الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 155 |  |  |
| | | from | 155 | | |
Abstract
Leadership is an important component that assures organizational quality health care services and patients’ satisfaction. Moreover, nurses’ perception of their leaders’ leadership styles may influence nurses’ quality of care and their ability to manage patients’ health needs appropriately. Leadership effectiveness is thought to be enhanced if a manager uses the style of leadership that best matches the readiness, ability and willingness of nursesas the good match between leadership style and nurses’ readiness leads to a higher level of subordinate satisfaction and performance.
Effective leadership in health care is crucial in improving and enhancing the effectiveness of health care systems. Each leadership style can have different outcomes in the nursing staff effectiveness, satisfaction and hence, make extra efforts. There is a strong and positive connection between the transformational leadership components and the psychological well-being of the followers. Elhosany, &Helal, (2020) said that there is a positive and significant correlation between the psychological wellbeing and work rediness among nurses.
The readiness of nursesdetermines the specific style of leadership, and the adequate harmonization of leadership style and the level of readiness of nursesdetermines the effectiveness of leadership. Active management-by-exception and laissez-faire style negatively affected nursepsychological well-being by reducing trust in the leader. There were positive correlations between Leadership styles and all work readiness factors with statistically significant difference (Lasrado, & Kassem, 2021).
Aim of the study
The study aims to identify the relationship between the first -line nurse managers’ leadership style outcomes, nurses’ readiness to work, and their psychological well-being as a mediating factor.
Settings of the study
This study was conducted in the medical, surgical inpatient care units and critical care units at Alexandria Main University hospital, Alexandria governorate; it is the largest educational hospital. It contains 1619 beds and had variety of different categories of nursing personnel and wide range of specialties and services.
Subjects of the study
The subjects of the study included:
All nursing staff (n=480), available at the time of data collection in the previously mentioned units.
Tools:
Three tools were used to conduct this study:
Tool 1: The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ 360-degree feedback):
This tool was adaptedby the researcher from an original framework that was developed. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire was used to assess levels of leadership styles and leadership outcomes as perceived by the nursing staff.
Tool 2: Outcome Questionnaire (OQ)/Life Status Questionnaire (LSQ):
This tool was developed byLambert et al. (2004).It was used to assess the nurses’ psychological wellbeing.
Tool 3: The Work Readiness Scale (WRS):
This tool was developed byand adapted by Walker et al. (2015)to assess the degree of nurses` readiness to workadapted 64-items WRS to (46-items).
In addition, nurses’ demographic data sheet was developed by the researcher to collect data for nursing staff such as: age, sex, marital status, unit name, educational qualification, and years of experiences in the unit.
Method
The research protocol was submitted to the Research Ethics Committee, Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University for ethical approval.
An official permission to collect the necessary data for the study was obtained from the Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University.
The study tools were translated into Arabic and tested for their content validity and translation by a jury of seven experts from the Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria, and Damanhour Universities.
The study tools were tested for their reliability using Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient test to measure the internal consistency. All tools were reliable with value of r=0.934 for the MLQ, r= 0.910 for the psychological wellbeing(OQ)/ (LSQ), and r= 0.920 for the Work Readiness Scale (WRS).
Informed consent from the study subjects was obtained for participation after explaining of the aim of the study.
A pilot study was carried out on a number equal to 10 % of the study subjects (n=48) from the Emergency critical care unit in order to check and ensure the clarity, applicability, and feasibility of the tools and to identify the obstacles and the problems that may be encountered during data collection. There were no modifications done.
Data collection
Data collection for this study was conducted by the researcher through self-administered questionnaires. It was hand delivered to the study subjects in their work setting, after meeting with the nurses in each unit for about 10 minutes to explain the aim of the study.The needed instructions were provided before the distribution of the questionnaire, and then the completion of the questionnaire took approximately from 15 to 20minutes. Data were collected in a period of 7 weeks from 9-10-2021 to 30-11-2021.
The following were the main results of the present study:
1. There was moderate,positive, and statistically significant correlation between the overall leadership style outcomes and transformational style (r=0.703, p=0.000). There was low but positive and significant correlation between the overall leadership styles outcomes and transactional style (r=-0.229 p=0.000).However, there was a negative,weak,and statistically significant correlations between nurses` leadership outcomes and the laissez faire style (r=-.319 p=0.000).
2. More than half of the study nurses had low level (54.4%) of psychological wellbeing.
3. Predominately, (61.9%) of the study nurses showed moderate levels of overall work readiness compared to (8.3%) mean percentage for the low level of overall work readiness.
4. There was a weak,positive, significant correlation between the overallFLNM leadership styles outcomes and the psychologicalwell-being and work readiness (P=0.000, r=0.403 & p=0.000, r=0.451) respectively.
There were weak, negative,significant correlations between the laissez-faire leadership style outcomes,the psychologicalwell-being (P=0.000, r=-0.287), and work readiness (P=0.000, r=-0.314).
5. Finally, there was a statistical regression coefficient value between FLNM outcomes of leadership & Psychological wellbeing as an independent variable and work readiness as a dependent variable. The overall outcomes of leadership & Psychological wellbeing have a positive impact on work readiness where (B=0.696, B= 0.213; P < 0.000”, meaning that a unit increase in Outcomes of leadership & Psychological wellbeing will be associated with an increase in work readiness of 0.909 points.
Sobel test as a test of the mediating effect yielded that nurses’ psychological wellbeing was found to be a mediating factor between the outcomes of leadership style and nurses’ work readiness (5.717, P= 0.000).
Recommendations
Recommendations were given based on the results of the present study to enhance nurses’ readiness to work, psychological wellbeing through open communications, meetings and attending regular workshops with nurses to discuss their work problems and solvethem. It was also recommendedto conduct leadership training program for the FLNM, and to enhance nurses’ psychological wellbeing and work readiness through providing support, building mutual trust among nurses, listeningto their problems and solve them, providing flexible schedule, providing clear communication and frequent feedback, allowing fair distribution of workload to all nurses in the units, and providing satisfying salaries.