Authentic Leadership and Its Role in Registered Nurses’ Mental Health and Experiences of Workplace Bullying

INTRODUCTION: Bullying is a widespread problem in healthcare organizations, resulting in nurses’ poor mental health. Effective leadership, such as authentic leadership, may help to overcome this problem. OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship between authentic leadership, workplace bullying, and nurses’ mental health, controlling for demographic characteristics. METHODS: A descriptive correlational design was utilized with a sample of 170 nurses. Nurses were recruited from four private hospitals in Jordan and completed a survey about their perception of managers’ authentic leadership, their experience of workplace bullying, and their mental health. RESULTS: About 48.8%, 25.9%, and 25.3% were categorized as “not bullied,” “occasionally bullied,” and “severely bullied,” respectively. Participant nurses had mild depression (m = 12.11) and moderate anxiety (m = 10.92). Workplace bullying was higher among nurses who earn less than 600 Jordanian dinars and nurses working in the smallest hospital, with 130 beds. Authentic leadership explains 6% of the variance of workplace bullying, 3% of anxiety, 7% of stress, and 7% of depression above and beyond the variance explained by other variables. CONCLUSIONS: Healthcare organizations are facing a challenge in providing a healthy work environment. Employing authentic leadership in the workplace could be one of the factors that could help in addressing this issue.