Nurse Manager Interview

1. What kind of leader do you perceive yourself to be? Authoritative, democratic, etc.

Someone who treats everyone fairly.

2. How do you work on team building with your team members?

We do little group projects from the simple thing of decorating the unit for holidays to organizing birthday parties, pot lucks, and participating in things like charity runs and health fairs. We do a "pet of the month" where we chose the pet of one of the staff to occupy a special place of honor in our break room. I will have informal little meetings with specific shifts or specific team members in my office and encourage communication, camaraderie and conversation. I also remind everyone at staff meetings about working together and supporting each other. If there is someone who I hear or observe is not a team player, I will work with them individually about this and educate them in the ways of team work. I have been at this long enough that I learned to make this one of the subjects I discuss during a hiring interview so it is very clear to any new hires that team work, getting along with each other, and a positive attitude is expected. At the first glimmer of a problem with someone not being part of the team, I begin to work with them on what I expect. I very seldom will refer to the unit as MY unit or the nurses as MY nurses or MY employees. I think that is so arrogant! WE are a team.

3. How do you handle conflict management between your nurses?

If someone comes to me with a complaint of "she's saying this about me", or "I can't work with her doing this all the time", I first work with the person lodging the complaint because that is usually where the problem is originating. Many times it's unwillingness or a lack of knowledge on the part of the complainer(s) as to how to deal with the situation. I'm real big on psychology and interpersonal communication skills. I learned very early in my management experience that this was a key element when dealing with employees, not only for myself, but for the employees as well. As much as nursing school tries to address this, most nurses (me included) come away from nursing school sorely lacking in this area. I'll do a lot of coaching and education on communication skills with them. I give them time and guidance to work at any problems they are having. If I see they are really trying, I just stand by, watch, facilitate, and guide. If the complainer is not showing any signs of trying to resolve this problem then I will investigate further before using my authority to intervene. It is always better, initially, to help and facilitate the nurses solve the conflicts between themselves without an authority figure intervening even though it doesn't seem like the easiest or most convenient solution. A successful resolution of conflict empowers the employee, develops self-esteem and confidence in their abilities and respects their intelligence. If I, as the manager, just move in between two people who have a grudge with each other and solve their problem there is going to be resentment, a lot of hurt feelings and anger that often never gets resolved. I may solve one problem only to find that now I've got another even bigger one!

4. Have you always known you wanted to be a nurse manager? If not, what made you decide to go into management?

In my very early years as an RN I thought about being a head nurse because I wanted to be in a position where I could make some changes and run a unit MY way. I've never been afraid to step forward and take the role of leadership. However, after my first stint as a head nurse I found that I hated certain aspects of the job that as a staff nurse I was not aware of (staffing, budgeting, committee meetings, in particular). Nursing school sure doesn't prepare us for how to read a budget or reconcile time cards before turning them in to payroll. Nor was I ever taught about being required to be a member of hospital committees and chair projects for those committees. Yuck! It wasn't until I got into a management position that I learned exactly what it entailed. Also, when first going into management, I really never had a mentor or preceptor to help me learn to deal with all the problems that came up. I often had to seek out my own help and resources. Believe me, there were a couple of lulu's that still make me shake my head in wonder. It was really frustrating. This is probably why I hated my first job as a head nurse. I was promoted and had very little direction in how to handle the job. The DON kept telling me, "you'll get the hang of it". I was offered each one of my management positions. With one exception, a supervision job that I sought out, I was approached and asked to become a manager, I did not seek the positions.

5. Do you miss working at the bedside?

Absolutely! I find it so much easier to solve patient problems than employee problems. It may be because I am more confident of my nursing skills rather than my supervision skills. I will sometimes work a shift for a change of pace, and also because I do miss it so much. I often will go out to the floor if I have some free time (or make the time) to interact with the staff or give them a hand and to talk with the patients. I do it, really, more for me than them, but they don't know that. What I know as a manager is those few minutes benefit me far more than them and in a number of different ways. Not that I'm bragging here, but when I do that, they tend to see me as someone who isn't afraid to get my hands into nursing work. You will find that CNAs feel the same about a charge nurse who will help them answer lights or other patient care. Problem is that I have to be careful I don't sacrifice getting my own work done in favor of scoring points with the subordinates.

6. What type of unit do you manage?

General medical.

1. what kind of leader do you perceive yourself to be? authoritative, democratic, etc.

2. how do you work on team building with your team members?

3. how do you handle conflict management between your nurses?

4. have you always known you wanted to be a nurse manager? if not, what made you decide to go into management?

5. do you miss working at the bedside?

6. what type of unit do you manage?

"how do you evaluate them"... do you have this so called performance appraisal form?

i no longer have the evaluation form. i probably have old evaluations of my own but they are packed away in storage. have you tried doing an online search for one of these forms? i wouldn't be surprised to find generic ones posted on the internet. basically, they would address the job description of the employee as well. the performance appraisal we used for nurses was the same one used throughout the entire facility for other departments as well.

i don't give out personal information about myself. make something up.

ei DDRN4me! thank you thank you... ^_^

can you share something on how you evaluate your staffs?

I had a file drawer with a file for each employee which I kept locked and only I had access to. Any little bits of documentation that came along during the year got thrown into these files. We kept copies of schedule requests (for days off) in there. If any kind of complaints or write-ups ever came across my desk that involved an employee it went into their file. These could be scraps of paper or notes written on pieces of hand towels. You cannot remember everything and you can get times, places, people and events mixed up. When it came time to do a yearly eval, I pulled a file and looked to see if there was anything in it that I needed to consider when writing the eval. I never put anything negative on an eval unless I had something to back it up. If there had been written disciplinary action during the year I could legitimately address that on the evaluation. If I had had a conversation with the employee about something they were doing I would have made a quick note and put it in this file and I would address it again in the eval and note if there was improvement. Nothing should ever be a surprise to the employee on a yearly evaluation. We also had goals from the last year eval which we had to review, did the employee accomplish any of them during this past year? What new goals were being set for them? I kept track of things like how many staff meetings people attended, how many inservices they went to and which ones, any inservices that they gave, their attendance record (which I could also get from the nursing office), what committees they belonged to.

When I sat down to do someone's yearly eval I went down to human resources and pulled their last year's eval, checked their human resources file for any paperwork that had been entered in the last year (the HR file is the official company file) and pulled my own desk drawer file. #1 rule is to say positive things as much as possible. #2 rule is never give negative feedback unless there is documentation to back it up.