Nurse Leadership Behaviors that Improve Patient Care and Reduce Burnout

Abstract

A review of the current literature exploring the relationship between nurse leader behaviors and styles with nurses experiencing burnout and patients reporting dissatisfaction with care. Burnout can be both physically and mentally draining which takes a toll not only on the nurses themselves, but also the patients they care for as well. It is especially important to ensure that new nursing graduates do not experience nurse burnout since they are at the start of their careers with other life stressors already. Nurse leaders will have to learn to adopt positive nurse leader behaviors in order to build trust, decrease the workload and decrease the chances of exhaustion and job dissatisfaction for the nurses. Upon research, the literature suggests that transformational leadership styles, authentic leadership styles and empowering leadership behaviors are effective ways to promote health amongst nurses to prevent burnout and improve patient outcomes.