Authentic Leadership and Psychological Well-Being of Nurses: A Mediated Moderation Model

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Organizational Psychology
• Nursing Studies

Background:

• Workplace incivility negatively impacts healthcare professionals' psychological well-being (PWB).
• Authentic leadership is proposed as a potential factor to mitigate workplace stressors and enhance PWB.
• Person-organization (P-O) fit may influence how employees respond to leadership behaviors and workplace environments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the influence of authentic leadership on Australian nurses' PWB.
• To examine if authentic leadership reduces workplace incivility.
• To test the moderating roles of shared values and P-O fit in the relationship between workplace incivility and PWB.

Main Methods:

• Descriptive correlational research design with a cross-sectional sample of 230 Australian nurses.
• Online survey data collected across two waves, six months apart, to minimize common source bias.
• Hypothesized model tested using Hayes Process Macro (Model 14) in IBM SPSS, employing a mediated moderation approach.

Main Results:

• The mediated moderation model showed good fit, supporting the hypothesized relationships.
• Authentic leadership was negatively associated with workplace incivility and PWB, but not directly with PWB.
• Nurses with high P-O fit showed a stronger positive effect of authentic leadership in reducing incivility, leading to higher PWB.

Conclusions:

• Authentic leadership is crucial in healthcare, reducing workplace incivility and improving nurses' PWB, particularly for those with high congruence (P-O fit).
• Strategies should be implemented to train frontline supervisors in authentic leadership behaviors to enhance follower PWB.
• The study confirms an indirect relationship between authentic leadership and PWB, mediated by incivility and moderated by P-O fit, emphasizing the impact of positive leadership on nurse well-being.