Explaining the effect of authentic and ethical leadership on psychological empowerment of nurses.

OBJECTIVE This study aimed to explain the effect of authentic and ethical leadership on the psychological empowerment of nurses. BACKGROUND Ethics-related leadership styles can play an important role in improving employee performance by influencing job satisfaction. However, no study has investigated ethics-related leadership and its impact on the psychological empowerment of nurses. METHOD The present study is a descriptive correlational study with emphasis on structural equations. A random sample of 384 nurses in public hospitals in Tehran responded to three self-report questionnaires. RESULTS The authentic leadership variable explains 74.5% of the variance of the psychological empowerment variable. In addition, the variable of ethical leadership explains 87.7% of the variance of psychological empowerment variable. CONCLUSION Ethical and authentic leadership is effective on the nurses' psychological empowerment. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT Ethical and authentic leadership is necessary for managers to psychologically empower nursing staff. Increasing awareness of capabilities of nurses and how decisions and behaviours affect them, balanced information processing, observance of ethics in the workplace, transparency in communication, information and power sharing, all impact justice in the workplace.