From this interview I learned more than I thought I would not only about leadership but also about the person I interviewed. While doing the interview I learned that leadership in nursing isn’t always what someone may think leadership looks like. When someone thinks of leadership in nursing, they may think of being the first to a crisis/code or having the highest degree. When I was talking with the person, I interviewed they talked about small things that contribute to the everyday life of a nurse like, stocking the empty bins in the closet or taking a second to ask if a child or coworker is doing ok. 

While talking with this person I would have to say that they have a split social and self-awareness/management. They can take a situation and see how them being there is going to affect the others in the situation and either take a lead of let me diffuse this or let me take charge so that no one is uncomfortable. Especially with being not only a school nurse but a hospital nurse as well being able to know your social standing and take that into a situation at hand and use it towards your advantage. They are also self-aware enough as well to know when a situation calls for them, for example if they’re in the hospital and there’s already a group of people in a room, maybe they can do another task before heading in to take vitals or whatever task they had. 

I was surprised with how they thought that they weren’t a leader, this person when I originally asked, they didn’t think of themselves as a leader and then as we went through the questions what they were explaining and how they were talking about it was what a leader is. As we were talking, the responses about what leadership is and how they think of themselves as a leader reinforced my thinking as well. As a school nurse they’re a leader because they’re the only person there taking care of hundreds of children which is a difficult thing to do. Being able to manage all the different grades and then also have another job at a hospital. 

Doing this interview and learning about leadership has made me think of leadership differently because when I first thought about leadership in nursing, I thought about higher up jobs like a nurse manager or a nurse practitioner but now that I’ve done this interview, there are so many smaller leadership opportunities that I wouldn’t have thought about before. I will apply this into nursing as thinking about small things that I can do to help around the unit/ floor that I am on and to also just make others’ lives easier. It may not be a large leadership role but it’s something and you can work your way up from that as well.