Kvinnliga avdelningschefers erfrenheter av sitt ledarskap inom vården

Abstract

Literature describes what it is like to be a leader in the healthcare and what is looked upon as the most characteristic quality for female leadership. Women often use a leadership technique that motivates the employee and they allow themselves to develop a humanitarian leadership. The aim of this study was to describe female head nurses’ experience of their leadership in healthcare. The collection of data has been carried out from interviews. The material was treated and analysed from a qualitative analysis of contents. The results were presented from the following areas: The significance of the central leadership, the gender perspective, the relations and the endorsement for the own leadership, and the personal leadership role. The work as a head nurse was known as an interesting and stimulating task that however often was disturbed by routine work. The most important part of the commission, that is to say to develop the work and the process had to step back. They experienced a solitude that they tried to take care of by networks within and outside the enterprise. Most of them had not been prepared for the task when they took up office and a plan for winding up after the commission is over was neither elucidated. Continued research in these areas would be a way to give the head nurses a better working environment and it would be of advantage both to co-workers and patient