Leadership Style among Nursing Professionals According to their Role in the Public or Private Sectors in Temuco, Chile - 2015

Abstract

Introduction: Nursing leadership is considered a fundamental competence, due to its impact on the quality of care. Objective: Know the style of leadership exercised by nurses, nursing assistants, nursing teachers and supervisors. Materials and method: This is a quantitative, descriptive and transversal study. The sample is comprised of 165 nursing professionals from the adult-pediatric area in Temuco, southern Chile. Data collection was done through the Multifactorial Leadership Questionnaire, in its short form, adapted to the Chilean population by Vega and Zabala. Results: It was shown that nursing professionals develop transformational and transactional styles to a lesser degree. In the teaching and supervisory areas, they exercise transactional leadership, and contingent reward in teachers and individualized consideration in supervisors are elements that stand out. According to gender, women most often use inspirational motivational behavior and inspirational charisma. In addition, transactional leadership is found more in women, as is individualized consideration. Conclusion: The predominance of transactional leadership in nurses (teachers) and supervisors (s), which favors the development and reinforcement of transformative leadership, is essential to quality care management.