| Abstract: |
The global nursing shortage, intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic and escalating workforce attrition, has renewed scholarly attention to the leadership behaviours that keep nurses engaged, satisfied, and committed to their organizations. This review paper synthesizes past empirical work and meta-analytic evidence examining the impact of transformational leadership on nurse retention and job satisfaction, drawing on quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies published between 2000 and 2023. A systematic survey of 267 primary studies and 14 prior meta-analyses reveals a consistent and robust positive association between transformational leadership and nurse job satisfaction, with pooled correlations ranging from r = .45 to r = .65, and a moderate negative association with turnover intention (pooled r ≈ −.37). Qualitative strands converge on mechanisms of trust, individualized consideration, structural empowerment, psychological safety, and shared vision as the pathways through which transformational leaders influence nurses’ decisions to stay. Mixed methods integration demonstrates that statistical effects are amplified in Magnet-designated hospitals and moderated by unit acuity, generational cohort, and national culture. The critical analysis, however, identifies persistent limitations in the evidence base: overreliance on cross-sectional self-report surveys, common-method variance, inconsistent operationalization of retention, publication bias, and a scarcity of longitudinal and interventional designs. The paper concludes that transformational leadership is among the most reliable organizational predictors of nurse satisfaction and retention documented in the literature, but that causal inference remains constrained. Future research should prioritize longitudinal mixed methods designs, objective turnover data, leadership development trials, and cross-cultural replication to translate this substantial correlational evidence into actionable workforce policy. |
