Relationship Between Nursing Managers’ Leadership Styles and Nurses’ Job Burnout: A Study at Shahid Dr. Faghihi Hospital, Shiraz, Iran

Characteristics of Leadership Competency in Nurse Managers: A Scoping Review

Aim

Identify the characteristics of leadership competency for the nurse manager and describe the most cited leadership styles in the literature.

Background

Leadership is a fundamental competency for nurse managers, as it plays an important role in the healthcare environment to achieve Sustainable Development Goals and promote people-centered organizations. Therefore, understanding the characteristics of leadership and the leadership style to be employed is important.

Methods

A scoping review was conducted from January 2009 to January 2024 using the design of González Garcia et al., the Arksey and O'Malley framework, and databases including Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed. Articles reporting on the characteristics of leadership for nurse managers were reviewed. The authors performed the review based on a search syntax, inclusion and exclusion criteria, and the data extraction process.

Results

Sixty-two studies were included in the final review. The review identified 38 characteristics related to leadership competency, among which we highlighted caring for nurses as individuals, being a visionary, knowledgeable, a change agent, and a communicator. This review highlights the prevalence of transformational leadership, which constitutes 69.57% of the leadership styles cited, and underscores its pivotal role in improving the work environment, effectiveness in nursing care, conflict management, team commitment, and adaptability to change within healthcare settings.

Conclusions

The most commonly cited characteristics of leadership include caring for the team, effective communication, and a vision for change. Transformational, people-centered, and motivational leadership is the most appropriate style. Implications for Nursing Management. The characterization of leadership competency will allow the development of training adapted to the current requirements for nursing leaders. This training could be developed in simulation and virtual reality environments. It also allows for a deeper understanding of how leadership competency affects teams and their functioning.

Nurse leaders' work-related well-being-Relationships to a superior's transformational leadership style and structural empowerment

AIMS

To describe how nurse leaders' work-related well-being is related to a superior's transformational leadership style and structural empowerment.

BACKGROUND

The demanding role of nurse leader means that these professionals experience emotional exhaustion and challenges with work-life balance. They can also be influenced by the leadership style of their own superiors.

METHODS

A cross-sectional questionnaire using two internationally validated scales, namely, the Transformational Leadership Scale and Conditions For Work Effectiveness Questionnaire-II, was used. Statistical methods were applied during data analysis.

RESULTS

A total of 155 nurse leaders participated completed the questionnaire. The participants' work-related well-being scores ranged from 8 to 10. The participants felt that their superiors employ transformational leadership. The dimension of feedback and rewards received the lowest scores, whereas the nurse leaders reported moderate overall empowerment levels. A nurse leader's work-related well-being was positively correlated with structural empowerment and their superior's leadership style.

CONCLUSIONS

Despite the fact that nurse leaders reported relatively high levels of work-related well-being, more attention should be paid on the feedback and rewards and on the support of superiors as they positively influence the work-related well-being.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT

Transformational leadership should be supported in organisations and through education as it strengthens work-related well-being and structural empowerment of nurse leaders.

A Qualitative Study of Nursing Management in Iran

BACKGROUND

Nursing managers have a critical role at the hospitals. The current study aims to investigate different experiences of nursing managers.

METHOD

This is a qualitative study that investigates the experiences of 11 nursing managers in Shiraz, Iran. Semistructured interviews and thematic analysis were, respectively, applied for data collection and analysis.

RESULTS

It could be found from the current investigation that nursing managers have a critical role at the hospitals, and their creativities have more impacts on procedures compared to organizational orders. There are four major challenges faced by nursing managers including nursing shortage, structural deficiencies, lack of authorities, and burnout. Although shortage is considered as the most important challenge, there are more emphasizes on the improvement of their controlling power in order to prevent their fatigue and burnout.

CONCLUSION

This study showed that creativity of nursing managers is the most important factor of system management; also, shortage and deficiencies are recognized as the most significant challenges faced by them. According to the current study, the shortage of nursing staff is the central issue that has to be considered.

Exploring the impacts of personal factors on clinical leadership in a university hospital

Background

Clinical leadership is one of the important issues that should be carefully discussed with clinicians in the health sector.

Aims

The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical leadership qualities of physicians and nurses and to examine effect variables such as age, gender, marital status, total working time, educational level, profession, working unit, formal education on management, leadership and clinical leadership on the subdimensions of clinical leadership.

