This study examined nurse managers’ leadership styles and their relationship with job satisfaction of nurses in University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, ItukuOzalla, Enugu. The specific objectives included to: determine the perceived leadership styles (Transformational, Transactional and Laisser-faire) utilized by nurse managers in University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH); determine the level of job satisfaction of nurses in UNTH; and to assess the relationship between leadership styles and job satisfaction of nurses in UNTH. Three hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. Related literature was reviewed under conceptual review and empirical studies. Nonexperimental descriptive correlational research design was adopted for the study. Validated questionnaire was used to administer the instruments to 228 respondents from which 205 correct responses were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The study revealed that the job satisfaction for the study participants was above average (60%). while all leadership styles examined had significant relationship with job satisfaction of the respondents. Transformational and Transactional leadership styles had positive correlations with job satisfaction, with mean scores of 2.40 + 0.49 and 2.31 + 0.39 respectively. Laissez faire leadership style had negative correlation with job satisfaction with a mean job satisfaction score of 2.30 + 0.46. The inclusion of nurses at all levels of policy formulation at the hospital level, and improvement in reward structure to motivate proactive nurses was recommended.

INTRODUCTION

Background to the study
The constantly changing health care environment, high technology and high cost of care provision are few factors affecting nursing practice today(Murray, 2010). Hospitals face the problem of how to strategize to achieve their goals in this competitive and changing healthcare environment. This often means constant organizational change to meet new health care challenges.