CLINICAL NURSES’ PERCEPTIONS TOWARD THEIR NURSE MANAGERS’ DEGREES OF TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND TRUST

Abstract

Scholars have emphasized the importance of trust as a critical foundation of effective and successful leadership. However, empirical evidence on behaviors that promote trust in leadership remains scarce and lacking. It is postulated that transformational leadership behaviors are a strong predictor of trust in the leader. The American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Magnet Recognition Program® highlights transformational leadership as a main component for delivering nursing excellence. Since leadership behaviors can be perceived through the leaders’ interactions with superiors, peers, and followers, this study aimed at examining clinical nurses’ perceptions toward their nurse managers’ degrees of transformational leadership and trust within a Magnet® designated hospital. The study utilized a cross-sectional survey using the Multilevel Leadership Questionnaire 5X-Short Rater Form to examine perceptions of the degree of transformational leadership, and the Trust in Leader Scale, to examine the perceptions of the degree of trust in the nurse manager. Results indicated that clinical nurses perceived their nursing manager to demonstrate transformational leadership “sometimes” to “fairly often”. The mean trust in the nurse manager score indicated a neutral position of neither agree or disagree, with a propensity towards perceiving the nurse manager as trustful. The study found a strong and positive correlation between trust scores and transformational and its dimensions.