NR 529 Week 8 Management Philosophy Statement Example

Management Philosophy Statement: One Rule for Handing Out What Is Scarce on a Nursing Unit, Tested Against Seven Decisions I Made This Term, Including One It Says I Got Wrong

Student Name

College of Nursing, Chamberlain University

NR 529: Leadership and Management within the Clinical Healthcare Environment

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Management Philosophy Statement: One Rule for Handing Out What Is Scarce on a Nursing Unit, Tested Against Seven Decisions I Made This Term, Including One It Says I Got Wrong

Why One Rule

Most management philosophies I have read list values: respect, integrity, communication, excellence. I agree with all of them, and none of them would help a nurse on my unit predict what I will say when she asks for a Saturday off. A philosophy that nobody can use to predict my decisions is a description of my intentions, not of how I manage.

Most of what a nurse manager decides is who gets something there is not enough of: days off, experienced nurses, supplies, money, my own time. So I have tried to write my philosophy as one rule for allocating scarce things, and then to test it against the decisions I made this term as manager of a renal and urology medical unit. Where the rule and my decisions disagree, either the rule is wrong or I was.

The Rule

What is scarce goes first to the need that cannot move. Among needs that can move, it goes to whoever has already given up the most. And I say the rule before I apply it, not after.

The first part is clinical. A patient whose fluid removal depends on a morning weight, or whose dialysis access must be protected, has a need that cannot wait for a better-staffed shift. The second part is about fairness among staff. When two needs can both wait, the tie should go to the person who has carried more of the load, not to whoever asked first or asked loudest. The third part is about process. Research on organizational justice distinguishes fairness of outcomes, fairness of the procedures that produce them and fairness in how people are treated along the way (Colquitt, 2001). People can accept an outcome they dislike if they knew the rule beforehand and saw it applied the same way to everyone. They rarely accept a rule announced after it has gone against them.

Testing the Rule Against the Term

Staffing a short Saturday. When a nurse called in sick, I gave the two experienced renal nurses the bladder irrigation and dialysis patients and gave the charge nurse the new hyperkalemia admission. The rule fits: the scarce thing was experience, and it went to the needs that could not move.

Sitters. I did not cut sitters for two delirious patients when the budget ran over, because their risk of harm was a need that could not move. I did add a review each shift, because a need that has passed is no longer a need. The rule fits.

Incentive shifts. I approved incentive shifts one at a time without checking the running total, and three nurses carried most of them. The rule says the extra work should have been shared toward those who had given up less. I did not apply it, and the result was one nurse working four nights in five days.

Mentor time. The retention plan gives mentor time to new graduates in their first year, not to experienced nurses who might also value it. The rule fits: new graduates are the group whose need is least able to wait, since they leave soonest.

My own time. When I delegated the supply order, I freed my time but kept the judgment the job needed. The rule applies to my attention too. The need that could not move was accurate par levels for a changing dialysis census, and I gave it too little of my attention until it failed.

A difficult conversation. I spent more time preparing the conversation with an experienced nurse about missing weights than I spend on most one-to-one meetings. That was right under the rule, since the weights affected dialysis decisions that could not be delayed.

The Decision the Rule Says I Got Wrong

In the spring, two nurses asked for the same Saturday. I gave it to the nurse who had written her request first. The other nurse had worked both major holidays the previous year. Under my rule, neither need was clinical, so the tie should have gone to the nurse who had given up more, and that was the nurse I refused.

I applied a first-come rule instead because it was the rule the unit already knew. That was defensible: the third part of my rule says a rule should be known before it is applied, and first-come was known. But it also shows that my stated philosophy and the unit's actual rule were different, and staff could not have predicted my decision from my philosophy. The fix is to make them the same. From next year, working a major holiday will earn one protected request, and I will announce that change before the holiday schedule is posted, not after a conflict.

Where the Rule Comes From

The rule draws on nursing's own ethics. The code of ethics describes the nurse's duty to the patient first, and it also describes duties to colleagues and to a work environment that supports ethical practice, including fair treatment of nurses themselves (American Nurses Association [ANA], 2025). A manager who protects patients by exhausting the same few nurses meets the first duty by failing the second. The rule's second clause exists to prevent that.

It also draws on what I have learned about why nurses stay. Nurses stay where they believe the workload is shared fairly and where managers support them (Hayes et al., 2012). A rule that rewards those who have carried more is a retention strategy as well as a fairness principle.

What the Rule Cannot Do

The rule does not decide what counts as a need that cannot move, and reasonable nurses will disagree about particular cases. It does not tell me how to measure who has given up more, beyond obvious markers such as holidays and extra shifts. And it will sometimes produce answers that feel wrong, as when a nurse with a family event loses to a nurse who has simply worked more weekends. I accept that. A rule that nurses can predict and argue with is better than judgment they cannot see.

I will share this statement with the unit's staff and ask them to tell me when my decisions do not match it. If they can predict what I will say, the philosophy is working. If they cannot, I will change either the rule or the way I apply it.

References

American Nurses Association. (2025). Code of ethics for nurses. https://codeofethics.ana.org/

Colquitt, J. A. (2001). On the dimensionality of organizational justice: A construct validation of a measure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), 386-400. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.86.3.386

Hayes, L. J., O'Brien-Pallas, L., Duffield, C., Shamian, J., Buchan, J., Hughes, F., Laschinger, H. K. S., & North, N. (2012). Nurse turnover: A literature review: An update. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 49(7), 887-905. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2011.10.001