Transformational Leadership Style on Nursing Job Satisfaction Amongst Nurses in Hospital Settings : Findings From Systematic Review

Background: The nursing shortage is a common problem in Saudi Arabia with multi-factorial causes. In addition to the low supply of Saudi graduate nurses from training facilities, job satisfaction remains a significant determinant of nurse turnover and intention to leave that contribute to the shortage of nursing workforce. The higher number of expatriate nurses who have a short stay compared to Saudi nurses compounds this problem. Therefore, effective strategies for making the nursing profession attractive and increasing nurse retention in Saudi Arabia are required. Objective: The general objective was to examine the impact of transformational leadership style on job satisfaction amongst nurses in hospital settings. Specifically, the appraisal examined how transformational leadership style improves nursing job satisfaction in hospital settings, determined the mediating factors of the relationship between transformational leadership style and nurses’ job satisfaction, and investigated nurses’ perceptions of transformational leadership style compared with other leadership styles. Methodology: This study was used systematic review design with eight selected quantitative nursing research published between 2012 and 2017. A systematic search of the recent literature was conducted on PubMed, Scopus, Wiley Online, and Web of Science databases using search terms developed a priori to identify the articles that met the inclusion criteria. The quality of the included studies was evaluated by McMaster Critical Review Form for Quantitative Studies. Extracted data were summarised, explored and correlated using narrative synthesis. Findings: Eight studies of cross-sectional design were appraised. Transformational leadership style was positively related to nurses’ job satisfaction. Transactional leadership also had a positive correlation while passive-avoidant or laissez-faire style had a negative relationship. Transformational leadership improved nursing job satisfaction through its dimensions (idealised influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualised consideration). Nurse empowerment and workplace support mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and nurse job satisfaction. Nurses had a higher perception of transformational style compared to other leadership styles, and job satisfaction was found to improve nurse and patient outcomes. Conclusion: Transformational leadership appears to improve job satisfaction of nurses working in a hospital setting that leads to higher nursing retention. Hospital administrators and managers should practice transformational leadership to improve job satisfaction of staff nurses for better nursing outcomes, and leadership skills should be incorporated in the nursing education curriculum. However, further evaluation of transformational leadership in relation to its influencing factors is required.

in these kinds of environments to improve nurses' job satisfaction.Job satisfaction has been studied extensively as a concept due to its potential impacts and influence on organisational and employee-related outcomes such as productivity, attrition rates and retention (Eslami and Gharakhan, 2017).A more general and broader view of job satisfaction includes both the "satisfaction" and "dissatisfaction" in relation to one's job.As a result, Spector (1997) defined job satisfaction as "the extent to which people like (satisfaction) or dislike (dissatisfaction) their jobs."The most commonly used definition of job satisfaction is Edwin Locke's that refers job satisfaction as "a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experience" (Locke, 1969).However, job satisfaction has cross-cutting definitions going beyond the positive feelings that are usually perceived as the only determinants of how individuals view and relate to their jobs.Therefore, the definition of job satisfaction should also involve factors or measures of negative feelings like work pressure that may affect individual-work relationships.A concept analysis of published nursing literature by Castaneda and Scanlan (2014) identified three key attributes of job satisfaction in nursing including autonomy, interpersonal relationships, and patient care.As a result, job satisfaction in nursing can be defined as the extent to which nurses are satisfied or dissatisfied with their work in relation to these attributes.Even though job satisfaction in healthcare specifically nursing in a hospital setting can be identified and measured, this definition is mainly an affective reaction to a job resulting from the comparison of actual with the desired, expected and deserved outcomes.

Transformational Leadership Factors
Transformational leadership is characterised by four dimensions including idealised influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individual consideration (Avolio, 2011).

