The relationship of leadership style of the department head to nursing faculty professional satisfaction and organizational commitment

The purpose of this research was to determine if there was a relationship between the leadership style of the nursing department head and the level of professional satisfaction and organizational commitment by nursing faculty members. The survey instrument was a self-constructed four point Likert scale designed by the researcher to determine the department heads leadership style as perceived by the nursing faculty, and assess the nursing faculty members' level of professional satisfaction and organizational commitment. The administration of the survey was implemented in a face-to-face format at five schools of nursing in two Midwestern states to 52 full-time baccalaureate nursing faculty. The researcher did not discover any relationship between department head perceived leadership style and organizational commitment and professional satisfaction using Kruskal-Wallis statistical analysis. However, the Pearson correlation revealed a positive relationship among transformational leadership, and organizational commitment and professional satisfaction. Further, the Pearson correlation revealed a negative relationship among transactional leadership, and organizational commitment and professional satisfaction. In addition, the research did discover a positive correlation between organizational commitment and professional satisfaction.