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. 2025 Jul 4;24(1):841.
doi: 10.1186/s12912-025-03517-8.

The power of leadership transforming nurses' professional attitudes through the balance theory: a cross-sectional study

Siai Zhang  1 , Chennong Liu  2 , Cuiwei Lai  3 , Bingyan Zhao  4 , Chunmei Zhang  5 , Yajun Zhang  6 , Zhengtao Zhang  7 , Jiajia Li  8 , Sina Zhang  9 , Tiane Fa  10
Affiliations

The power of leadership transforming nurses' professional attitudes through the balance theory: a cross-sectional study

Siai Zhang et al. BMC Nurs. .

Abstract

Background: Nurses' professional attitudes, as a key component of nursing professionalism, profoundly influences its development. However, empirical studies examining the influence of nursing managers on nurses' professional attitudes are lacking, and studies exploring how different leadership management styles-through the lens of Balance theory-affect these attitudes remain scarce.

Aim: To investigate the relationship between nurses' professional attitudes and nursing managers' authentic, destructive, and transformational leadership styles, based on the Balance theory.

Methods: A questionnaire survey was conducted using convenience sampling among 1,154 clinical nurses from 11 hospitals in Tianjin, China. Data from the returned questionnaires were analysed using one-way analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple linear regression to identify factors influencing nurses' professional attitudes.

Results: Nurses' professional attitudes were positively correlated with authentic and transformational leadership (p < 0.01) and negatively correlated with destructive leadership (p < 0.01). Multiple linear regression analysis identified nine influencing factors: gender, monthly income, hospital level, hospital type, whether or not the nurses were specialists, working in obstetrics and gynaecology, authentic leadership, transformational leadership, and destructive leadership (R2 = 69.7%).

Conclusions: Nurses' professional attitudes are influenced by the degree to which nursing managers exhibit transformational, authentic, or destructive leadership styles.

Clinical trial number: Not applicable.

Keywords: Influencing factors; Leadership style; Nurses; Professional attitudes.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: This research was approved by the ethics committee of Meizhou People’s Hospital (Ethical Approval Number: 2022-C-156). All procedures were conducted according to the ethical standards of the institution and the National Research Council, as well as the Declaration of Helsinki, 2021. In addition, potential participants were surveyed only after ensuring that they were fully informed and had signed an informed consent form. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
PX: Nurse’s attitudes towards nursing profession;OX: Nursing managers’ attitudes towards nursing profession;PO: Nurse’s attitudes towards nursing managers.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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