Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to explore the support for established leadership
authority values among healthcare personnel and seek to develop a leadership
model for the Lebanese healthcare industry. This study utilized an expanded
version of Weber's "ideal types" of authority that was first advanced by Neal and
Finlay (2004, 2005). The data were drawn from healthcare personnel (physicians,
medical support "nurses", and administrators), and were subjected to an analysis
of group and individual means on each of the questions, using the Scheffe option
available in ANOVA. The analysis found evidence of common leadership
authority values among the three groups whereby, they all favored charismatic
leadership. Physicians, meanwhile, were distinguished by significantly being
much less supportive of traditional authority values than nurses and
administrators. The results also showed evidence of nurses and administrators
being marginally more supportive of rational legal authority values than
physicians. This study is limited by the number of participants studied. It is thus
anticipated that future comparative research will be extended to include more participants.
