The Study of Professional Background and Leadership Characteristic of Frontline Nurse Managers in Medical Centers, Ministry of Public Health*

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to study on professional background and leadership characteristic of front-line nurse manager in medical centers, Ministry of public Health, The samples group consisted of 280 subject obtained by multi-stage sampling. The research instrument consisted of the questionnaire on 2 parts questionnaire. First part is professional background created by integrating the concepts of Jeffey (2007) and Header (2010) consisting of the following 2 aspects: 1 education background and 2 work experience. Last part is leadership characteristic
created by integrating the concepts of Marquis & Huston (2008) and Kallas (2011) and consisting of the following 6 aspects: 1knowledge, 2 vision, 3 technology skills, 4 organization culture building skill, 5 change management leading skills and 6 ambition. The instrument passed the examination of a panel of 5 qualified experts Reliability was tested by finding Cronbach’s alpha coefficient wherein reliability equaled .85
The statistics used for analyzing the data were percentage, mean and standard deviation. The research findings revealed the following: According to the professional background of front line nurse manager in medical centers, Ministry of public Health, found that 50.7% have bachelor degree as their highest education and 49.3% have master degree. In master degree graduated group, 73.2% have master degree in nursingscience. 22.5% have passed nurse specialist training course and 32.9 percent have passed the management and planning course. Leadership characteristic of front line nurse manager in medical centers, Ministry of public Health was high (x = 4.1, SD = 1.04)