Toxic Leadership: Conflict Management Style and Organizational Commitment among Intensive Care Nursing Staff

Abstract

Context: Toxic leadership becomes a real problem in nursing administration. Its toxicity harms the nursing staff's progress and creates a challenging work environment full of struggles that, in turn, produce adverse outcomes on the nursing staff's commitment toward the organization.
Aim: This study envisioned to compare toxic leadership among intensive care nursing staff at Tanta University Hospital and El Menshawy hospital and assess its relation to their conflict management style used and organizational commitment at the two hospitals. Methods: A descriptive, comparative, via cross-sectional research design was applied. All intensive care units at Tanta University Hospitals and El-Menshawy General Hospital were included. All available nurses (n=544) at Tanta University hospitals' ICUs (n=301) and El-Menshawy hospital's ICUs (n=243) were incorporated. Toxic leadership, conflict management styles assessment, and organizational commitment scales were utilized to achieve this study's aim.

Results: The nursing staff perceived that their leaders had high 10.6%, 11.5%, and moderate 12%, 11.9% overall toxic leadership levels at Tanta University Hospitals, and Elmenshawy Hospital, respectively. 43.9% of the nursing staff had a high level of using compromising style to manage conflict with their supervisors at Tanta University hospitals contrasted to 36.6% using competing style at El Menshawy hospital. 78.4% of the nursing staff had a low level of overall organizational commitment at Tanta University hospital's ICUs compared to 63% at El-Menshawy General hospital's ICUs.

Conclusion: Toxic leadership affected the nursing staff's choice of conflict management style used when handling conflict with toxic leaders at two hospitals and had a negative effect on affective and normative dimensions of organizational commitment in both hospitals. Therefore, improving leadership experiences is necessary by conducting a leadership development program to meet the nursing staff's expectations and improve their commitment. Also, adjusting the hospital's policies is vital to permit nursing staff involvement in leadership evaluation as a means for early detection of leaders' toxic behaviors.