Idealised Attributes
Idealised attributes of transformational leadership that can be attributed or behavioural enhance leadership authenticity and level of credibility and acts as a role model for high standards of ethical behaviour, pride, and respect and trust among the employees (Bass and Riggio, 2006;Kanste et al., 2009;Avolio, 2011).It results in the emulation and identification with the leader's behaviour, moral and ethical values as well as sharing and commitment to the common goals and development of high levels of trust (Bass and Riggio, 2006).However, hierarchical organisational regulations that constrain the followers and limit their innovative ability can render this attribute ineffective as the employees to continue to meet their leader's expectations (Bruch and Walter, 2007).

Inspirational Motivation
Leaders with inspirational motivation create a clear sense of purpose and act as role model for their followers to realise their vision with charisma, enthusiasm, and optimism (Kanste et al., 2009;Avolio, 2011;Giltinane, 2013).Moreover, with the use of effective communication, leaders set high standards and encourage their followers to fully exploit their ability to achieve them (Avolio, 2011;Bass and Riggio, 2006).Kanste et al. (2009) and Avolio (2011) also observed that it is the clear sense of purpose and meaning, and visionary leadership as well as appealing and inspiring articulated vision that would motivate the employees to act.As a result, the employees become inspired to chat own leadership path promoting personal gratification and satisfaction.

Intellectual Stimulation
This characteristic of transformational leadership refers to the degree of challenging assumptions, taking risks and soliciting ideas whereby leaders encourage their followers to question the norms, to think and to come up with new ideas for improvement; thus, promoting creativity, independent thinking, and innovation (Bass and Riggio, 2006).With uncommon situations considered an opportunity to learn, leaders who demonstrate intellectual stimulation encourage creativity, nurture and develop individuals who can think independently to find better ways of doing tasks (Avolio et al., 1999;Bass and Riggio, 2006;Avolio, 2011).

Factors Influencing Nurse Job Satisfaction
There are many and varied factors influencing intrinsic or extrinsic job satisfaction of the motivation-hygiene theory (Herzberg et al., 2008).As noted by Atefi et al. (2014), they can be categorised into three groups, including work environment, motivation, and personal belief factors.

Work Environment Factors
The influence of work environment on job satisfaction and dissatisfaction was investigated in focus group discussions of 85 critical care and medical-surgical nurses by Atefi et al. (2014) where the authors found team support to increase nurse job satisfaction.Similarly, Asegid et al. (2014) in a mixed design cross-sectional study found group cohesion to positive influence nursing job satisfaction.Atefi et al. (2014) also found poor leadership skills, working conditions, lack or inadequate medical resources, unclear nurses' responsibilities, poor patient and doctor perceptions, work discrimination, and benefits and rewards to be associated with nurses' job dissatisfaction.Al-Dossary et al. (2012) and Asegid et al. (2014) also found salaries, benefits and contingent rewards for instance as significant factors of nurses' job dissatisfaction.
Even though Atefi et al. (2014) employed a small sample that is appropriate for qualitative designs, it may affect the generalisability of the findings.Together with Asegid et al. (2014), it may also not apply to Saudi setting due to their different cultural and practice contexts from Saudi's as well as the cross-sectional design that limits their ability to show causal relationships between the variables.
The role of nurse working units also appears to play a role in job satisfaction.In a cross-sectional study in involving 178 nurses, Kaddourah et al. (2013) found nurses employed in critical care units to be significantly more satisfied than nurses in medical and surgical units due to good orientation programme and competent staff.Similarly, Shang et al. (2013) found oncology nurses to show more job satisfaction compared to medical or surgical ward nurses while Asegid et al. (2014) reported seven times more satisfaction among maternity unit nurses than medical unit colleagues.
The variation in job satisfaction in different hospital units could be attributed to various environment factors such as effective leadership and team support, clear responsibilities, and good working relationships.As a result, nurse managers should have leadership skills to improve work environment to increase nursing job satisfaction and reduce intention to leave and burnout as noted by Nantsupawat et al. (2017).

