The importance of nurse leadership education in challenging care contexts: iraqi nurses'perceptions of leadership behaviour

Background: While Iraq was once seen as a highly developed country, it is now categorized as 'developing' because of several decades of disruption and war. Since little is known about how this has impacted the overall health care system, it is clear that staffing hospitals' task is challenging in this current war-torn context, as is the nature of the work for the nursing staff for a variety of reasons. Moreover, it can be argued that nurses' leadership skills are of even greater importance given the complexities involved. Participants: this research explored over two hundred ward nurses' perceptions of their leaders' leadership behaviors through completing a survey. Method: the survey comprised twenty items, each of which described a leadership characteristic reflective of a transformative and adaptive style. The nurses rated how frequently their leaders behaved in these ways as described, on a five-point scale ranging from 'doesn't do' to 'always do.' These items are related to the three dimensions of personal behavior, mentoring, and motivational behavior. Results: The nurses' perceptions of their leaders' leadership behavior were influenced by their gender, educational background, and work experience. The results of t-tests showed statistically significant differences in these variables. These findings suggest an essential moral imperative to ensure that health-care organizations in Iraq are led by individuals and teams who display effective personal behavior, mentoring behavior , and motivational behavior (such as high-level communication skills; concern for their employees as persons and modeling effective behavior; and encouraging staff participation and giving recognition for significant work, respectively).Conclusion: This research identifies the characteristics of nurse leaders in a challenging workplace setting with limited resources. This work could enable nurse leaders to better adapt to working in these difficult circumstances, and ultimately facilitate the organization's ability to consider what support and education are needed for nurses leaders and staff.