Leadership, and management style and influence on healthcare worker’s job satisfaction and productivity: a scoping review

The purpose of this scoping review is to employ Arksey and O’Malley’s scoping review methodology to determine leadership and management styles and their influence on health worker’s job satisfaction and productivity in Low-and middle-income countries. A scoping review of literature published in English since May, 2012 was carried out using PubMed, CINAHL, ScienceDirect, ProQuest and Sage. Key search terms strategy was employed using the words “leadership styles”, “management styles”, “health workers”, “productivity” and “job satisfaction” to identify relevant studies. A total of 1487 articles resulted from the application of the search strategy. Nineteen articles met the inclusion criteria of which 18 was quantitative and 1 was qualitative study. The main leadership styles identified were transformational leadership style, transactional leadership style, laissez-faire leadership style and autocratic leadership style. Transformational leadership style was found to have a higher influence on job satisfaction as compared to the other forms leadership styles. Also, transformational leadership styles encouraged about 67% of health workers to provide better healthcare services to their patients. Health facilities in LMICs have employed mainly transformational, transactional, participatory and laissez-faire leadership styles that have varying degree of influence on health workers job satisfaction. Transformational leadership style has proven to positively influence job satisfaction and productivity while laissez-faire leadership demotivate healthcare workers. In order to improve health care services and productivity for client as well as job satisfaction for healthcare workers, transformational leadership trainings will have to be intensified.