Leadership style and organizational commitment among nursing staff in saudi arabia

Objective: This study aims to examine the relationship between nurse managers’ leadership style and nurses’ organizational commitment in Saudi Arabia. Background: The contribution that nurses make to healthcare systems is fundamental to meeting the goals of the organization in providing safe and high quality health care services. Quality of care can thus be jeopardized by a shortage of nurses: a problem of increasing concern in Saudi Arabia. Design and methods: The study used a quantitative methodological approach: the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (1995) was used to measure nursing leadership styles, and the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (Mowday et al., 1979) was used to assess organizational commitment. Data was collected in a one-stage cluster random sample of 219 nurses and nurse manager from two medical cities in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Results: Transformational and transactional leadership were the two most dominant leadership styles as perceived by nursing managers and their staff in the sample. Both nurse managers and staff nurses considered the transformational leadership style to be the most frequent followed by the transactional leadership style. However, differences between the perceptions of nurse managers and their staff as to their leadership style were apparent. Nurse managers’ self-rating scores were higher than their nursing staff rating scores on all five transformational, and two transactional, leadership styles. Overall, the level of organizational commitment was higher in nurse managers than nursing staff. In both, nurse managers and nursing staff, there was a positive relationship between transformational and transactional leadership styles and the commitment to stay. Transactional leadership displayed a strong positive relationship with organizational commitment. However, after controlling for the influence of manager/staff statues, nationality, and hospitals, transformational leadership styles was the strongest contributor to the organizational commitment.    Perceptions of both, transformational and transactional leadership styles, increased with age for nurse managers and nursing staff; however, there was no concrete relationship between the length of experience and the perception of leadership style. Conclusion: Transformational leadership enhances organizational commitment, which can result in enhanced staff retention. If the nursing workforce is well managed and the retention of nurses is enhanced, better health outcomes for patients could be the result. An understanding of the relationship between leadership and organizational commitment, which is a predictor of nursing retention, is of paramount importance. Introducing the full range of leadership model to the Saudi nursing system will help to prepare Saudi nurses for positions as nurse managers and leaders. This will not only develop and strengthen the health care system in Saudi Arabia but will also contribute to the "Saudization" programme.