Front-line staff preferred style of leadership and management in aged homes: Perceived inhibiting and facilitating factors

Abstract

Introduction: The essence of the main project serves to provide an exploration of the styles of management senior staff adopted to lead the aged homes, and how such styles influenced front-line staffs’ perceptions when they provided care and support to the older residents.

Method and results: Extracting a glimpse of the situation from a larger qualitative interview study of 87 staff who worked in aged homes, front-line staff preference for leadership and management styles adopted by senior staff and potential factors that would inhibit or facilitate them from achieving them were examined. The preferred style identified was associated with personality traits, work experiences, competency and training in the workplace, ability to maintain team spirit, and instill positive attitudes, behaviours and relationships among staff. Staff were in congruent with the work practices of senior staff who were able to clearly translate their values and expectations of managing a home to them. Indeed, there were also plentiful citations described by staff to give both parties a chance to maintain healthy relationships when relationships broke down and disputes between them arose.

Conclusion: By noting the preferred style of front-line staff who work in these settings, senior staff can be open to new emerging styles of leadership and management, which have scopes for personal, professional and organizational managerial developments in ensuring service quality and maintaining harmonious staff relationships. Future work can inform the implementation of action-based interventions to bring about practice changes under a Chinese leadership style.