Inclusive Leadership and Nurses' Job Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Team Cohesion.

BACKGROUND

Inclusive leadership is an important leadership approach that fosters supportive, collaborative, and psychologically safe work environments. Although previous research has demonstrated positive associations between inclusive leadership and nurses' job satisfaction, limited evidence has examined the mechanisms underlying this relationship, particularly the mediating role of team cohesion in multicultural nursing workforces.

AIM: To examine the mediating role of team cohesion in the relationship between inclusive leadership and nurses' job satisfaction among registered nurses working in multicultural hospitals in Saudi Arabia.

METHODS

A cross-sectional correlational study was conducted among 1015 registered nurses recruited through convenience sampling from nine hospitals in the Qassim Health Cluster, Saudi Arabia. Data were collected using the Inclusive Leadership Questionnaire, the Erlangen Team Cohesion at Work Scale, and the Job Satisfaction Scale for Nurses. Descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation, and Hayes' PROCESS macro (Model 4) with 5000 bootstrap samples were used for data analysis.

RESULTS

Nurses reported high levels of inclusive leadership (M = 3.70 ± 0.72), moderate levels of team cohesion (M = 2.63 ± 0.45), and moderate levels of job satisfaction (M = 4.06 ± 0.54). Inclusive leadership was positively associated with team cohesion (r = 0.618, p < 0.001) and job satisfaction (r = 0.238, p < 0.001), while team cohesion was positively associated with job satisfaction (r = 0.390, p < 0.001). Mediation analysis demonstrated a significant indirect effect of inclusive leadership on nurses' job satisfaction through team cohesion (Effect = 0.182, BootSE = 0.042, 95% bootstrap CI [0.096, 0.262]). The mediation model explained 15.2% of the variance in job satisfaction, compared with 5.6% in the total-effect model.

CONCLUSION

Team cohesion showed a significant indirect statistical association in the relationship between inclusive leadership and nurses' job satisfaction in multicultural healthcare settings.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Strengthening nurse managers' inclusive leadership competencies and implementing strategies that enhance team cohesion may improve nurses' job satisfaction, collaboration, and the quality of patient care in multicultural healthcare organizations.