Self-perception of leadership styles and behaviour in primary health care

Background

The concept of leadership has been studied in various disciplines and from different theoretical approaches. It is a dynamic concept that evolves over time. There are few studies in our field on managers’ self-perception of their leadership style. There are no pure styles, but one or another style is generally favoured to a greater or lesser degree. In the primary health care (PHC) setting, managers’ leadership style is defined as a set of attitudes, behaviours, beliefs and values. The objectives of this study were to describe and learn about the self-perception of behaviours and leadership styles among PHC managers; to determine the influence of the leadership style on job satisfaction, efficiency, and willingness to work in a team; and to determine the relationship between transformational and transactional styles according age, gender, profession, type of manager years of management experience, and the type of organization.

Methods

To describe leadership styles as perceived by PHC managers, a cross sectional study was performed using an 82 items-self-administered Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). This questionnaire measures leadership styles, attitudes and behaviour of managers. The items are grouped into three first order variables (transformational, transactional and laissez-faire) and ten second order variables (which discriminate leader behaviours). Additionally, the questionnaire evaluates organizational consequences such as extra-effort, efficiency and satisfaction.

Results

One hundred forty responses from 258 managers of 133 PHC teams in the Barcelona Health Area (response rate: 54.26 %). Most participants were nurses (61.4 %), average age was 49 years and the gender predominantly female (75 %). Globally, managers assessed themselves as equally transactional and transformational leaders (average: 3.30 points).

Grouped by profession, nurses (28.57 % of participants) showed a higher transactional leadership style, over transformational leadership style, compared to physicians (3.38 points, p < 0.003). Considering gender, men obtained the lowest results in transactional style (p < 0.015). Both transactional and transformational styles correlate with efficiency and job satisfaction (r = 0.724 and r = 0.710, respectively).

Conclusions

PHC managers’ self-perception of their leadership style was transactional, focused on the maintenance of the status quo, although there was a trend in some scores towards the transformational style, mainly among nurse managers. Both styles correlate with satisfaction and willingness to strive to work better.

Exploring leadership styles in government hospitals in Kuwait

PURPOSE

This paper aims to determine and assess leadership styles in six government general hospitals.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

This is a cross-sectional study that uses a self-administered questionnaire to determine the leadership styles by self or followers' rating. The participants were 66 leaders and 1,626 followers. The data were analyzed using suitable statistical methods.

FINDINGS

The prevailing leadership style of hospitals' leaders is the transformational style, where self-rating as transformational is higher than followers' rating. The demographic characteristics of leaders are statistically insignificant.

RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS

Other health-care settings were not included in the study. In addition, the study is designed to determine the relationship between variables, not to identify cause and effect. However, effective leadership has a substantial value and impact in health care. The paper confirms the existence of a transformational style effect on all organizational outcomes and represents a baseline for future studies in determining leadership styles and organizational culture types to highlight improvement areas.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

The paper recommends designing training programs to improve transformational leadership behavior. Moreover, investment in research is needed to understand how to build transformational leaders. In addition, leaders' recruitment must be conditioned by obtaining a leadership certification.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

This topic is under-researched in Kuwait health-care system. The use of leadership style as an indicator for a health-care organization's performance is still not well known in Kuwait.

Cross-Cultural Variation in Political Leadership Styles

Guided by gaps in the literature with regard to the study of politicians the aim of the research is to explore cross-cultural differences in political leaders’ style. It compares the MLQ (Avolio & Bass, 2004) scores of elected political leaders (N = 140) in Bulgaria and the UK. The statistical exploration of the data relied on multivariate analyses of covariance. The findings of comparisons across the two groups reveal that compared to British political leaders, Bulgarian leaders were more likely to frequently use both transactional and passive/avoidant behaviours. The study tests Bass’s (1997) strong assertion about the universality of transformational leadership. It contributes to the leadership literature by providing directly measured data relating to the behaviours of political leaders. Such information on the characteristics of politicians could allow for more directional hypotheses in subsequent research, exploring the contextual influences within transformational leadership theory. The outcomes might also aid applied fields. Knowledge gained of culturally different leaders could be welcomed by multicultural political and economic unions, wherein understanding and allowances might aid communication.