Motivation Factors
Factors of motivation can also influence nursing job satisfaction.As noted by Atefi et al. (2014), task requirement involving too much paperwork and lack of opportunity and support for personal and professional development as well as clinical autonomy were associated with nurses' job dissatisfaction.Since opportunities such as continuing education and training promote growth and job satisfaction, their absence can lead to higher levels of job dissatisfaction (Asegid et al., 2014;Atefi et al., 2015).Nurse recognition for the job well done has also been found to be a crucial determinant of nurse job satisfaction (Asegid et al., 2014).In a web-based, cross-sectional explorative study, Sveinsdóttir et al. (2016) found praise of staff nurses by nurse managers to result to more job satisfaction.Praise was also associated with more opportunities for professional practice, positive work environment, and organisational commitment as well as valuing professional recognition by nurses.Even though praise seems to play a significant role in enhancing nurses' job satisfaction, it is surprising that it is rarely used with Sveinsdóttir et al. (2016) noting that only 31.6% of the nurses reported having received praise more often.

Literature Search Strategy
According to Greenhalgh and Peacock (2005), an effective search strategy should allow for obtaining as many articles as possible while ensuring attainment of the highest quality of evidence.Therefore, the search strategy employed in this study was designed to find all the quantitative studies that addressed the research question.The literature search was done in four electronic databases, including Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, and Wiley Online and the hits obtained, and the potentially relevant studies recorded and documented.It was surprising that related articles were not found in CINAHL database probably due to its focus on practice rather than management.
The search terms and the combination list were finally generated in a seven-stage process outlined by Bettany-Saltikov and McSherry (2016) that increases sensitivity, precision, and specificity.The stages included breaking down the research question into its PICO components, identifying the keywords and words using the PICO groups, identifying the synonyms of the search terms, using the Boolean operators (OR and AND) to combine the keywords and phrases, identifying abbreviations, constructing a search strategy table, and finally translating into a search terms and combination list.According to Khan et al. (2011), the sensitivity of the search is a reflection of the comprehensiveness of the search and is determined by the proportion of relevant studies and is higher when the synonyms of the component terms are used.Similarly, the use of Boolean operators and applying limits is critical for determination of the precision of the search, which is the percentage of the number of relevant studies to all studies identified.Some of the search terms were also truncated using the truncation sign (*) to help the database extract studies containing different spellings of the keywords (Greenhalgh, 2014).
Various advanced search reading and tutorial resources were helpful in this process (NCBI, 2013;Web of Science Training, 2014;"PMC Help", 2016;UTS Library, 2017;Elsevier, and;web of Science, and;Wiley Online Library, and).The included studies were selected based on pre-determined eligibility criteria and evaluated by a quality assessment tool known as McMaster Critical Review Form for Quantitative Studies (Law et al., 1998a).A PRISMA flow diagram was used to narrow down search results and to present the included articles as shown in

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
The inclusion and exclusion criteria shown in Table 2 was based on PICO elements to eliminate bias in selecting the studies for this appraisal.According to Higgins and Green (2008), the use of inclusion and exclusion criteria is important when conducting a systematic review.Coughlan et al. (2013) also emphasised that the use of selection criteria would help narrow the search of studies and ensure that only relevant articles are included in the review.
Inclusion criteria: Only primary quantitative studies that evaluated transformational leadership as single style or compared with other styles to determine their influence on job satisfaction among nurses in the hospital setting published 2012 -2017 were included.Moreover, they had to be English and peer-reviewed.Even though the focus was to find only studies conducted in Saudi Arabia, they were limited in number leading to the inclusion of those conducted in other countries.
Exclusion criteria: Non-quantitative or mixed method studies, as well as secondary researches and other sources outlined in the table of inclusion and exclusion criteria, were excluded.To obtain high quality papers and replication of data

