Mindfulness: A strategy to promote nurse manager leadership styles

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate the relationships among nurse manager levels of mindfulness and leadership style. Nurse managers completed the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness (Baer, Smith, & Allen, 2004), the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (Brown & Ryan, 2003), the self-report form of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Avolino & Bass, 1995), and the nurse manager demographic survey. The staff nurses completed the rating scale by others form of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire as well as a short demographic survey. Forty-nine nurse managers and 147 staff nurse followers from two urban academic medical centers in the New York metropolitan area participated in the study.;Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the demographic characteristics of the study sample, levels of nurse manager mindfulness, and nurse manager leadership style. An independent t-test, analysis of variance, Spearman's rank correlation, and a Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient were used to investigate the relationships among mindfulness, leadership styles, and demographic variables of nurse managers.;Significant positive relationships were found among nurse manager mindfulness levels, transformational factor, and transformational sub-factors; specifically those factors were Idealized Behavior and Inspirational Motivation. Idealized behavior is the ability of the leader to instill pride, faith, and respect in the follower (Bass & Riggio, 2006). Inspirational Motivation is the component where leaders behave in ways to motivate and inspire those around them by providing meaning and challenge to their followers' work (Bass & Riggio, 2006).;Major implications can be derived from the findings of the study. The first implication is that nurse managers should be given the opportunity and strategies to enhance their mindfulness skills. Through this enhancement, there may be the opportunity to enhance leadership style. The second implication is that nurse managers should be offered the opportunity to enhance their transformational leadership skills through leadership development and education. These implications apply to all nursing leaders.;Transformational leadership has been identified as a skill that promotes effective leadership. This study has shown a significant positive relationship between transformational leadership style and mindfulness. Mindfulness is the practical application of self-awareness, self-management, and social awareness. Therefore, by developing a practice of mindfulness, one might be able to promote and refine transformational leadership skills.