Nursing leadership for me, isn’t about just sitting in an office and processing paperwork, and essentially “bossing” your staff around. I believe that nurses in a position of leadership or administration should continue to exhibit those same caring and patient driven characteristics that we learned from day 1. After reading the module content, it really gave me more insight into what it truly means to be a nurse leader. I loved how the article states that nurses who are in a position of leadership should continue to be an advocate for their patients. We should always make time to care for those in need regardless of our status. As always, focusing on the patient needs should be our #1 priority.  As nurse leaders we should “lead” our staff and be at the forefront for our staff. I believe that as leaders we should help develop our staff and continuously help them in any situation. I feel it is also important to include staff in decisions, continue to build that team work. The eight key elements presented by Sashkin and Sashkin really resonated with me because the 8 key elements are qualities that I believe a good leader should posses. When you have good leadership you tend to retain your staff. I have heard the saying all too often that people don’t usually leave the “job” itself, but rather they are leaving because of leadership and management.

I will be the first to admit but I am not one to “jump” in first and become the leader. For me, leadership is something that is continuously developing for me and this is something that I am striving for professionally in my career and have decided to take the path of a leadership role with nursing. After reading these articles, it inspired me and really lit a fire in me to take these key characteristics of a leader to heart that were mentioned several times and continue to develop them within myself. I believe that I do possess a few of them, but there is definitely work to be done within myself to develop these skills. Learning these skills through these courses has me  very excited for what is to come this final semester of my BSN and gets me more excited and eager to learn more through higher education in leadership.