Residents' leadership styles and effectiveness as perceived by nurses.

Although physicians are required to act as leaders in a variety of situations, leadership ability and leadership training have been largely ignored by medical educators. The leadership styles and leadership effectiveness of 17 residents in a community hospital were studied as part of a leadership training seminar. Self-ratings and ratings of the residents by nurses who had worked with them were used to assess the residents' leadership style and the nurses' perceptions of the effectiveness of those styles. Styles that emphasized relationships with co-workers (encouraging and coaching styles) predominated over low relationship-oriented styles (delegating and structuring). The nurses perceived individual residents who exhibited encouraging and coaching leadership styles as being distinctly more effective leaders than the residents who exhibited structuring and delegating styles. The residents, however, rated all four styles as similarly effective. Leadership training programs and studies of the type reported here may provide an opportunity for faculty members to help residents learn more appropriate and productive styles of leadership.