Search Results
The unlimited databases search resulted in a total of 15,225 records.Limiting the search to English publications between 2012 and 2017 excluded 9,967 papers.Of the remaining 5258, further 4725 papers were excluded after reading the titles.Another 490 were dropped after reading the abstracts of the remaining 533 articles.Subsequently, articles and not met inclusion criteria.The remaining eight articles highlighted below were evaluated by McMaster tool and finally included in this critical appraisal as they were of high quality as described in Figure 1.
In line with the research objectives, Abdelhafiz et al. (2015) evaluated the impact of transformational, transactional and passive-avoidant leadership styles on job satisfaction in both public hospital and private hospital settings.The influence of transformational and transactional leadership styles on job satisfaction was compared in four studies (Abualrub and Alghamdi (2012;Bormann and Abrahamson, 2014;Alshahrani and Baig, 2016;Nequssie and Demissie, 2017) while Wang et al. (2012) focused on transformational leadership only.Lin et al. (2015) and Choi et al. (2016) examined the mediating role of transformational leadership style through workplace support and empowerment respectively on job satisfaction, thus highlighting the indirect impact of transformational leadership on nurse job satisfaction.In this appraisal, these studies are represented by symbols, S1 to S8 as demonstrated in Table 3.According to the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination ( 2009), assessing study quality is an integral process of critical appraisal and systematic review as it promotes exclusion of studies that do not meet the methodological criteria and stratify the included studies based on the risks of bias (high, low or both), and the criteria of appraising studies should be stated clearly a priori for transparency reasons.In this appraisal, the quality of the studies was evaluated by the McMaster Critical Review Form for Quantitative Studies that was developed by the McMaster University Occupational Therapy Evidence-Based Practice Research Group as quality appraisal tool for quantitative studies (Law et al., 1998a;Law et al., 1998b).It provides a standardised method of assessing study quality.In this appraisal, these elements were used to develop a quality scoring system of 0, 1, and 2 for unmet, partially met and fully met respectively for each item giving a total score of 0 -36 (Table 4).Moreover, items for quality assessment was developed based on McMaster guideline critical review form for quantitative studies (Law et al., 1998b).After quality evaluation, the decision was further made based on the form created by the researcher.Score interpretation: 0 = not met, 1 = partial met and 2 = met; total: (0-12) = low, (13-24) = medium and (25-36) = high.

Data Extraction and Synthesis
Data extraction is the process of obtaining necessary information about the characteristics and findings of the included studies while synthesis involves findings collation, combination and summary (CRD, 2009).Data extraction form was used to extract the study details and findings followed by brief comments.Using a narrative approach, the extracted data, including the key findings were then summarised, explored and correlated to present the main themes related to the aims and objectives of this critical appraisal.

Transformational Leadership Style Was Associated With Nursing Job Satisfaction
All the selected studies found transformational leadership to be positively related to nursing job satisfaction, in that a demonstration of transformational leadership style by nurse managers or leaders resulted in increased nursing job satisfaction.S7 noted that transformational leadership style was associated with a moderate level of intrinsic job satisfaction but low extrinsic job satisfaction.Other leadership styles were also found to be related to nursing job satisfaction with transactional leadership having a positive correlation in S1, S3, S4 and S7 but negative in S2.S1 also found a negative correlation between passive-avoidant style and job satisfaction.
The associations between transformational leadership style and increased job satisfaction were evident in all types of hospital environments, but S1 and S6 found it to be more demonstrated in government hospitals than private hospitals resulting in higher job satisfaction.However, the more satisfaction level in government hospitals compared to private ones could be explained by other factors such as low supervision levels in these settings.
Transformational leadership was also associated with other outcomes including leader's satisfaction, extra effort and leadership effectiveness.In S3, they were more positively related to transformational leadership than transactional style.Other observed influences of transformational leadership through job satisfaction included the intention to stay at current work in S2 and organisational commitment and general health status in S6.
Job satisfaction was a moderate level in S2, S3, and S8 and moderate with intrinsic but low with extrinsic job satisfaction in S7.Nurses in public hospital had a higher level of job satisfaction than those in private sector as noted in S1.However, S6 did not find any significant difference in all hospital types.

Themes
The appraisal identified the three main themes presented below.

