Abstract
BackgroundThe South African mining healthcare sector faces injuries, illnesses including HIV and AIDS and high staff turnover rates. In this sector, nurse managers should create an optimal environment for providing nursing care by motivating, influencing and empowering nurses.ObjectivesThis study aimed to investigate the relationship between nurse managers’ resilience and empowering leader behaviour in this sector.MethodThe study employed a quantitative, descriptive and correlational design. The research population comprised 31 nurse managers, 101 professional nurses, 79 enrolled nurses and 79 enrolled nursing auxiliaries who participated in the study. Two questionnaires were used as data collection methods, namely Wagnild and Young’s Resilience Scale Questionnaire to investigate the resilience of nurse managers and the Empowering Leadership Questionnaire to measure empowering leader behaviour of the nurses supervised by a particular nurse manager.ResultsOut of 31 nurse managers, 8 had a low level, 19 had a moderate level and 4 had a high level of resilience. According to Hoteling’s t-test the nurse managers in the low resilience group displayed lower empowering leader behaviour as perceived by their team members than those in the high resilience group in terms of the five factors included in the Empowerment Leadership Questionnaire.ConclusionRespondents with high resilience scores tended to have higher leader empowering behaviour.Recommendations include the strengthening of nurse managers’ resilience through workshops and reflection practices, debriefing and performance feedback sessions.
Highlights
According to Nguyen et al (2016:13) resilience is positioned in correlation to adversity – to demonstrate resilience, one must first encounter adversity, such as being a nurse leader in the mining healthcare sector required to cope with challenges. Allison (2012:79) in her research stated that in the presence of change and crisis, the resource needed most is resilience.The question of whether resilience is associated with empowering leadership behaviour is of interest in this working environment
The nurse managers were from both hospitals, which are urban hospitals
An information sheet describing the details of the study was handed to the second group of respondents, nurses working in the teams of the nurse managers
Summary
According to Nguyen et al (2016:13) resilience is positioned in correlation to adversity – to demonstrate resilience, one must first encounter adversity, such as being a nurse leader in the mining healthcare sector required to cope with challenges. Allison (2012:79) in her research stated that in the presence of change and crisis, the resource needed most is resilience.The question of whether resilience is associated with empowering leadership behaviour is of interest in this working environment. The South African mining healthcare sector faces injuries, illnesses including HIV and AIDS and high staff turnover rates. In this sector, nurse managers should create an optimal environment for providing nursing care by motivating, influencing and empowering nurses. Stuckler et al described the many challenges that the mining healthcare sector faces, including high levels of occupational injuries, illnesses and non-occupational diseases (such as HIV and AIDS) as well as high staff turnover rates. Mclaggan, Bezuidenhout and Botha (2013:1) stated that the mining industry is especially faced with challenges that include labour unrest, skills shortages, increased demand for productivity and high turnover. These challenges have been associated with problems in retaining a viable nursing workforce (Jackson, Firtko & Edenborough 2007:2)
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