Novice nurses require new skills to clutch them as they lead and provide patient care in the ICU where it is filled with increasingly multifaceted patient diagnoses. Our ICU needed a strategy to develop graduate nurses in the ICU to competent bedside leaders. The intensive care units (ICU) often must hire new graduate nurses into their orientation/residency programs. We would like to share with you how our intensive care unit was able to develop graduate nurses to progress through roadblocks toward a journey of growth and competence in collaboration with the Versant Residency program. The well thought-out strategies we considered throughout their leadership journey at the bedside included: (1) completion of the critical care academy; (2) married-state partnerships (3) bi-weekly evaluation meetings with the leadership team, preceptor and preceptee; and (3) evaluation meetings. The evaluation meetings consist of discussion about patient assignments; review of completed competencies and goals; reviewing the progression of critical thinking along with documentation and leadership skills at the bedside; assessing the preceptee\u27s strengths and weaknesses when collaborating and delegating to the healthcare team; and discussion of challenges, roadblocks, and setting new goals