The Article: Moneke, N. & Umeh, O. (2013). How leadership behaviors impact critical care nurse job satisfaction. Nursing Management, 44(1): 53-55.
The Big Idea: Nurses’ job satisfaction is correlated with many organizational, financial, and patient health outcomes. The authors of this article discuss analysis of 112 surveys completed by critical care nurses within a New York nonprofit healthcare organization. The surveys inquired of job satisfaction in light of five perceived leadership behaviors: enabling others to act, encouraging the heart, inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process, and modeling the way.
Survey Says!: The researchers discovered critical care nurse satisfaction is significantly and positively correlated with four of the five leadership behaviors – model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, and enable others to act. Interestingly, “encouraging the heart” was not correlated with critical care nurse job satisfaction.
Quotable: “And organizational empowerment [is] found to be directly associated with job satisfaction, particularly in areas where nurses feel they can impact policy [reference]…Studies suggest that leader behaviors can affect the work climate, which in turn affects financial results [reference]” (p. 53).
“Exemplary leaders model the way by making explicit that there are no gaps between ‘what they say they do and their explanations for their actions’ and ‘what they actually do and the real reasons for their actions [reference]'” (p. 54).
So What?: For the most part, people leave organizations because of their leaders and managers. Leadership, leadership, leadership; it makes a difference. Organizations need to invest in their managers, and develop them as authentic leaders. It’s a retention strategy for both the managers and the frontline team members. Current leaders and managers should take note of these behaviors and develop them personally to impact their teams and their careers. High-performing teams don’t just happen, and when they do happen, people tend to look for the leader who created them. Be that leader.
