203: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LEADERSHIP STYLES AND HEALTH WORKER MOTIVATION, TEAMWORK AND JOB SATISFACTION IN HEALTH FACILITIES IN UGANDA

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Some studies have shown that poor leadership is associated with lack of effective teamwork and a demotivated workforce leading to poor service delivery. There is scanty data in Uganda on how leadership styles relate to service delivery. This study was done to identify the leadership style in health facilities in Uganda and their relationship with health workers' motivation, job satisfaction and teamwork. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in eastern, Rwenzori and west Nile regions of Uganda in November 2015 using self-administered questionnaires distributed and picked the same day from 564 health workers in 270 health facilities. These questionnaires collected information on the health workers' perception of leadership styles of their facility in-charges, their level of motivation and job satisfaction; and the level of team work. Factor analysis was used to identify and confirm latent variables for constructs on leadership styles, motivation, job satisfaction and team work. Relationships were assessed using Pearson correlation. RESULTS: A total of 368/564 (64.3%) health workers indicated that transformational leadership was frequent or fairly often, while for transactional leadership it was 304/564 (54.4%) and laissez faire, it was 64/564 (11.4%). There was high correlation between transformational leadership with job satisfaction (r=0.31) and team work (r=0.47) and less correlation with motivation (r=0.18). Transactional leadership was highly correlated with teamwork (r=0.45) but low correlation with motivation (r=0.20) and job satisfaction (r=0.25). Laissez was negatively correlated with motivation at (r=−0.0002), job satisfaction (r=−0.21) and team work (r=−0.19). CONCLUSION: Health workers who perceived their leaders to display transformational leadership had a strong likelihood of being satisfied with their jobs and working in teams. However, those who perceived their in-charges as having a laissez faire leadership style were not motivated, not satisfied with their jobs and did not have team work.