ABSTRACT
Background: powerlessness has become endemic among most nurses in their work setting, as the result of inappropriate distribution of power in hospitals, allocating power to only a few, at the top of hospital hierarchy imposing it. The objective of this study is determining the relationship between nurse's perception of their head nurses empowerment behaviors and their own work effectiveness
Material and methods: 194 registered nurses occupied in three teaching hospitals of Baqiatallah, Jamaran and Najmieh that had been working more than 1 year of nursing experience and had not experienced the managerial practice entered the study by stratified random sampling in 2005. This study is a cross-sectional and correlational survey. "Leader Empowering Behavior" scale with 27 items [alpha: 0.82] and "Global Work Effectiveness" scale with 24 item [alpha: 0.89] was used. Self reported questionnaire completed by nurses outside their work setting
Results: nurses in this study obtained a high score in L.E.B. scale [5.08+1.2] and also in G.W.E. scale obtained the moderate score [4.94+0.749]. "Confidence in the employee" rated the most empowering leader behaviors [5.34+1.24] and "autonomy from bureaucracy" rated the lower behavior [4.94+1.31]. For subscales of G.W.E. most their work effectiveness related to "clinical care role" [5.37+0.752] and lower their work effectiveness related to "researcher role" [3.96+1.1]
Conclusion: results showed that there is a relationship between head nurse's empowering behaviors and staff nurses work effectiveness perception. This finding points out the organizational managers that have an important role in increasing work effectiveness through empowering leader behaviors. To gain an obvious understanding of work empowerment concept, more survey is suggested