Leadership style and leadership education: A phenomenological study of nurse leader and frontline charge nurse perceptions of leadership style and leadership education in hospitals

This presentation will share the perceptions of nurse leaders’ and staff nurses’ leadership styles and lived experiences that occur in leadership education to support patient experiences in a learning health care organization. The problem in health care remains complex related to organizational outcomes and the experiences of organizational leaders and transformational leadership style. The presentation will discuss the purpose of the study and explaining the lived experiences of leadership styles and leadership education with front line leaders and charge nurses in a hospital setting. This qualitative phenomenological study involved 15 semi-structured interviews noting a purposeful sample of participants. This study involved an 800-bed, not-for-profit, magnet organization and a 319-bed, for-profit, non-magnet organization and a 120-bed, for-profit, non-magnet organization. The participants in this study are front line charge nurses and nurse leaders in a formal leadership role. This study has rich theoretical implications in leadership theory and can inform the academic and hospital-based educational community with new concepts and perspectives regarding leadership styles of nurse leaders and what staff experience at a learning organization using leadership education as the springboard. Future researchers can employ the results of this study in a multitude of settings, as studying transformational leadership about staff perceptions of nurse leaders’ styles and experiences with leadership education in a learning organization will provide a new lens to view the meaningful subjective phenomenology of leadership. Transformational leadership theory is the lens through which researchers discover and explain leader and follower relationships.