The relationship of nursing deans' leadership behaviors with institutional characteristics.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between the leadership behaviors of nursing deans and selected organizational variables in baccalaureate and higher degree nursing programs in the United States. The sample consisted of 170 deans who provided data on their self-perceived leadership behaviors as measured by the Leadership Behavior Description Questionnaire and on institutional characteristics of both their nursing programs and parent institutions. Using correlation and analysis of variance, a significant relationship was found between the leadership dimension of Consideration and faculty expertise. Significant relationships were also found between the dimension of Initiating Structure and the nursing program variables of faculty expertise and educational task and the parent institution variables of control, educational task, and size. This study proposes that organizational variables should be included in leadership theory for nursing academic administrators.