Leadership styles and organizational climate perceived by the nursing staff of a public hospital in the city of Bahía Blanca

Abstract

Introduction: leading in Health implies the ability to improve a service through different actors and through changes that benefit the population. The work climate is a filter or intervening phenomenon that mediates between the factors of the organizational system (structure, leadership, decision making) and the motivational tendencies that translate into behavior that has consequences on the organization in terms of productivity, satisfaction, turnover and absenteeism. Objective: to describe the perception of leadership styles and organizational climate perceived by the nursing staff of a public hospital in the city of Bahía Blanca. Method: an observational, descriptive, cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted from May to June 2021 in a public hospital in the city of Bahía Blanca, Argentina. The sample consisted of 70 nursing professionals. Two instruments were used, which have been previously validated with a Cronbach's Alpha with values of 0.962 and 0.964 respectively. Results: from the sociodemographic point of view, the prevalence of the female sex stands out, 50% of the respondents were between 23 and 37 years of age; similar values were found in the group of Bachelor's Degree in Nursing among the academic degrees. When the behavior of the questionnaires on Leadership and Organizational Climate was analyzed, 10 of 12 indicators had neutral values; it is noteworthy that there were no indicators with negative values on average. Pearson's correlation coefficient was analyzed, as well as the level of statistical significance in each of the cases. Conclusions: the population studied was characterized by a female prevalence, young with nursing degree training and less than 10 years of work. The study found a close relationship between leadership and organizational climate, although respondents reported neutrality in the overall perception of these two dimensions.