Leadership Behaviors in Organizations

The purpose of this paper is to focus first on the literature that links leadership to employee wellbeing within the field of organizational behavior, and then turn the attention to a survey on healthcare professionals' perceptions of the leadership style in three Italian hospitals. The classification of leader behavior is based on the sharing of decision making between leader and follower in three ways: autocratic; laissez-faire; participative. The survey was conducted using a questionnaire, distributed to staff involved in patient care (doctors, nurses and healthcare technicians) of the various hospital units. The survey shows the typical profile of participative leader. In the perceptions of healthcare employees the relation with their superior is mostly based on the personal esteem, engaging, effective, friendly, collaborative, and source of wellbeing, with greater satisfaction of old workers and healthcare technicians.