Methods

Participants included physicians and nurses working in a university hospital in Ankara, Turkey, and 261 participants responded to the research instrument. Data were collected from January to March 2016. Descriptive statistics, the significance test of difference between two means, and one-way analysis of variance were used in the data analysis.

Results

The findings revealed that total working time in the health sector and in the current working unit affect all subdimensions of clinical leadership (p < 0.05). Whereas the subdimension of managing services has the highest mean score, the subdimension of personal qualities has the lowest mean score in clinical leadership.

Conclusion

Clinicians must aspire to achieve professional and managerial levels, which can improve their clinical expertise and clinical leadership skills.

Correlation between nursing managers' leadership styles and nurses' job stress and anticipated turnover

AIM

To investigate the relationship between leadership style with nurse job stress and anticipated turnover.

BACKGROUND

An appropriate leadership style should promote the efficacy of nurses. Different leadership styles can affect nurse's job stress and the numbers of nurses leaving their workplace or their profession.

METHODS

In this cross-sectional correlational study, 1,617 nurses were selected from the governmental hospitals in Iran 2016-2017. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics in SPSS₂₀ .

RESULTS

Nursing Manager's leadership style was transactional leadership. Both transformational and transactional leadership style have a significant relationship with job stress and anticipate staff turnover. A positive relationship was found between a laissez-faire leadership style with job stress and anticipated turnover.

CONCLUSION

The transformational and transactional leadership styles can reduce nurse's job stress and intention to leave, so nurse leaders can use combination of transformational and transactional leadership for improving job satisfaction and quality of nursing services.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT

Leaders should emphasize a clear expression of values, objectives, and mission of the organisation; and try to raise confidence in employees, respecting and caring for them, supporting their views and suggestions, and being optimistic about the future.

Leadership styles and outcome patterns for the nursing workforce and work environment: A systematic review

BACKGROUND

Leadership is critical in building quality work environments, implementing new models of care, and bringing health and wellbeing to a strained nursing workforce. However, the nature of leadership style, how leadership should be enacted, and its associated outcomes requires further research and understanding. We aimed to examine the relationships between various styles of leadership and outcomes for the nursing workforce and their work environments.

METHODS

The search strategy of this systematic review included 10 electronic databases. Published, quantitative studies that examined the correlations between leadership behaviours and nursing outcomes were included. Quality assessments, data extractions and analysis were completed on all included studies by independent reviewers.

RESULTS

A total of 50,941 titles and abstracts were screened resulting in 129 included studies. Using content analysis, 121 outcomes were grouped into six categories: 1) staff satisfaction with job factors, 2) staff relationships with work, 3) staff health & wellbeing, 4) relations among staff, 5) organizational environment factors and 6) productivity & effectiveness. Our analysis illuminated patterns between relational and task focused leadership styles and their outcomes for nurses and nursing work environments. For example, 52 studies reported that relational leadership styles were associated with higher nurse job satisfaction, whereas 16 studies found that task-focused leadership styles were associated with lower nurse job satisfaction. Similar trends were found for each category of outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings of this systematic review provide strong support for the employment of relational leadership styles to promote positive nursing workforce outcomes and related organizational outcomes. Leadership focused solely on task completion is insufficient to achieve optimum outcomes for the nursing workforce. Relational leadership practices need to be encouraged and supported by individuals and organizations to enhance nursing job satisfaction, retention, work environment factors and individual productivity within healthcare settings.

Use of instruments to evaluate leadership in nursing and health services

OBJECTIVE

To identify the available scientific evidence about the use of instruments for the evaluation of leadership in health and nursing services and verify the use of leadership styles/models/theories in the construction of these tools.

METHOD

Integrative literature review of indexed studies in the LILACS, PUBMED, CINAHL and EMBASE databases from 2006 to 2016.

RESULTS

Thirty-eight articles were analyzed, exhibiting 19 leadership evaluation tools; the most used were the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, the Global Transformational Leadership Scale, the Leadership Practices Inventory, the Servant Leadership Questionnaire, the Servant Leadership Survey and the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire.

CONCLUSIONS

The literature search allowed to identify the main theories/styles/models of contemporary leadership and analyze their use in the design of leadership evaluation tools, with the transformational, situational, servant and authentic leadership categories standing out as the most prominent. To a lesser extent, the quantum, charismatic and clinical leadership types were evidenced.