It's a Matter of Trust: The Impact of Leadership Style on Organisational Identification and Job Satisfaction of Aged Care Employees

Abstract

Background and Purpose: With demand for aged care growing rapidly in Australia and globally, there is a concomitant growth in demand for an aged care workforce. The Australian Royal Commission’s into Aged Care Quality and Safety handed down its final report in February and found significant issues in aged care, and many of the recommendations contained in the final report represent a failure of leadership. The issues identified by the Royal Commission require well-trained and insightful leaders to deal with the funding system’s economic constraints, workforce shortages, safety and quality issues with the care delivered, and the system’s ability to meet consumers’ expectations. For these reasons, it is critical to understand what makes an effective aged care leader through their followers’ eyes at all levels. Design Methodology and Approach: This mixed-methods study sought to answer questions relating to leadership style and the constructs of organisational identification (OID) and job satisfaction (JS) to determine any associations between leadership style and the strategies deployed to increase OID and JS. Study 1 was quantitative in approach and examined differences in responses between the Leaders who self-rated and those who rated them in the quantitative study labelled as Raters in this study. The online questionnaire contained three prior validated tools of the MLQ5X[Short] (Bass & Avolio, 1993), the Identification with a Psychological Group Scale (Mael & Tetrick, 1992) that measured OID and the Measure of JS (Traynor & Wade, 1993). Study 2 employed the qualitative method of Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to better understand the Leaders and Raters’ lived experiences from transcripts of semi-structured interviews of semi-structured interviews designed around the areas of difference found in study 1 and provided a more granular understanding of the identified differences and why they occur. Results and Findings: There were six areas of significant difference between the two groups that informed the semi-structured interview agenda. The study found that OID was not evident among the participants in both groups who were attracted to aged care because it was the type of work rather than the attractiveness of the employing organisation. Leadership style was not associated with promoting or inhibiting OID. Leadership style, however, did have a significant effect on JS and a greater depth of understanding of why this occurred. Participants demonstrated significant moral distress, role stress, and disengagement that the literature suggests can lead to job burnout resulting in increased workforce turnover and exacerbating workforce shortages and issues relating to the quality and safety of the care provided. The research also identified a disparity between leaders’ intentions in their leadership role and follower expectations. The research concluded that the personal behaviours of leaders (PBoLs) that relate to self-development, developing positive interpersonal behaviours, developing authentic and ethical leadership practices, and developing others are required. These PBoLs were central to leaders exhibiting the influencing functions of leaders (IFoLs) and informed the conceptual model developed to guide leadership training programs and performance assessment frameworks for aged care leaders. Implications: The research contributes to developing training programs and performance assessment strategies for aged care leaders to narrow the intention-experience disparity. It will assist in improving the working lives of aged care employees, reduce staff turnover intentions and improve the quality and safety of care for elderly Australians. The research outcomes may also assist in making aged care more attractive as a career alternative for those considering entering employment and retaining those already working in aged care.