How Transformational Leadership Style Improves Nursing Job Satisfaction
Transformational leadership was found to increase job satisfaction of staff nurses through its dimensions.S1 -S3 and S7 directly examined the relationship between transformational leadership dimensions and nurse job satisfaction, and S1 and S7 found that the greatest job satisfaction was due to leaders' demonstration of inspirational motivation.S8 similarly focused on them as challenging the process, inspiring a shared vision, enabling others to act, modelling the way and encouraging the heart.Even though the relationship of other attributes was not reported, it was possible they impacted on job satisfaction.Transactional leadership style was also found to improve job satisfaction through its attributes, particularly contingent reward that lead to the greatest extrinsic job satisfaction in S1 and S7.

Nurse Empowerment and Workplace Support Mediated the Relationship Between Transformational Leadership and Job Satisfaction
Transformational leadership also had an impact on job satisfaction through indirect or mediating effects, such as workplace support and empowerment in S5 and S6.S5 suggested that employee empowerment that results from transformational leadership is critical in enhancing job satisfaction.Similarly, workplace support and the environment resulting from increased supervisor support due to transformational leadership were found to mediate the relationship between transformational leadership style and job satisfaction in S6.Job satisfaction was also shown to improve organisational commitment and general health status.

Nurses Perceived Transformational Leadership to Be More Acceptable Compared to Other Leadership Styles
The level of perception of transformational leadership style alone or compared to other styles, including transactional and laissez-faire was also reported in the studies.In S1 and S2, nurses perceived their nurse managers to demonstrate transformational leadership style more than transactional and passive-avoidant styles.Even though S1 found transactional leadership style to be more favoured over other types of leadership styles, nurses in S4 viewed their nurse managers to lack strong possession of any of the characteristics of transformational, transactional and passive-avoidant leadership styles.S8 found that the nurses' perception of the overall transformational leadership style of nurse managers and its subscales (earlier mentioned) was at a moderate level.S2 and S7 also found that staff nurses perceived their managers to use transformational leadership style more than transactional leadership.However, S3 found the opposite result where nurse leaders were perceived to demonstrate more transactional leadership than transformational leadership.
The findings in S1 were the same in both public and private hospitals; however, head nurses in government hospitals ranked higher in all transformational and transactional leadership subscales than their counterparts in private hospitals who ranked higher in passive-avoidant leadership style.On the other hand, S6 found no significant differences in the perception of transformational leadership in public, private or religious settings.
It is important to note that these findings are just perceptions which are subjective.Therefore, they may not be valid to be generalised.However, S2 and S3 may be reflective of the actual nursing practice in Saudi Arabia due to their contextual relevance.The wide geographical spread of these findings suggests that transformational leadership style is the most preferred and practised leadership style in different hospitals settings, including government-owned or private-owned.

Discussion of the Appraisal Process and Limitations
This appraisal began with a close examination of the previous literature on leadership styles and nurse job satisfaction to identify a research problem.From the previous experience of the researcher, nurse job dissatisfaction due to poor leadership in nursing practice is a common problem yet transformational leadership style can improve job satisfaction (Atefi et al. (2014).Therefore, its impact was evaluated by critically appraising recent published quantitative nursing research.
However, the appraisal had some limitations that could affect its findings.First, it was conducted by a single researcher that increases the risk of bias.CRD ( 2009) noted that one researcher involved in systematic appraisals might affect quality as opposed to systematic reviews that usually include many experts in a given area undertaking the review jointly and independently.Nevertheless, the researcher consulted with the supervisors about the appropriateness and quality of the selected studies to ensure credibility.

