Personal Leadership Plan
My Assets My Liabilities
My Distinctive Strengths: things I know I do well and My Weaknesses: things I know I don’t do well, and I
strengths that others see in me. want to do better.
I would say two of my most prominent strengths are
being an energetic and positive person. Once I wake
up and am out of bed, I am in go mode and my
energy levels rarely run low. In clinical, I find myself
bringing the team together by dancing and singing in
the early mornings. Although situations in the
hospital can be very difficult, I always try to find the
positives in the situation. These two traits combined
(positivity and energy) are strengths that I believe
will help me immensely in the pediatric population,
as laughter can be the best medicine, especially for
children. I would also say that I am a very strong
communicator. Communication, both with patients
and with other healthcare professionals, seems to
come naturally to me. More specifically,
understanding appropriate communication for
certain situations. I feel as though anytime I’ve done
SBAR I’ve kept it concise, and I know what needs to
be communicated, but I also feel like I know how to
communicate with patients and really make them
feel heard. Furthermore, people in my clinical group
have referred to me as being adaptable, a team
player, a lifelong learner, passionate, creative,
hospitable, and great at making connections with
coworkers and patients.
My Potential Strengths: things I could do better or
more often if I focused, or things I do well in some
situations and could begin to apply more broadly.
I know that empathy is one of my strengths, but I
find myself struggling to give empathy to people
who bring things upon themselves. For instance,
people who smoke cigarettes and have breathing
issues. I cannot help but fail to empathize with these
people as I feel like they could easily change
something to improve their overall health. I know
that people have their reasonings for engaging in
certain health-jeopardizing activities, so I think
focusing on the patient instead of my personal
beliefs about their illness could improve my overall
empathy. Another trait that I could work on
improving is my active listening. I feel as though
with patients I do well at hearing their concerns and
I am a very self-critical person and I beat myself up a
lot of the time when I feel as though I’m not
performing to the best of my ability. If I make a
mistake, I tend to focus on that mistake for too long
and let it consume me. I also have issues with time
management. More specifically, I feel as though I do
not have enough time in the day to get everything
done that I want to get done. If I have something
going on at 4 in the afternoon, I can’t help but feel
like I cannot do anything before that. Lastly, I think
that one of my weaknesses is having an overall lack
of skills experience with nursing. I do not think I’ve
been given enough opportunity in my clinical
experience to really practice certain nursing skills, so
this semester I’m going to focus on seeking out
those opportunities to improve my skills.
Weaknesses I Want to Change: things I know I don’t
do well and want to change.
I would like to change my weakness of
procrastination. I constantly wait until the last
minute to finish assignments, and I think this adds
on to a lot of anxiety in my life. I am also the type of
person who likes to see myself accomplish things by
myself, without asking for help. However, there are
going to be a lot of situations where I will need help
and will have to ask for it. One of my major
weaknesses is saying no. I tend to let people walk all
over me and this also leads to high levels of stress
and anxiety in my life. I think it is important that I set
boundaries and know my limits and say no.
 Personal Leadership Plan
meeting their needs, but when someone is telling
me a story or giving me extra details instead of
getting to the point, I tend to lose interest in the
conversation. I would love to improve this skill as I
feel like it’s important in making people feel heard.
Another potential strength that I have is flexibility. I
feel like I am very open to changes in my schedule
and have an easy time adapting to those changes.
However, I do feel as though I have a hard time
being flexible if I have a strict schedule and already
have my day or week planned out.
My Enduring Dispositions That Support Me: traits, My Enduring Dispositions That Sometimes Get in
habits, behaviors that I do not want to change that My Way: traits, habits, behaviors that I do not want
help me to be successful. to change and that sometimes cause me to be less
effective.
I would say one of my main behaviors that helps me
to be successful is punctuality. I make it a priority in Perfectionism is a trait that I have that causes me to
my life to always be on time and I feel as though I be less effective than I could be. I feel like I take too
am respected for it and I’m able to be more much time focusing on little details that do not
productive if I’m not stressed about being late. I matter. However, I feel like this trait does help me to
would also say my dedication to performing well produce my best work. Another trait that gets in my
helps me to be successful. If I set my mind to way is being unfocused. I justify being unfocused a
something, I do everything in my power to lot of the time saying things like “I deserve a break.”
accomplish that goal. Another trait that helps me to In reality, I just can’t focus on the task at hand
be successful is passion. I have to enjoy what I’m anymore. One other habit that causes me to be less
doing in order to care about the results. In order to effective is not getting enough sleep. On average, I
be successful in any area, I feel like there has to be get about 4-5 hours of sleep per night. I use nights to
passion behind what you are doing. decompress and focus on doing things that I enjoy,
and this leads to me losing sleep. I can’t remember
the last time I went to sleep before midnight. I think
getting more sleep would help me be more
productive, but I don’t want to sacrifice my
downtime at night.
 Personal Leadership Plan

Personal & Professional Vision:

Learning Goals 1-5 years: PICC line certification so I

After I have gained Learn how to not only be
can do this procedure in proficiency in nursing, I a charge nurse but how
my future units and would like to go back to to effectively delegate
educate others on how school to get my NP tasks in the healthcare
to complete the license and be a positive setting.
procedure. and energetic leader to
the nurses on the units I
am a part of.
Milestones: 6-12 Have knowledge of how Start a nurse residency Complete at least 1 shift
months: to complete this program at a pediatric as a charge nurse.
procedure and how to hospital, ideally in the ER
adequately take care of a or ICU setting.
PICC or Midline.

Action Steps: Enroll in a PICC line
certification course
Goals to achieve present Start gaining more
to 6 months education on how to do
PICC lines by watching
nurses with the
education and gaining
knowledge from them.
Shadow nurse Prove that I am a capable
practitioners in the staff nurse who can
pediatric setting to make decisions and
determine their delegate tasks.
leadership styles and
incorporate it into my
practice.
Become a licensed nurse Interview the charge
and ideally start to learn nurses on my unit and
how to be a charge ask them about their
nurse. leadership styles and
what a typical day in
their life looks like.

People Who Can Help Nurses on the unit of my
preceptorship putting in
PICC lines and Midlines
as well as nurses on
future units I work on.
Dr. Duffy has not only I feel as though my
been an amazing roommate Emma, who is
teacher, but she is also a also in the nursing
great mentor. I know program, can help keep
that if I ever need me focused on my goals
anything I can turn to and we can adequately
her. support each other.