LEADERSHIP CHARACTERISTICS OF ... - Drake University

characteristics, should also contribute to their organizational success
(Bass, 1999).
Healthcare leadership styles affect the desire of nurses to stay
either at their current place of employment or leave the profession. Bycio
(1 995) analyzed 1,376 nurses and found that when their leaders were
transformational in nature, there was a modest significant (pe.01)
relationship with intent to leave the nursing profession or their place of
employment. The mean MLQ transformational scores for these leaders
ranged from 1.32 - 2.08, suggesting that they exhibited transformational
leadership once-in-a-while to sometimes. When a greater degree of
transformational leadership existed, nurses expressed a reduced intent to
leave the nursing profession or their employer. An increase in passive-
avoidant leadership negatively correlated to increased intention to leave
the profession and their place of employment. The impact of these
findings on hospital CEOs is significant. Because healthcare executives
struggle to recruit and retain highly qualified nurses in an increasingly
competitive marketplace where aging demographic patterns will further
complicate recruitment and retention, the executive must understand the
impact of transformational leadership. It is critical that CEOs examine the
merits of transformational leadership style, especially in the realm of
employee retention. In view of Iowa's aging population, with hospitals
needing to recruit and retain highly competent nurses, these studies
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