Quality of Leader-Member Relationships in Saudi Arabia: Nursing Perspectives

Abstract

Background: High-quality leader-member relationships (LMRs) assist employee readiness for greater responsibilities beyond one‘s main job descriptions. This is to better contribute to other aspects or units within the organization. The Saudi Ministry of Health focuses on building human resources development to achieve improved organizational performance. Unfortunately, few studies have examined the Saudi Arabian healthcare sector‘s handling of LMRs. Objectives: The goal of the present study was to explore LMR levels and whether a nurse‘s work position influences LMRs within a university-affiliated hospital. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive method was used and applied to a sample of 538 nursing staff. A self-report questionnaire was adopted for analysis Results: Results revealed that ―Respect,‖ ―Affect,‖ and ―Contribution‖ dimensions were high perceived while the ―Loyalty‖ moderate perceived. The association between overall LMR perception and current position was statistically significant (p = 0.012). Discussion: Sustainability of an LMR should be promoted where functioning and overall performance need to be enhanced. Conclusion: LMRs were modestly present within the current study, where the Respect dimension was perceived most highly among nurses, with Loyalty having the least positive perception. However, the Affect and Contribution dimensions were also perceived positively. The present findings also indicate that nurse managers‘ perceptions were higher than those of bedside nurses.