of the whole process and how much it costs was extremely interesting to me. 

2. Discuss your feelings/experiences from the team activities? Did it change your opinion on the subject? If so, how? If not, why?

I think it was very interesting coming up with the behavioral interview questions. I have sat in on interviews before, and they really are very telling of peoples characters. But having to come up with my own was helpful. It helped me to know what I value in a coworker and as a team. 

3. How you will utilize the information learned in your nursing practice.

Well knowing the importance of the interview questions and the process is important to me. I would like to be in management in nursing one day, so this information and these processes will be very useful to me in my practice. 

4. You personal feelings about the material covered.

I liked hearing in the videos the whole process of hiring. I think a lot of us floor nurses are frustrated a lot when we are running short on the floor and don't really think about what it all takes to get a new employee hired. I think that would be helpful information for many people to know. 

Week 2 Journal

1. What did you actually learned from the unit.

I learned some differences in leaders and differences between leadership and management. I also learned a lot of the different qualities of leaders in nursing. 

2. Discuss your feelings/experiences from the team activities? Did it change your opinion on the subject? If so, how? If not, why?

On the discussion board it was interesting. We can't see any of the replies until we make our own. Each of the replies were all extremely similar and all had a common ground. Everyone agreed that every leader has specific traits and qualities that make them leaders. It was interesting to see that from the team. 

3. How you will utilize the information learned in your nursing practice.

I want to use the information that I learned from this weeks material to be a great leader by leading by example, and constantly being a person that people can confide in and look up to in my work. 

4. You personal feelings about the material covered.

I feel that everyone in nursing is a leader. We have to be a leader to our teams we work with and to our patient's so that we can educate them and guide them to make proper decisions about their health. I loved the DISC personality test, because I was able to discover my own leadership qualities that I have to provide to my own teams. 

Characteristics of Leaders

1.       Leadership requires personal mastery – Nurses demonstrate leadership when they show competence and mastery in the tasks they perform. Nurses are deemed competent by means of a license to practice nursing (NLN 2010).

2.       Leadership is about values – Nursing is focused on many values. Some important values may be respect, integrity, courage, service, and wisdom.

3.       Leadership is about service – Nursing is all about service. We must always be there to step up and help others who can not help themselves. 

4.       Leadership is about people and relationships –  Nurses have the opportunity to build relationships with not only their coworkers, but patients as well. 

5.       Leadership is contextual – In nursing you have to adjust the way on how you deal with the situation based on the context of the situation. 

6.       Leadership is about the management of meaning – Nursing is about managing the meaning of everything we do. It is the motivation for supporting the satisfaction of our organizations. 

7.       Leadership is about balance – In nursing, a balanced leader is the best leader. They need to use all areas of leadership in a good balance to be a good leader. 

8.       Leadership is about continuous learning and improvement – Leaders in nursing need to continuously be learning and improving new ideas and processes for each work environment. 

9.       Leadership is about effective decision making – Nursing needs to have appropriate and effective decision making. It is the basis to a successful nurse. 

10.   Leadership is a political process – In nursing, there will always be a difference in opinion from other nurses and patients. A good leader will always listen respectfully to all opinions and be open to them. 

11.   Leadership is about modeling – In nursing, a nurse should model the behavior that is desired of others to make sure that the big picture of the same vision is seen by everyone. 

12.   Leadership is about integrity - A nurse that leads with integrity is a person that is a trusted person. 

DISC Personality Test

Today I completed the DISC personality test to determine my type of personality. During this test, I thought a lot how my performance is at work, because I am a little different in my personality at home vs in the workplace.

The results of my test were that I was a Conscientious but only one away from a Dominant person. I always knew that I was a pretty dominant person, so that wasn't really new news to me. I am very much of a red type A personality, so as mentioned, I am not surprised by those results. I really came as a surprise to see that I was really close with the two categories. I didn't know that a dominant person could also be so accommodating others and avoid conflict. The two seem like they contradict each other.

I do think though that because I am dominant, and also accommodating also would make a great leader. I consider myself a great leader, and maybe that is mostly because I have these two different personality types.

My husband also took the test. He is also a dominant person. So that explains why we like to argue so much ;)

I think this is valuable information to know about myself. It will remind me when I am faced with difficult decisions in my workplace to remember my personality, so that I can make better decisions for me and my team.

My name is Ashley. I am currently a Registered Nurse working at Intermountain Medical Center on the Neuro/Medical Unit. I have been working with them as a charge nurse for about a year now, and another year as a floor nurse. Prior to that I worked at Cleveland Clinic in Florida on the Telemetry/Medicine floor.

The purpose of this blog is to take you through my journey in my NURS 4500 class at Utah Valley University where I will be exploring leadership concepts to help me gain skills that are necessary for the the nursing world and nursing leadership.