Longitudinal measurement invariance of the meaning in life questionnaire in Chinese college students

The Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ) is a popular tool to measure the presence of and one's search for meaning in life. Although the validity of the MLQ has been verified in previous studies, the evidence from longitudinal measurement invariance (LMI) of the MLQ is still lacking. The current study aimed to examine the LMI of the MLQ in a sample of Chinese college students (N = 328) at a 1-year interval. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (MCFA) was used to examine the LMI of the MLQ over four time points (over the course of 1 year). Results indicate that the MLQ has strict longitudinal invariance across 1-year in Chinese college students, and the latent means difference of MLQ-P is not significant differences across time, while the latent means difference of MLQ-S show significant differences between Time 1 and the other time points. Moreover, the internal consistency reliabilities (e.g., alpha and omega) of the MLQ scores were acceptable at all four time points, and the stability coefficients across time were moderate. These findings provide preliminary evidence that the MLQ has satisfactory longitudinal properties in Chinese college students.

Psychometric properties of an Arabic translation of the meaning in life scale in a sample of young adults

BACKGROUND

Young adults are in a constant phase of realizing their meaning in life while being in a constant pursuit of meaning. Meaning in life is a subjective, personal construct related to the perception of one's own life. Considering that there are no measures that study this construct within the Arab context, this study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of an Arabic translation of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ) in the Lebanese context with a sample of young adults.

METHODS

A sample of 684 Lebanese young adults was recruited for this study, having a mean age of 21.74 years, 65.6% of which were females. Through an online questionnaire, participants were requested to complete the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ), Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-8) and the Oviedo Grit Scale (EGO).

RESULTS

CFA indicated that fit of the original bi-dimensional model of MLQ scores was inadequate. Items 9 and 10 cross-loaded to both MLQ factors. After removal of those 2 items, the final model displayed good fit indices. Reliability was good for the Search (ω = 0.89 / α = 0.89) and Presence (ω = 0.88 / α = 0.87) subscales. Additionally, across three levels of gender invariance (Configural, Metric and Scalar), no significant gender-based distinctions were observed in the MLQ scores. The Search subscale was significantly and positively associated with higher GRIT but not psychological distress, whereas the Presence subscale was significantly associated with higher GRIT and lower psychological distress.

CONCLUSION

The results of this study contribute to the psychometric reliability and validity of the Arabic version of the MLQ and makes it available for dissemination among young adults within the Arab context. This allows for the implementation of new research that target construct of meaning in life, allowing for the accessibility of interventions that aim to foster the presence of and search for meaning in the lives of young adults within the Arab nations.

A Generalizability Analysis of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire for Chinese Adolescents

The level of meaning in life not only affects the physical health of individuals, but also is closely related to their mental health. At present, many self-reported questionnaires are being used to measure the meaning in life of Chinese adolescents. Using the multivariate generalizability theory, this study investigated the psychometric properties and the internal structure of the Meaning in Life Questionnaires (MLQs), the most widely used questionnaire for assessing the level of meaning in life of Chinese adolescents. The data were sample of 1,951 junior high school students from Guizhou, China. Multivariate random measurement mode p × i° is the primary analytic approach. Results showed that the generalizability coefficient and dependability index of the scale were 0.86 and 0.85, respectively. The generalizability coefficients of presence of meaning and search for meaning were 0.76 and 0.85, respectively, and the dependability indexes were 0.75 and 0.85 for MLQ-P and MLQ-S, respectively. The design of each factor for MLQ is reasonable in terms of score ratio and the number of projects. In brief, the reliability and factor structure of the scale are satisfactory.