Leadership Styles and Job Satisfaction Among Nurses

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between leadership styles of nurse managers and job satisfaction of registered nurses in hospital setting in Jitra, Kedah. A list of 126 registered staff nurses meeting the inclusion criteria for the study was obtained from administration office of Jitra. Researcher employed census study where the data were gathered on every member of the population because of the entire population at organization is sufficiently small. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire was used to measure leadership styles of nurse managers as perceived by staff nurses. The Work Quality Index was used to measure job satisfaction of registered staff nurses. A significant relationship was found between job satisfaction and transformational (r=.535, p=0.000) and transactional (r=.454, p=0.000) leadership styles. The study further used to identify whether the characteristics of leadership styles and employee job satisfaction are related to each other. The study revealed that there are significant relationship between individual consideration (r =0.389, p=0.000), inspirational motivation (r =0.452, p=0.000), idealized influence (behavior) (r =0.459, p=0.000), idealized influence (attributed) (r =0.469, p=0.000), contingent reward (r =0.472, p=0.000) and management by exception (active) (r =0.449, p=0.000) and job satisfaction. Whereas, there is a strong relationship between intellectual stimulation (r =0.503, p=0.000) and job satisfaction. However, there is no correlation between management by exception (passive) (r =O.121, p=.210) and job satisfaction. In addition, multiple regressions were employed to study on which leadership styles is more influential in predicting job satisfaction. Researcher found transformational leadership styles seems to be more slightly more influential than transactional leadership styles (B=.393 as compared to B=.104). Based on the research findings, theoretical and practical implications are discussed. Limitations and suggestions for future research are also highlighted.