Nursing leadership style and psychosocial work environment

malloy t. & penprase b. (2010) Journal of Nursing Management  18 , 715–725
Nursing leadership style and psychosocial work environment Aim This study examines the relationship between leadership style and the psychosocial work environment of registered nurses. Background Research consistently supports the positive relationship between transformational leadership style and job satisfaction. There is less evidence, which identifies the relationship between leadership style and psychosocial work environment. Method The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire 5× was used to identify the leadership style. The Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire was used to measure psychosocial work environment dimensions. Statistical analysis included Pearson’s r correlation between leadership style and psychosocial work environment and anova to analyse group means. Results There is a significant correlation between leadership style and 22 out of the 37 dimensions of the psychosocial work environment. This correlation was significant ranging from r = 0.88, P < 0.01 to r = 0.18, P < 0.05. Nurses divided into groups based on transformational leadership scores of the immediate supervisor report significant differences in their psychosocial work environment. Conclusion This study supports the significant correlation between leadership style and psychosocial work environment for registered nurses. Implications for nursing management The results of this study suggest that there would be an improvement in the nursing psychosocial work environment by implementation of transformational and contingent reward leadership behaviours.