Unless your boss has experienced the real world of nursing, I don’t think he/she will ever understand the art of making policies out of it.
Here are the top reasons why they are not the ideal candidates as policymakers:
1. They will insist the ideal patient: staff ratio even though it’s 
unreasonable. Yes, there are an ideal number of patients to handle but let’s not ignore their individual case. Obviously, there are patients who need more attention and care than others. On a simple logic: some patients will be compromised if you based on the number and not on the patient’s case.
2. They required redundant paper works… they believe that through papers, nurses can deliver a safe and superior care.
3. They see more “wrongs” than “rights”. Oftentimes they fail to recognize the heroic acts that you’ve done for saving patients’ lives. One mistake and all the good things that you’ve done will be blotted out in the book of their memory.
4. They are more concerned about profits and losses than losing a valuable employee.
5. They are more interested in the patient’s positive feedback than the health-care team’s welfare.
6. They expect you to perform the safest and quality care without providing you the equipment/tools that you need to do so. Nurses need to improvise for the inadequacy.
7. They never understood the art of our profession: the demands, the pressure, and stress.
8. They never understand how we value our nursing license. Sometimes they just give us responsibilities that jeopardize our entire career.
9.Whenever a problem arise, they perform assessments but do not offer practical solutions or implement policies for better execution.
10. They create policies based on theories not on practice.
11. They don’t consult the nurses before implementing a policy or somehow conduct a survey on how nurses perceive the new rules.
12. They expect the “BEST and QUALITY” nursing care without realizing that our performance reflects theirs.
13. They expect you to work overtime… because you need to finish your job and nothing else matters.
14. They don’t grant your vacation leave because they haven’t realized you have a life besides work.
15. Sometimes, they are apathetic despite they see you struggle doing your job.
16. When you offer suggestions to improve the nursing practice, they just pretend to listen, but they never do. So, why bother anyway?
17. They expect you to deal with your own struggles at work.
18. They treat you as mere workers… besides, you are just nurses. What can go wrong without nurses in the hospital?
19. Health care is a business, not the real act of healing and caring.
20. They only appreciate the profession during nurses’ week.
(Note: NOT ALL bosses/executives/administrators are bad policymakers. Some are respectable and successful in managing the hospital and the nurses.)
I do believe that working nurses should be more involved in the policy-making especially in a hospital setting. Why? I don’t think I need to make a list out of it. I know that you know why.
