Head Nurses' Leadership Effectiveness, Communication Skills and Mindfulness: It's' Relation to Staff Nurses' Innovative Work Behavior

Background: In today’s quickly evolving environment of healthcare, increase need for effective
nurse leader in order to achieve qualified care results, an equally compatible leadership standard in
teamwork is fundamental. Mindfulness, with inherent focus on being present and non-judgmental, seems
particularly suitable for enhancing leadership qualities and promoting the quality of communication
skills, and enhance attractive and supportive work environment that is critical to innovation for staff. The
study aimed to: Assess the head nurses' leadership effectiveness, communication skills and mindfulness
and assessing its relation to innovative work behaviors among staff nurses. Design: A descriptive
correlational design was utilized to conduct this study. Setting: the study was conducted in all units at
Benha University Hospitals. Subjects: Consisted of head nurses group: 150 head nurses and their
assistance and staff nurses group: A convenient sample of 300 staff nurses. Tools: Four tools were used
for data collection; first: Leadership Effectiveness Questionnaire, second: Communication Skills
Questionnaire third: Mindfulness Questionnaire, and the fourth tool: Innovative Work Behavior
Questionnaire. Results: Showed that the highest percentage (61.5%) of head nurses had good
communication skills, also more than half (54.9% & 52.6%) of them had high perception levels toward
leadership effectiveness and mindfulness respectively. in addition to about two thirty (72%) of staff
nurses had high perceptions level toward innovative work behaviors. Additionally the highest mean
percentages (83.81%, 83.33%, and 80.08%) of head nurses were related to relational leadership < /div>
effectiveness, creating a clear, well-crafted message of communication skills, the acceptance of
mindfulness respectively, and the highest mean percentages (84.67% & 82%) of staff nurses were related
to idea championing and idea implementation/starting activities of innovative work behaviors
respectively. Conclusions: The study concluded that there were highly statistically significant positive
correlation among head Nurses' leadership effectiveness, communication skills, mindfulness, and staff
Nurses' innovative work behavior. Recommendations: Selection of head nurses to be effective leaders
must be based upon combination of many factors such as level of education and management skills not
only upon the years of experience, and creating innovation as a job requirement.