Transformational Leadership in a Pathway to Excellence® Journey

<table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" height="118" width="437">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
Primary Author:</td>
<td>
Patrice A. Ruhl, RN</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Co-Principal Investigators/Collaborators:</td>
<td>
<p align="left">Anthony Delos Reyes, DNP, RN, BC</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Organization:</td>
<td>
South Seattle College</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2 class="block">
 </h2>
<h2 class="block">
 </h2>
<h2 class="block">
 </h2>
<h2 class="block">
Abstract</h2>
<h3>
Purpose</h3>
<p>The purpose of this study was to determine if nurse managers at an urban hospital display transformational leadership style as perceived by the staff nurses. </p>
<h3>
Background</h3>
<p>Pathway to Excellence<sup>®</sup> recognized hospitals consistently display transformational leadership styles, which support this as an effective and preferred style of leadership essential to an ideal nursing practice environment. However, nurse managers often describe their leadership style as transformational despite conflicting observations from subordinates. The need to close the gap from the nurse leaders’ perception of their leadership style to reality remains critical to ensure a professional practice environment, reduce employee turnover, and to support a hospital’s strategic goals. Therefore, staff nurses’ perceptions of their managers’ leadership style must be a first step toward establishing a means to facilitate conformance toward Pathway to Excellence<sup>®</sup> designation. </p>
<h3>
Materials & Methods</h3>
<p>This study applied a non-experimental, descriptive research design to collect and analyze quantitative data. A convenience sample of 50 staff nurses completed the 45-item Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire<sup>©</sup>, which measured 12 dimensions of leadership style of their managers. Data was collected over a 14-day period via SurveyMonkey™.</p>
<h3>
Results</h3>
<p>Transformational scores for the current nurse sample (M=2.51) were somewhat lower than for the normative sample of corporate managers (M=2.80), which did not support the hypothesis that the nurse managers at this urban hospital tend to have a transformational leadership style. Further inspection of the data showed the largest positive differences between the groups were for management-by-exception (active) (M=0.48), and laissez-faire leadership (M=0.43). </p>
<h3>
Conclusion</h3>
<p>Findings indicate that the staff nurses’ overall perception of their managers’ leadership style was perceived to be passive/avoidant. Results suggest that nurse managers need further preparation in order to meet the hospital’s strategic goals.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>
Bibliography</h3>
<ul>
<li>
American Nurses Credentialing Center - ANCC . (n.d.). American Nurses Credentialing Center -ANCC . Retrieved October 20, 2013, from http://www.nursecredentialing.org/</li>
<li>
Avolio, B., Bass, B. (2004). Multifactor leadership questionnaire: manual and sampler set (3rd ed.). Mind Garden, Inc., Menlo Park, Calif.</li>
<li>
Bass, B., Avolio, B., Jung, D., & Berson, Y. (2003). Predicting unit performance by assessing transformational and transactional leadership. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(2), 207-218.</li>
<li>
Kalb, K., O'Conner-Von, S., Schipper, L., Watkins, A., & Yetter, D. (2012). Educating leaders in nursing: faculty perspectives. International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship, 9(1), 1-13.</li>
<li>
Tsaloukidis, N., Trifoni, R., Ouzounis, D., Papagerorgiou, D., Marvaki, C., & Peponi, M. (2012). Head nurse perceptions of their managerial leadership behaviors: a pilot study. Health Science Journal, 6(2), 290-299.</li>
</ul>
<p>© Improvement Science Research Network, 2012</p>
<p>The ISRN published this as received and with permission from the author(s).</p>