Measuring Transformational Leadership in Establishing Nursing Care Excellence

Transformational leadership (TL) is known to be essential to achieving Magnet® recognition, an internationally prestigious status for nursing care excellence. Since its inception in the 1980s, empirical studies have identified benefits of implementing the Magnet^® Model involving improved patient care and nursing workforce outcomes. However, little is known about the leadership styles of nurse managers (NMs) working in a regional Australian context, which may hinder achieving Magnet^® status. To close the knowledge gap, a self-administered survey was conducted to measure leadership styles of NMs at a large health organization comprising hospitals with a wide range of service profiles in regional Australia using a validated tool—the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ-6S). One-way of variance (ANOVA) was used to identify statistical significance between respondents’ demographic characteristics (e.g., age, education, gender) and their MLQ-6S scores. Respondents (n = 78) reported their leadership styles as more transformational, compared to transactional or passive/avoidant leadership styles. The findings indicated that NMs’ higher education (p = 0.02) and older age (p = 0.03) were associated with TL styles, whereas passive/avoidant leadership was generally reported by female (p = 0.04) and younger (p = 0.06) respondents. This study has identified differences in reported leadership styles among NMs, providing a unique organizational insight into developing strategies to improve NMs’ TL, which could help to facilitate the implementation of the Magnet^® framework. Healthcare organizations in similar settings could benefit from replicating this study to identify a dominant leadership style and customize strategies to improve TL.