Exploring leadership styles in government hospitals in Kuwait.

Purpose: This paper aims to determine and assess leadership styles in six government general hospitals.

Design/methodology/approach: This is a cross-sectional study that uses a self-administered questionnaire to determine the leadership styles by self or followers' rating. The participants were 66 leaders and 1,626 followers. The data were analyzed using suitable statistical methods.

Findings: The prevailing leadership style of hospitals' leaders is the transformational style, where self-rating as transformational is higher than followers' rating. The demographic characteristics of leaders are statistically insignificant.

Research Limitations/implications: Other health-care settings were not included in the study. In addition, the study is designed to determine the relationship between variables, not to identify cause and effect. However, effective leadership has a substantial value and impact in health care. The paper confirms the existence of a transformational style effect on all organizational outcomes and represents a baseline for future studies in determining leadership styles and organizational culture types to highlight improvement areas.

Practical Implications: The paper recommends designing training programs to improve transformational leadership behavior. Moreover, investment in research is needed to understand how to build transformational leaders. In addition, leaders' recruitment must be conditioned by obtaining a leadership certification.

Originality/value: This topic is under-researched in Kuwait health-care system. The use of leadership style as an indicator for a health-care organization's performance is still not well known in Kuwait.