Authentic leadership and the personal and professional profile of nurses

Objective: To verify the association of authentic leadership with the personal and professional profile of nurses. Methods: A correlational study, conducted in a tertiary hospital. Data collection occurred from October to December of 2014. Participants included 69 nurses who had worked more than two years in the institution. Instruments used: characteristic-containing variables of a personal and professional profile (sex, position, working hours, other occupations, specialization degree, leadership positions already held, and knowledge about leadership referential), and the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the - Student's t - test (p < 0.010). Results: For authentic leadership, 36 (52.2%) participants achieved a very high score, and 32 (46.4%) obtained a high score. The self-awareness subscale was higher: nurses averaged 1.7. Conclusion: Nurses presented characteristics of authentic leadership, but no association was found with many of the studied variables.