Relationship Between Transformational Leadership Style and Nursing Job Satisfaction
Transformational leadership was found to be related to job satisfaction of hospital staff nurses in a positive manner with transformational leadership affecting overall, intrinsic or extrinsic job satisfaction.For instance, it resulted in moderate and low levels of intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction respectively in S7.Morsiani et al. (2017) similarly found that the dimensions of transformational leadership were positively correlated with staff nurses' job satisfaction.Consistent with these findings, a positive relationship was established between transformational leadership and job satisfaction among the employees of two Turkish hospitals in Top et al. (2013) study.However, it involved all hospital employees, and it had a low response rate (38.14%) that could affect its generalisability and specific application into the nursing profession.Even though these findings suggest transformational leadership is directly related to job satisfaction, Brewer et al. (2016) found it not to be the case.The authors noted that transformational leadership was positively and directly correlated with other factors, including autonomy, organisational commitment, mentor support, and promotional opportunities, but indirectly related to job satisfaction.
The dimension of transformational leadership associated with the strongest relationship with job satisfaction appears not to be clearly understood with S7 citing inspirational motivation as the strongest predictor, but other studies indicating differing results.According to Mohammad et al. (2011), all the transformational leadership dimensions were correlated with job satisfaction of Jordanian private hospital nurses; however, the strongest correlation with job satisfaction (intrinsic and extrinsic) was found with intellectual stimulation.On the other hand, Morsiani et al. (2017) found idealised influence (attributed) to have the highest positive correlation.These findings are conflicting, but all the dimensions seem to increase nurses' job satisfaction with Mohammad et al. (2011) noting that they influence intrinsic job satisfaction more than extrinsic job satisfaction.Similar to the findings of S7, transformational leadership can, therefore, be used to promote satisfiers or motivators of job satisfaction postulated by Herzberg et al. (2008).
A relationship with nurse job satisfaction has also been found with other leadership styles.Transactional leadership was found to be positively correlated with job satisfaction in S1, S3, S4, and S7 but not in S2.Similarly, Morsiani et al. (2017) found positive associations with contingent reward and Management by Exception Active attributes of transactional leadership but negative with Management by Exception Passive.On the other hand, passive-avoidant leadership style was negatively associated with nurse job satisfaction as demonstrated by S1, S4 and S7 and corroborated by Morsiani et al. (2017) study.As noted in S4, it is apparent that nurse managers' leadership style has a significant influence on job satisfaction of their staff nurses with transformational style being beneficial while passive-avoidant leadership is detrimental.For transactional leadership, its usefulness and effectiveness appear to depend on its dimension employed such as contingent rewards.
Transformational leadership is also positively related to leader's satisfaction, extra effort and leadership effectiveness more than transactional as demonstrated in S3.Similarly, transformational leadership practice has been found to result in an increased effort, effectiveness of nurse managers and satisfaction with leadership (Casida and Parker, 2011;Aboshaiqah et al., 2014).In contrast, passive-avoidant style negatively affects these outcomes (Aboshaiqah et al., 2014).
Moreover, S6 transformational leadership style correlated positively and significantly with organisation commitment.Similarly, Brewer et al. (2016) found transformational leadership to result in an increased organisational commitment that leads to more nurse satisfaction and intention to stay.Surprisingly, the relationship was stronger with organisational commitment and trust compared to job satisfaction in Top et al. (2013) study.On the other hand, transactional and passive-avoidant leadership styles have been found to be negatively correlated with staff's affective commitment to their hospitals (Kodama et al., 2016).Therefore, transformational leadership appears to be more effective in increasing nurse job satisfaction, organisational commitment, and retention compared to transactional and passive-avoidant leadership approaches.
The finding that transformational leadership style led to job satisfaction in all the included studies despite being conducted in different cultural contexts was surprising.According to Hofstede's (2001) theory of cultural differences, subjects with different value systems are expected to interpret and respond to surveys differently.Leadership styles also tend to be culturally linked or biased; hence, can be influenced by cultural differences (Jogulu, 2010).These variations in culture were expected to affect the definition and perception of transformational leadership style in different contexts and affect the relationships in different studies.However, it appears that the leadership style was appropriately applied based on the cultural interpretation and cognisance of workforce diversity as noted by Jogulu ( 2010) that resulted in its effectiveness in all settings.

