Impact of caring leadership on nurses' work engagement: examining the chain mediating effect of calling and affective organization commitment.

Background: Previous studies have established a positive link between nurse managers' caring leadership and nurses' work engagement, but the processes and conditions through which this leadership style influences positive work behaviors remain largely unexplored. To address this gap and contribute to the existing body of knowledge, we developed a chain-mediated effects model to elucidate the impact of caring leadership on nurses' work engagement and the underlying mechanisms. In this model, we identified professional mission and affective organizational commitment as the mediating variables, offering a novel perspective on the relationship between caring leadership and work engagement.

Methods: A robust multi-center and large-sample cross-sectional survey was conducted, involving 2502 first-line nurses from six general tertiary hospitals across the eastern, central, and western regions of China. The data collection instruments included a comprehensive questionnaire covering demographic information, the caring leadership scale, the Chinese calling scale, the affective organizational commitment scale, and the Utrecht work engagement scale. Data were meticulously screened and analyzed, employing descriptive analysis to summarize the demographic information, correlation analysis to test the relationship among the variables, stepwise regression analysis to explore the mediating role of calling and affective organization commitment, and the bootstrap method to test the chain mediating effect. This rigorous methodology not only ensures the reliability and validity of research findings but also instills confidence in the robustness of this research.

Results: The results indicated a positive relationship among caring leadership, calling, affective organizational commitment, and nurses' work engagement (p < 0.001). Specifically, caring leadership was significantly associated with nurses' calling (β = 0.55, p < 0.001), affective organizational commitment (β = 0.21, p < 0.001), and work engagement (β = 0.05, p < 0.001). And the analysis further revealed that calling and affective organizational commitment mediate the process between caring leadership and work engagement(Effect: 0.17, 0.03, 0.05), with a relative effect size of 89.3% for the total indirect effect. These findings highlight the crucial role of these factors in enhancing nurses' work engagement, providing valuable insights for healthcare leaders and policymakers.

Conclusion: Caring leadership positively predicts nurses' work engagement and indirectly mediates calling and affective organizational commitment. The results of this study revealed that the mechanisms of caring leadership influence nurses' work engagement, which provides a new approach to strengthening nurses' work engagement and improving patient healthcare outcomes and organizational performance. Healthcare organizations face continuous challenges; this study embodies the significance of caring leadership in improving nurses' work experience and increasing their work engagement. Nursing managers should enhance their knowledge of caring leadership and receive caring leadership training, thus actively improving their leadership behaviors in nurse management, enhancing leadership effectiveness, and creating more possibilities for developing healthcare organizations.