Leadership Styles versus Health Workers' Job Satisfaction: Relationships, Correlates and Predictors in Tertiary Hospitals in Ekiti State, Southwest Nigeria

Background: The healthcare delivery in Nigeria operates in a turbulent environment with professional rivalry leading to job dissatisfaction among players. This lack of cohesion, which has shown the need for appropriate leadership, has made healthcare professionals function in an environment of uncertainty, disorder, and ambiguity. Aims: This study assessed leadership styles and health workers' job satisfaction in tertiary hospitals in Ekiti State, Nigeria. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study. Multistage sampling technique was used to select respondents. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS version 20.0 statistical software. Level of statistical significance was set at P < 0.05. Results: More than half, 205 (51.8%), of the employees were found to be within the third decade of life with a mean of 33.2 ± 7.2 years. Among the employees, only 6 (1.5%) had high job satisfaction; laissez faire style had negative relationship with job satisfaction (r = -0.084; P = 0.094). Age of the leader (r = -0.095), duration of tenure by the heads of units (r = -0.003) exhibited negative correlation with job satisfaction. Age of employees and contingent reward were found to be significantly predictive of job satisfaction (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Very few of the employees had high job satisfaction and leadership styles impacts health workers' job satisfaction differently. Transformational styles were more related to health workers' job satisfaction than the transactional styles. Laissez-faire exhibited a negative relationship with job satisfaction. There is need for leadership skills on the part of the healthcare leaders; age of leader and duration of tenure needs to be further benchmarked to improve job satisfaction among the healthcare workers.