Correlation between nursing managers’ leadership styles and nurses' job stress and anticipated turnover

AIM: To investigate the relationship between leadership style with nurse job stress and anticipated turnover. BACKGROUND: An appropriate leadership style should promote the efficacy of nurses. Different leadership styles can affect nurse's job stress and the numbers of nurses leaving their workplace or their profession. METHODS: In this cross-sectional correlational study, 1,617 nurses were selected from the governmental hospitals in Iran 2016-2017. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics in SPSS20 . RESULTS: Nursing Manager's leadership style was transactional leadership. Both transformational and transactional leadership style have a significant relationship with job stress and anticipate staff turnover. A positive relationship was found between a laissez-faire leadership style with job stress and anticipated turnover. CONCLUSION: The transformational and transactional leadership styles can reduce nurse's job stress and intention to leave, so nurse leaders can use combination of transformational and transactional leadership for improving job satisfaction and quality of nursing services. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Leaders should emphasize a clear expression of values, objectives, and mission of the organisation; and try to raise confidence in employees, respecting and caring for them, supporting their views and suggestions, and being optimistic about the future.