Evaluation of the relationship between employment perceptions and leadership practices of executive nurses

Objective: The aim of this research is to examine relationship between nurse managers' empowerment perceptions and leadership practices. Method: Research has been done with 245 nurse managers who accepted participation for work from university, public and private hospitals in Antalya city between March-May 2018. Data collected by using Personal Information Form, Organizational Empowerment Perception Inventory, Psychological Empowerment Perception Inventory and Leadership Practices Inventory. Assessment of the data was used descriptive statistic methods, Mann-Whitney U Test, Kruskall Wallis Variant Analysis, chi square statistic, correlation analysis. Results: A total of 245 management nurses participated in this study conducted in 10 different organizations. It was seen that more than half of the nurses participating in the study were in the 30-39 age range, the majority of them were women, married, children, and almost half of them were undergraduate graduates. When the occupational characteristics are examined, it is seen that the majority of them work as clinically responsible nurses, their total working time in the profession is predominantly between 10-20 years, and more than half of them do not receive special training in management and leadership. It was observed that the nurses with higher organizational empowerment perception had higher psychological empowerment perceptions and exhibited more leadership practices. Conclusion: It has been determined that having high organizational empowerment perception among nurse managers make decrease psycological empowerment perception and psycologically empowered nurse managers' exhibit higher levels of leadership practices. Key Words: Nurse manager, empowerment on nursing, empowerment perception, leadership, leadership practices.