Revisión sistemática sobre la influencia del estilo de liderazgo en la satisfacción laboral de los profesionales de la salud

Introduction and objectives

Healthcare organisations are highly complex entities that live with a high risk of instability. In order to minimise this instability, interactions and personal relationships play a major role and accordingly the figure of the leader gains full significance.

The leadership style used can produce different reactions and lead to multiple outcomes, including job satisfaction. The aim of the present review is to correlate leadership style with job satisfaction in healthcare professionals.

Material and methods

A systematic review was carried out in BVS, Cochrane plus, CINAHL, ApaPsycinfo and Pubmed, selecting publications that mentioned leadership styles and job satisfaction in healthcare professionals. Publications search strategy were limited for the 5-10 last years, full text availability and language of writing: English, French and Spanish. Review-type publications were excluded. Of the 1566 initial titles, 15 were selected for analysis.

Results and conclusions

The transformational style showed the highest number of positive correlations, followed by the authentic and transactional styles. On the other hand, the passive and laissez-faire styles showed a negative correlation regardless of the professional category to which they belonged.

The results of this study provide a starting point for adopting effective leadership styles to optimise the recruitment and training processes of staff in management and coordination roles.