Effects of Nursing Leaders' Toxic Leadership on Nurses' Workplace Satisfaction, Job Engagement, and Turnover Intention: An Online Cross-Sectional Study.

AIM

Toxic leadership has become prevalent in nursing; however, the literature provides limited evidence of the different outcomes of toxic leadership behaviours. This research investigated nursing leaders' toxic leadership, nurses' workplace satisfaction, job engagement, and turnover intention in Jordan and whether toxic leadership and sample characteristics predict nurses' workplace satisfaction, job engagement, and turnover intention.

METHODS

To reach a more diverse and larger population of nurses, data were gathered in 2023 using an online survey and a cross-sectional research design with convenience snowball sampling of 384 nurses from different hospitals. Nurses "agreed" on the presence of nursing leaders' toxic leadership.

RESULTS

Nurses "agreed" on the presence of nursing leaders' toxic leadership. Similar to Sexton et al.'s (2006) scoring, it was still low (Mean = 3.08/5, Standard Error (SE) = 0.043), which applied in the same magnitude for low nurses' workplace satisfaction (Mean = 2.45/5, SE = 0.036), low nurses' job engagement (Mean = 3.57/5, SE = 0.040), and low nurses' turnover intention (Mean = 3.25/5, SE = 0.038). The highest and lowest means for the four variables. As a part of the workplace satisfaction tool, nurses were asked two open ended-questions about the best and the worst things about their jobs; they answered that nursing provides humanitarian care for patients (n = 178, 95.33%), while the worst thing was the poor work environments, especially related to salaries and workload were (n = 85, 27.25%). Perceived nursing leaders' toxic leadership only predicted perceived nurses' workplace satisfaction (t = 5.79, p = 0.001, Adjusted R = 0.066); perceived nurses' job engagement (t = 5.52, p = 0.001, Adjusted R = 0.067); and perceived nurses' turnover intention (t = 11.16, p = 0.001, Adjusted R = 0.249).

CONCLUSIONS

The major effect of toxic leadership of nursing leaders was on nurses' intention to leave. Given the high global nurse turnover rates, toxic leadership would result in low job satisfaction, stress and emotional exhaustion, and, in turn, decreased quality of nursing care. Therefore, it is essential to confront toxic leadership immediately. Nursing leaders' toxic leadership, nurses' workplace satisfaction, job engagement, and turnover intention were low in the current study. However, even if it has a low level, it should be diagnosed and eradicated at early stages to avoid its disastrous outcomes; toxic leadership has detrimental consequences.

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PROFESSION

Low workplace satisfaction and job engagement are dangerous; thus, they warrant immediate managerial interventions, such as establishing training programmes and using effective communication.

IMPACT

This study highlights the urgent need for innovative managerial interventions to overcome low workplace satisfaction and job engagement; they are alarming in such rapidly changing work environments.

REPORTING METHOD

Guidelines were followed using the STROBE reporting method.

PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

None.