| Course | NUR 651 Advanced Concepts for Nurse Executive Leaders |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 10 |
| Paper type | closing reflective journal on nurse executive leadership |
| Length | About 490 words, 3 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Southern New Hampshire University |
| Program | MSN |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for NUR 651 Module 10
Module Ten Journal
My Unit Was Quiet, and I Thought That Meant It Was Fine
For six years I managed a thirty-two-bed medical-surgical unit, and I was proud that my staff rarely complained. In three weeks I start as an associate chief nursing officer responsible for four hospitals. This course made me look again at the pride I took in that quiet.
The first shift in my thinking was about burnout. I used to see it as something that happened to certain nurses, usually the ones who took everything home with them, and my response was to encourage self-care. Shanafelt and Noseworthy (2017) describe burnout as largely the product of organizational factors, among them workload, inefficiency, lack of control and leadership, and they point to the frontline supervisor's day-to-day conduct as one of the strongest influences on it. Reading that, I thought about the schedule changes I made at short notice and the float assignments I handed out without explanation. I was not only watching burnout on my unit. I was helping to build it.
The second shift was about silence. In research by Edmondson (1999), teams where people felt they could risk embarrassment without penalty were more likely to ask questions, admit mistakes and seek feedback, and that this learning behavior helped explain their performance. I had read my unit's quiet as contentment. When I asked two of my charge nurses directly this term, they told me that nurses had stopped raising staffing concerns because nothing ever changed. The quiet I was proud of may have been the sound of people who had given up speaking.
The third shift came from a case I would never have noticed on my own. Obermeyer et al. (2019) found that a widely used risk tool deciding who got additional care management underestimated the needs of Black patients because it predicted cost rather than illness, and unequal access meant Black patients who were just as sick had generated smaller bills. No one designed it to be unfair. In a system role, I will approve or inherit tools like that. The lesson for me is that good intentions are not a safeguard; asking what a tool actually measures, and for whom it works, has to become routine.
As I move from one unit to four hospitals, I commit to three things. I will ask every manager I supervise to share their unit's burnout and practice environment results with staff and to name one change they will make together. I will hold listening sessions on night shifts in each hospital within my first ninety days and report back what I did with what I heard. And I will ask of any tool that affects which patients get attention what it predicts and whether it works equally well for everyone. I used to think a quiet unit meant I was doing my job. Now I think my job is to make it safe for people to speak.
References
Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350-383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999
Obermeyer, Z., Powers, B., Vogeli, C., & Mullainathan, S. (2019). Dissecting racial bias in an algorithm used to manage the health of populations. Science, 366(6464), 447-453. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aax2342
Shanafelt, T. D., & Noseworthy, J. H. (2017). Executive leadership and physician well-being: Nine organizational strategies to promote engagement and reduce burnout. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 92(1), 129-146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2016.10.004
What the NUR 651 Module 10 instructions ask for
In its last module, NUR 651 usually asks for a personal reflection on how your understanding of executive leadership has shifted and how you will lead differently. The voice is your own, yet a couple of scholarly sources in APA 7 are normally expected. Somewhere around 400 to 600 words suits most versions. Center the entry on two or three honest changes in how you see your responsibility, connect each to something you read and to a moment in your own leadership and finish with actions tied to your next role that someone who reports to you would notice within the first few months of your tenure. Keep the tone candid.
How this NUR 651 Module 10 journal example is built
This journal is written by a nurse manager about to oversee four hospitals. Drawing on Shanafelt and Noseworthy, the writer recognizes that short-notice schedule changes and unexplained floating helped create burnout on their unit. Edmondson's psychological safety research leads to a hard conversation in which charge nurses explain that staff stopped raising concerns. The Obermeyer algorithm study shows that tools can be unfair without intent. The entry ends with three commitments: managers share survey results and act with staff, night-shift listening sessions in every hospital within ninety days and routine questions about what each tool predicts and for whom. The last line returns to the title's image of a quiet unit.
Where the NUR 651 Module 10 rubric puts the points
NUR 651 reflections are usually judged on the honesty and depth of the change described, its connection to course evidence, relevance to the writer's leadership role, organization and APA 7 mechanics. Entries that stand out admit a specific belief or habit the course challenged and show the moment the writer saw it differently, often through a conversation or data from their own setting. Graders look for sources that genuinely explain the shift being described. Commitments tied to a real upcoming role, with a timeframe and a way for others to see them happen, carry far more weight than general intentions to lead well. A closing line that ties the entry together helps.
NUR 651 Module 10 help: the mistakes that cost points
Leadership reflections lose points when they describe the course rather than the writer, when growth is claimed without a concrete moment, when citations are decorative or when the closing promises are too broad to check. Choose honest shifts, show how each one happened, tie it to a source, and end with specific actions linked to your next role and a timeframe. Admitting something you did that contributed to a problem is usually more persuasive than describing only what you learned. For a prompt centered on your leadership philosophy, a mentor's influence or a leadership framework instead, send it with your NUR 651 notes and the reflection will follow that focus.
Get NUR 651 Module 10 written to your instructions
Tell us which NUR 651 ideas changed how you see your leadership and share the assignment wording. You will get a candid reflection that shows each shift through a real moment, ties it to a source and ends with commitments for your next role, within 24 to 48 hours, free the first time. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Southern New Hampshire University document.
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NUR 651 Module 10 questions, answered
Where can I find a free NUR 651 Module 10 Journal sample?
The whole entry is here: a nurse manager moving to a system role reflects on burnout by design, silence on a unit and algorithm bias.
What should a NUR 651 closing reflection include?
Honest shifts in how you see executive responsibility, the moments and readings behind them and specific commitments for your next role.
Can a quiet unit be a warning sign?
Yes. Research on psychological safety suggests silence may mean staff no longer feel safe raising concerns, not that all is well.
How do leaders contribute to burnout?
Through workload, scheduling, control and supervisor behaviors, which research links strongly to burnout and satisfaction.
Why should nurse executives question clinical algorithms?
Tools can be unfair without intent, as when an algorithm predicting cost underestimated the needs of Black patients.