Nurse managers leadership styles and intention to stay among nurses at the unit in Ghana

Enabling effective leadership is significant in contemporary healthcare delivery. Nurse Managers' (NMs) leadership styles are a major predictor of nurses' retention. Using the 'Full Range Leadership' model as the organising framework, this study explored NMs leadership styles and their influence on intention to stay among nurses in Ghana.

A quantitative cross-sectional design using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ-5x), was used to explore nurses' intention to stay at their current workplace. Data were collected from 348 nurses in 38 selected hospitals and analysed using Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression.

NMs exhibited different leadership styles based on the circumstance, but mostly used a participative leadership style, followed by transformational and transactional leadership styles. Nurses showed a high level of intention to stay. The intention to stay at the current workplace was high (3.26 out of 4) among nurses. The findings show that 85.6% of the nurses had intended to stay. The leadership styles of NMs jointly predicted 20.9% of the variance in intention to stay among nurses.

Regular in-service training programs in leadership is critical for NMs to strengthen their leadership skills. NMs should be encouraged to widely use participative leadership styles to foster inclusiveness of staff in the unit.