The Relationship between role-taking abilities of head nurses and their perceived leadership effectiveness

The relationship between role taking, as a component of leadership, and the perception of leadership effectiveness was the focus of this study. Another study evaluated these same variables with individuals from the nursing education setting. This research was conducted with individual from the nursing practice settings. A convenience sample was taken with head nurses (n = 19) and members of their staff nurses (n = 183) from two Salt Lake City area hospitals. Each individual completed a demographic questionnaire along with selected subscales of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). The staff nurses also completed the Leadership Behavior Description Questionnaire-XII (LBDQ-XII). Role-taking ability of the head nurses was measured as the score obtained on the score obtained on the Perspective Taking subscale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Their leadership effectiveness was measured by their staff nurses' ratings of leadership behavior on two dimensions of the Leadership Behavior Description Questionnaire-XII: (a) Initiating Structure scale and (b) Showing Consideration scale. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to examine the relations between the two variables of role taking ability and leadership effectiveness. Partial correlations also were calculated to control for the possible effect of role taking by the staff nurses on this relationship. Initial analysis of the data revealed that 18 of the 19 head nurses were rated as effective leaders by their staff nurses, having average scores above the median on both dimensions of the Leadership Behavior Description Questionnaire-XII. Correlational analyses indicated that there were no statistically significant relationships between role-taking abilities of the head nurses and the ratings of leadership effectiveness provided by the staff nurses. These same results were obtained when partial correlation analysis was conducted to control for the effect of staff nurses' role-taking abilities. Some demographic variables did correlate, although only weak to mild, with the variables of role-taking ability and leadership effectiveness. These correlations did not add significantly to understanding the relationship between role-taking ability and leadership effectiveness. This investigation did not lend support to the results obtained in the nursing education setting. Further study needs to address the relationship between role-taking ability and leadership effectiveness.