How Transformational Leadership Style Improves Nursing Job Satisfaction
The dimensions of transformational leadership that were evaluated in S1 -S3 and S7 -S8 could be responsible for the increased nurse job satisfaction.Improvement of nurse job satisfaction by transformational leadership could be attributed to Bass's (1985) explanation that transformational leaders tend to encourage critical thinking and creativity among their followers that act as motivators to get more involved in work resulting in a greater degree of satisfaction with work and organisational commitment.
The strongest relationship between inspirational motivation and job satisfaction was found in S1 and S7.As noted in S1, leaders who demonstrate this characteristic develop vision and values team spirit as well as individual autonomy that promote job satisfaction.S8 also noted that inspiring a shared vision influences job satisfaction of staff nurses by giving a clear vision and mission of the organisation as well as showing interest in the vision.Nurses will, therefore, easily understand the goals of their organisations making it easier for them to implement the required processes.This is consistent with Avolio's (2011) arguments that inspirational motivation is associated with a clear articulation of vision, support for goal achievement and responses and simplification of complex issues.Moreover, inspirational leaders encourage their followers to observe moral values in their work that comes with increased responsibility and subsequent satisfaction as postulated by Herzberg's theory (Herzberg, 1974;Bass and Rigio, 2006).
On the other hand, idealised influence instils pride and faith to overcome challenges and question status quo; thus, enabling nurses to face their work with courage and confidence resulting in job satisfaction (Bass and Rigio, 2006).It was, therefore, surprising that S3 found a negative, though an insignificant relationship between this attribute and job satisfaction.A probable explanation for this relationship is that a demonstration of too much charisma could derail rather than increase the confidence of the followers to make well-informed decisions and take action.
S1, S3 and S7 demonstrated a positive effect for individual consideration and profession support on job satisfaction.Schwartz et al. (2011) similarly observed that individualised consideration was key to responding to the needs of the staff nurses, appreciating their contributions, and creating a supportive environment for growth and self-fulfilment.Praise and recognition are facets of individualised consideration and intrinsic factors of job satisfaction that can improve job satisfaction (Herzberg et al., 2008).As noted by Baggett et al. (2016), recognition and support among other outcomes such as safety, trust, respect, teamwork, collaboration, and autonomy are caring behaviours that result from nurses feeling cared for.Athey et al. (2016) also found work autonomy to be a strong predictor of job satisfaction as increased autonomy allows nurse practitioners to fully utilise their skills and explore full potential that comes with satisfaction.
For intellectual stimulation, leaders who demonstrate this attribute encourage creativity among their followers and involve them in critical decision-making and problem-solving processes (Avolio et al., 1999;Bass and Riggio, 2006).Similarly, the satisfaction of staff nurses with their job could be attributed to the feeling of participation in making not only patient-related decisions but also contributing to the running of the organisation.Masood and Afsar (2017) also noted that intellectual stimulation could also result in innovation through psychological empowerment, intrinsic motivation and knowledge sharing.As a result, S3 finding that intellectual motivation was negatively related to job satisfaction could be due to uncertainties and doubts from facts that should otherwise promote creativity and reasoning.
In overall, transformational attributes are in line with McGregor's (1960) Theory Y Philosophy of Management.In this theory, Douglas McGregor proposed that leaders who hold Theory Y beliefs allow their followers to work without constant supervision as they see their work as motivating and rewarding.Moreover, these leaders involve their followers in decision-making processes.As a result, the employees become committed in their work and tend to be self-directed and creative in achieving organisational goals.Therefore, the major function of Theory Y leaders is to provide support including favourable work environment by removing obstacles, providing guidance and encouraging growth to their subordinates.This is further supported by the findings of Pastor and Mayo (2006) that transformational leadership was positively associated with stronger beliefs of Theory Y. Hence, these attributes will improve intrinsic and extrinsic factors affecting for job satisfaction.
Transactional leadership style similarly improved job satisfaction through its attributes.In S7, contingent reward had the greatest extrinsic satisfaction.Gitinane (2013) noted that transactional leaders usually use it in exchange for performance.It seems that it is the expected benefits of transactional leadership style that leads to job satisfaction.In overall, transactional leadership could be as effective as transformational style, but the best outcomes could be realised when both styles are combined (Casida and Parker, 2011;Aboshaiqah et al., 2014).

