Factors affecting the leadership effectiveness of hospital managers: A systematic review

Abstract

Background: Effective leadership is regarded as an important factor in organizational success. This study aimed at performing a systematic review on leadership effectiveness among hospital managers. Methods: A search was conducted in ScienceDirect, ProQuest, Web of Science, Ovid, and Scopus databases on the factors related to effectiveness of hospital managers' leadership during 1990 and 2016. The initial results included 2795 papers, but after further investigation and qualitative evaluation using CASP-19, a total of 8 papers were included in the systematic review. Then, summarizing, classification, and comparison were used for data analysis and synthesis. Results: From among the 8 investigated papers, 4 were conducted in different regions of the US and the other 4 studies were done in Canada, India, Turkey, and South Africa. The latest and oldest studies were conducted in 2016 and 1992, respectively. The papers included 4 reviews, 3 cross-sectional studies, and 1 qualitative study. Effective factors on the effectiveness of managers' leadership were identified and classified into 4 categories of self-management, people management, health services provision management, and nuclear management skills. Conclusion: Despite the emphasis of various studies on the existence of different effective factors on hospital managers' leadership, all these factors can be categorized as people management skills, self-management skills, nuclear management skills, and health services provision skills.