Supervisors' concern for staff: opportunities and outcomes

Numerous ideas are constantly surfacing on how to manage organizations better. As health care supervisors familiarize themselves with these concepts and consider implementing new strategies, it is important not to forget the basics. This is especially true when considering staff motivation. The value of demonstrating personal concern, or consideration, for staff is examined from the perspective of transformational leadership. It has been suggested that transformational leaders are visionary and demonstrate concern for individual staff members. The association of leader support for personal concern with enhanced job attitudes is analyzed and then illustrated in several health care supervisor situations. A case study of these relationships is presented for a home health agency. The results point to the value of supervisors actively demonstrating concern for staff.