The Impact of Transformational Leadership on Nurse Psychological Empowerment

Background and Objectives: Despite increasing attention toward the employee empowerment, there is little data on cognitive and psychological processes increasing, predicting, and determining the employee empowerment and the organizational variables affecting this construct, particularly in the healthcare context. To help bridging this gap, this study examined the impact of transformational leadership on psychological empowerment of nursing staff. Methods: In a questionnaire-based study, all the nurses of a multi-specialty health facility, Moheb Hospital, were surveyed. Standard questionnaire of Hancott on transformational leadership and Spreitzer’s questionnaire on Psychological empowerment were used to develop the relevant survey instruments. The internal consistency reliability of the survey instruments was examined using Cronbach's alpha. Structural equation modeling was used to test the study hypotheses. Findings: Our results showed the strong impact of transformational leadership on nurse psychological empowerment and its dimensions, including ‘meaning’, ‘competence’, ‘self-determination’, and ‘impact’. Conclusions: Our study recommends that hospital administrators develop transformational leadership skills by getting relevant training and promote such skills in intermediate supervisors, particularly head nurses, to psychologically empower the nursing staff, thereby achieving higher patient satisfaction and hospital performance.