Survey on servant leadership behavior of head nurses from hospitals of different levels in Shanghai

Abstract

Objective To understand the whole level of head nurses ’ servant leadership behavior in Shanghai hospitals , so as to provide theoretical basis for optimal management .Methods A total of 2 000 nurses were chosen from two first-level hospitals , two second-level hospitals and two third-level hospitals from February to March 2012 , by the methods combined with step sampling and cluster sampling .Scale for head nurses ’ servant leadership behavior was used to investigate the whole level .SPSS 19.0 was used to analyze the data , descriptive analysis was used to analyze the scores , one-way anova or t test was used to compare perception of leadership behavior between different clusters , and LSD-t was used for pairwise comparison .P＜0.05 indicated statistical significance .Results A total of 2 000 questionnaires were handed out and 1 511 effective questionnaires were recovered ,with the rate of 75 .6%.The average score of head nurses ’ servant leadership behavior in Shanghai hospitals was （84.54 ±177;17.98）, which was higher than the median of the scale which was 60.The recognition degree about easy-going was the highest while the recognition degree about authorization was the lowest.The scores of head nurses from first-level hospitals, second-level hospitals and third-level hospitals were（91.62 ±177;9.40）,（90.53 ±177;11.49）,（80.53 ±177;17.98）, respectively, and the difference was statistically significant （F=61.88,P ＜0.01）.There was statistically significant difference in perception toward head nurses’ servant leadership behavior from nurses of different ages , degrees, titles and genders （P＜0.05）.And there was no statistically significant difference in perception toward head nurses ’ servant leadership behavior from nurses of different working years and marriage status （P ＞0.05）.Conclusions The level of head nurses’ servant leadership behavior in Shanghai hospitals is comparatively good , but there is still room for improvement , especially for head nurses in third-level hospitals .Evaluation of head nurses ’ servant leadership behavior should consider and control the initialization of nurses , in order to prevent differences of perception from affecting the accuracy . Key words: Nurse,supervisory; Servant leadership; Survey