NR 670 Week 5 Conflict Decision Example

Conflict Decision Write-Up: Two Senior Nurses, One Holiday Rotation and the Decision I Made as Assistant Manager About Who Works the Winter Holidays

Student Name

College of Nursing, Chamberlain University

NR 670: Advanced Nursing Leadership Concluding Graduate Experience

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Conflict Decision Write-Up: Two Senior Nurses, One Holiday Rotation and the Decision I Made as Assistant Manager About Who Works the Winter Holidays

The Dispute in Six Lines

Two senior registered nurses on the unit, each with more than fifteen years' service, both asked to have the winter holidays off. The unit's rotation rule says holidays alternate year by year. One nurse had worked the holidays last year and expected this year off under the rule. The other had worked them two years running, because of a swap two years ago, and argued that the swap should count. The six-week schedule had to be published by 1 October, and only one of them could be released without leaving the unit short.

The Standing I Had

As assistant manager I build the schedule and apply the rotation rule. The unit manager had delegated holiday decisions to me for this cycle, in writing, on 15 September, with the instruction to bring any appeal to the manager. I had authority to decide; either nurse could appeal.

What Each Side Was Protecting

The first nurse was protecting the rule itself: if a swap could change the rotation, the rule meant nothing, and everyone who had followed it would lose trust. The second nurse was protecting fairness as they experienced it: two holidays worked in a row, one of them a favor to a colleague who had since left.

What Each Side Was Told

To the first nurse, on 22 September: "The rotation gives you the holidays off this year. I am applying the rule as written, and the swap two years ago does not change it, because swaps are recorded as trades between two people, not changes to the rotation."

To the second nurse, the same afternoon: "The rotation puts you on the holidays this year. The swap two years ago was a trade with a colleague and does not change the rotation. I know that means you have worked more holidays than the rule intended, and I want to address that."

The two accounts matched: both were told the same rule, the same reason and the same treatment of the swap. I checked by writing both conversations down the same day and reading them side by side.

The Concession and the Line

The line held: the rotation rule as written. The first nurse had the holidays off.

The concession offered first, before the second nurse asked: the second nurse would have first choice of the other days around the holidays, and the unit would record the extra holiday worked two years ago so that, if the rotation ever produced a tie, it would break in the second nurse's favor. I also offered to bring a proposal to the unit practice council to clarify, in writing, whether swaps affect the rotation, so the question would not arise again.

After the Decision, for the Side That Lost

The second nurse appealed to the manager, as was their right. The manager upheld the decision on 26 September. I met the second nurse the next day, not to revisit the decision but to agree the days around the holiday and to ask whether they would join the council discussion on swaps. They agreed to the days, declined the council and said the decision was fair but felt bad, which I wrote down in their words. I said that was a reasonable way to feel about it.

On the holiday itself, I worked the first half of the second nurse's shift so that they could leave at 15:00. That was not a policy change, and I told both nurses beforehand so it would not look like a reversal.

In October, the practice council wrote a one-sentence addition to the scheduling guidelines: swaps are trades between individuals and do not change the holiday rotation. Both nurses saw the wording before it was approved.

How I Prepared for Each Conversation

Before speaking to either nurse, I wrote down the rule, the reason the swap did not count and the concession I would offer. I spoke to the first nurse first only because that nurse was on shift earlier; I told the second nurse that the first had already been told, so neither would hear it secondhand. I avoided giving either nurse a preview of the other's arguments, and I did not discuss the dispute with other staff, though several asked, and I asked both nurses to do the same until the appeal was settled. Keeping the conversations private protected both nurses and kept the decision about the rule rather than about the people. It also meant the unit heard about the outcome from the published schedule, not from gossip.

What I Got Wrong in the Moment

In the conversation with the second nurse I said "I know that's not fair," meaning that the extra holiday was unfortunate. The nurse heard it as an admission that the decision was unfair, and quoted it in the appeal. I should have said "I know that's hard." The words mattered, and in a dispute I chose them less carefully than the decision itself. Teams learn more when leaders admit errors openly (Edmondson, 1999), so I told the manager about the phrase before the appeal was heard.

What I Would Do Differently

Raise the swap question with the council before the holiday cycle, not during it. The rule's gap was visible two years ago when the swap happened, and nobody wrote it down. Self-scheduling and rotation rules often run into trouble over exactly this kind of exception (Bailyn et al., 2007).

What It Shows About My Leadership

The episode is a narrow test, and the conclusions below are sized to it. That I can apply a rule I did not write, say the same thing to both sides and attend to the person who lost without reopening the decision. It does not show that I can resolve conflicts that have no rule to lean on, which is harder. Engagement in shared governance, where staff help write such rules, is associated with better nurse outcomes (Kutney-Lee et al., 2016), which is why the council's clarification matters more than my decision. My decision settled one holiday; the council's sentence settles every future one, and it carries the authority of the nurses it affects rather than my position alone.

References

Bailyn, L., Collins, R., & Song, Y. (2007). Self-scheduling for hospital nurses: An attempt and its difficulties. Journal of Nursing Management, 15(1), 72-77. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2934.2006.00633.x

Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350-383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999

Kutney-Lee, A., Germack, H., Hatfield, L., Kelly, S., Maguire, P., Dierkes, A., Del Guidice, M., & Aiken, L. H. (2016). Nurse engagement in shared governance and patient and nurse outcomes. Journal of Nursing Administration, 46(11), 605-612. https://doi.org/10.1097/NNA.0000000000000412