Leadership Styles and Nurses' Job Satisfaction. Results of a Systematic Review

Healthcare organisations are social systems in which human resources are the most important factor. Leadership plays a key role, affecting outcomes for professionals, patients and workenvironment. The aim of this research was to identify and analyse the knowledge present to dateconcerning the correlation between leadership styles and nurses’ job satisfaction. A systematic reviewwas carried out on PubMed, CINAHL and Embase using the following inclusion criteria: impactof different leadership styles on nurses’ job satisfaction; secondary care; nursing setting; full-textavailable; English or Italian language. From 11,813 initial titles, 12 studies were selected. Of these,88% showed a significant correlation between leadership style and nurses’ job satisfaction. Transformational style had the highest number of positive correlations followed by authentic, resonantand servant styles. Passive-avoidant and laissez-faire styles, instead, showed a negative correlationwith job satisfaction in all cases. Only the transactional style showed both positive and negativecorrelation. In this challenging environment, leaders need to promote technical and professionalcompetencies, but also act to improve staff satisfaction and morale. It is necessary to identify and fillthe gaps in leadership knowledge as a future objective to positively affect health professionals’ jobsatisfaction and therefore healthcare quality indicators.