Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine leadership styles, factors, and outcomes perceived by. Cross sectional descript correlational design utilized to collect data from 272 nurses in two major government-owned, tertiary hospitals in Saudi Arabia. Data collected in regards to nurses’ perception of their supervisors’ leadership styles and outcome factors. Nurses had a perception that their supervisors are more frequently using transformation and transactional than laissez-faire leadership styles. There was positive correlation between outcome factors (effectiveness, extra efforts and satisfaction) and transformational (r = .77, .74, .74; p < .001) and transactional leadership styles (.39, .42, .34; p < .001) and negative with laissez-faire leadership style (-.25, -.13, -.29, p < .05). that there were significant differences between male and female nurses in regards to using transactional leadership style (t = 2.74, p < .001) and laissez-faire leadership style (t = 3.35, p < .001) with male nurses mean score higher than female nurses mean score in both styles (transactional style: male = 2.60, female 2.31; laissez-faire leadership style: male = 2.04, female = 1.41). Findings provide supporting evidence that a combination of leadership styles to attain desired goals and further studies are suggested to explore leadership best practices.