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.