Nurse Managers' Perceptions Related to Their Leadership Styles, Knowledge, and Skills in These Areas—A Viewpoint: Case of Health Centre Wards in Finland

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore nurse managers' perceptions related to their leadership styles, knowledge, and their skills in these areas in health centre wards in Finland. The data were collected from nurse managers (n = 252) in health centre hospitals in Finland using a structured questionnaire (response rate 63%). Six leadership styles—visionary, coaching, affiliate, democratic, commanding, and isolating—were reflected on. Almost all respondents in every age group considered four leadership styles—visionary, coaching, affiliate, and democratic—to be very important or important. Nurse managers estimated their knowledge and skills in leadership styles to be essentially fairly sufficient or sufficient. Nurse managers' abilities to reflect, understand, and, if necessary, change their leadership style influence the work unit's success and employees' job satisfaction. Nurse managers, especially new nurse managers, need more theoretic, evidence-based education to cope with these expectations and to develop their professional abilities. Together with universities, health care organizations should start planning nurse manager education programmes that focus on strategic issues, leadership, job satisfaction, challenging situations in leadership, change management, work unit management (e.g., economy, efficiency, and resources), and how the nurse managers consider their own wellbeing.

The association of leadership styles and nurses well-being: a cross-sectional study in healthcare settings

“…Our results do not provide a relationship between leadership styles and work experience. Several studies had found that older nurse managers had better skills and knowledge in leadership style than younger nurse managers [ 27 ]. This is likely due to the fact that when nurse managers have worked longer in the organizations, they have become acquainted with the strategy and vision of the organization and may have participated in creating the vision [ 27 ].…”

“…Quality of life (QOL) concept has been recognized as a relevant measure of well-being in various healthy populations, including workers [ 24 ]. During the last decade, research on transformation and transactional leaderships significantly increased in Arabic countries [ 1 , 6 , 10 , 13 , 17 , 18 ] and worldwide [ 7 , 12 , 14 , 25 - 27 ]. Yet few studies have examined its potential positive effects on nurses´ well-being [ 22 , 28 ].…”

Relationship between Leadership Self-Efficacy and Leadership Effectiveness of First-Line Nurse Managers

“…They reported that strategic leadership mostly performed in the nursing division through their top and middlelevels nurse managers. In this regard, Vesterinen et al emphasized that, when the organization drafts a new strategy and vision for the future, including nursing practice, the nurse manager at all levels is the key person to examine nursing and its resources [36].…”

A competency-based performance appraisal for nurse leaders

“…The differences concerning the efficiency of employees are normal, but we have to analyse them to find areas where improvements are necessary (Rosenfeld, et al, 2012;Westphal, 2012;Vesterinen, et al, 2013). The greatest differences are in the areas of generic leadership competencies, where also the greatest improvements are possible.…”