LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOR OF NURSING SERVICE ADMINISTRATORS AS PERCEIVED BY GRADUATE NURSING STUDENTS AND NURSING SERVICE ADMINISTRATOR

The purpose of this study was to discriminate between graduate nursing students and nursing service administrators on their perceptions of ideal leader behavior for the role of nursing service administrator. This study addressed two research questions which focused on the identification of ideal leadership behavior and the differences in the perceptions of the two groups.;The theoretical model guiding this study was the leader behavior model of consideration and initiation of structure. The instrument utilized was Edwin A. Fleishman's forty item leadership opinion questionnaire which was used to identify ideal leadership behavior within the dimensions of consideration and structure.;The sample of graduate nursing students and nursing service administrators were obtained from the thirteen states within the midwest region of the National League for Nursing (NLN). The 179 graduate nursing students were from the ten NLN accredited universities with a masters nursing program in nursing administration. The 87 nursing service administrators were from the eighty-seven hospitals that met the criteria of being accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals, a member of the American Hospital Association and a bed capacity between 400 and 500.;The statistical analyses utilized were descriptive statistics, the t-test and chi-square values. The student sample had 97 (56% return rate) usable cases and the administrator sample had 70 (80% return rate) usable cases.;The findings of this study yielded a profile of ideal leadership behavior as perceived by the students and the administrators. In addition, the findings indicated that there were no differences in the perceptions of the students and the administrators on ideal leader behavior for the role of nursing service administrator. Chi-square analysis of the forty items yielded four items that were significant at the .05 level of significance. The study concluded with recommendations for further research.