Comparative Nurse Executive Leadership Practices in U.S. Magnet and Non-Magnet Hospitals

Healthcare    Managers/Executives/Administrators

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TITLE Comparative Nurse Executive Leadership Practices in U.S. Magnet and Non-Magnet Hospitals
 
RESEARCHER Timothy Porter-O’Grady
School of Advanced Studies
University of Phoenix
Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation: May 2007

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to examine hospital chief nurse executives' self-perception of leadership practices and compare self-perceptions of leadership practices in Magnet and non-Magnet hospitals.

METHODOLOGY
Chief nurse executives in U.S. Magnet hospitals (N = 71; response rate = 38%) and a sample of non-Magnet hospitals (N = 90) were surveyed (asked to complete the Leadership Practices Inventory).

KEY FINDINGS
The most frequently reported leadership behavior by chief nurse executives was Enabling, followed by Modeling, Encouraging, and then Inspiring and Challenging. Although routinely higher for Magnet chief nurse executives, no statistically significant differences were found on any of the five leadership practices between them and their counterparts from non-Magnet hospitals.

The author suggests that "this study's data provide a baseline against which subsequent studies of chief nurse executives might be compared and contrasted" (p. 106) and "consistently higher scores in the five leadership practice categories by chief nurse executives support the transformational leadership values these scores reflect, identified as important to the role of a nurse executive. This supporting study provides a baseline that suggests chief nurse executives strongly value these leadership practices as an expression of personal leadership" (pp. 106-107).