The effect of gender on transformational leadership and job satisfaction among Saudi nurses

To compare nurses' job satisfaction and perceptions of transformational leadership style of their manager among four different nurse/manager gender dyads in Saudi Arabia.

Women and men differ on many behavioural characteristics and are influenced by the cultural environment. Understanding these differences may have an impact on leadership behaviours and job satisfaction.

A descriptive analysis of one-time survey data collected in 2011 from Saudi nurses employed in six general public hospitals located in three cities.

Three hundred and eight (51.3%) of 600 Saudi nurses solicited to participate completed anonymous questionnaires that measured their job satisfaction and perceptions of transformational leadership style of their manager.

Factorial ANOVA tested the main effects of gender of the nurse, gender of the manager and the interaction term on the nurse's job satisfaction, and perceived transformational leadership style of their manager. These analyses indicated a main effect of gender of the manager on both job satisfaction and perceived transformational leadership style of the manager (p < .05) with no significant effect of the gender of the nurse or the interaction term on these variables. Post hoc analysis indicated that nurses regardless of their gender reported higher job satisfaction and perceived transformational leadership style of their manager when their manager was male.

These findings contrast with what other researchers have reported that nurse job satisfaction and perceived leadership characteristics of their manager are independent of the gender of the manager. These perceptions of Saudi nurses may be a result of "sex-role spillover" in a male-dominated, gender-segregated society.