An analysis of leadership expectations in the Lebanese healthcare industry. (c2007)

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.