Hybrid Leadership and Its Relationship to Inclusion in Healthcare

Abstract

Leadership is critical in managing healthcare organizations to address financial limitations, availability of skilled workforce, globalization, disruptive innovation, new technology, and hyper-competition. This challenging environment has forced many healthcare organizations to change their bureaucratic organizational structure to a more organic one headed by leaders rather than managers. There are many leadership styles to consider for healthcare leaders. However, this research focuses on nine leadership and hybrid leadership styles to determine significant relationships to inclusion in the workplace. We used the VanSimpco Leadership Survey and Chung et al.’s Work Group Inclusion scale to survey 174 healthcare employees. We found that autocratic, autocratic-transformational, democratic-transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles impacted workplace inclusion uniqueness. Democratic, autocratic-transformational, and autocratic-transactional leadership styles impacted workplace inclusion belongingness. This research is based on Leader-Member Exchange and Optimal Distinction theories.