Empowerment and Workplace Support Mediated the Relationship Between Transformational Leadership and Nurses' Job Satisfaction
S5 and S6 identified empowerment and workplace support to play mediating role in transformational leadership and nurse job satisfaction relationships.The empowered staff nurses are motivated to accomplish tasks and goals resulting in job satisfaction similarly to the systematic review findings by Cicolini et al. (2015) that showed positive relationship between empowerment and nurses' job satisfaction.The authors noted that there are two types of empowerment -structural and psychological -that affect job satisfaction differently with structural empowerment leading to psychological empowerment that in turn leads to job satisfaction.On the other hand, Attari (2013) noted that transformational leadership affects nurse psychological empowerment and its dimensions related to the meaning of the work, competence required to do the job, autonomy and control over the work.This psychological empowerment has been found to independently lead to job satisfaction (Ouyang et al., 2015).Therefore, it can mediate the impact of transformational leadership on nursing job satisfaction or enhance job satisfaction independently as noted in S5.
Despite these findings, nurse empowerment can also be affected by a range of factors, such as education and training.Rashed and eldeen Fekry (2015) found a positive relationship between empowerment and high level of education and staff experience.As a result, providing the nurses with empowering opportunities like advanced education and training can significantly improve their job satisfaction level.However, empowerment might not be productive as envisioned by theorist Rosabeth Kanter who stated that staff empowerment with resources and training is required for efficient performance (Kanter, 1979).On the contrary, empowered staff nurses may abuse their elevated status due to increased authority and autonomy leading to a power struggle with the management.
Workplace support and professional support are also positively correlated with job satisfaction as demonstrated in S6.As noted by (Higgins, 2015), supportive practice environments due to transformational leadership can improve job satisfaction of nurses and result in better patient outcomes.Nevertheless, the support observed in S6 could be attributed to the stressful hospital environment in which the study was conducted that makes staff nurses to prefer supportive leaders leading to job satisfaction.The path gaol theory of leader effectiveness developed by Robert House in 1971 postulated that a leader's role is to clarify the path towards the goal, eliminate roadblocks and increase rewards along the way (House, 1971).Supportive leaders also strive to create friendly environment and increase surbodinates' self-esteem; hence the most preferred in stressful, boring and hazardous work settings like hospital nursing units (House, 1971).

Nurses Perceived Transformational
Leadership to be More Acceptable Compared to Other Leadership Styles S1 found that nurses perceived their nurse managers to demonstrate transformational leadership style more than other styles, including transactional and passive-avoidant.S2 also found that staff nurses viewed their managers to practice transformational rather than transactional leadership.It appears nursing staff perceives their leaders to use transformational leadership style, to a greater extent as observed by Andrews et al. (2012) and Aboshaiqah et al. (2014).Compared to other forms, transformational leadership was perceived to be more acceptable due to its positive correlation with job satisfaction.The contrasting finding of S4 that staff nurses did not perceive their nurse managers to possess any of the leadership styles is surprising considering there is leadership at every institution.
Nevertheless, Avolio et al. (1999) noted that leaders tend to demonstrate more than one leadership style.Consistent with this argument, Casida and Parker (2011) found contingent rewards of transactional leadership to be frequently used with transformational leadership to improve nurse and organisational outcomes.
One particular challenge with these findings is that they were perceptions that can be influenced by several factors.For instance, S1 found that government hospital nurses reported higher transformational leadership than their private counterparts.This could be attributed to setting differences that dictate management policies and conditions of work and engagement between nurse managers and staff nurses.It appears that working unit also influences the type of leadership style with S3 finding that head nurses in critical care units used transactional leadership more than transformational.Aboshaiqah et al. (2014) similarly found that transactional leadership style is more likely to be used by nurse supervisors in critical and special care units as opposed to transformation style frequently used in general care units.The possible explanation for this is that transactional trait could be effective in addressing the complex needs of patients in critical care areas with a high tendency of errors.
Of great influence are the demographic variables such as working years found in S4 to correlate with transformational and transactional leadership styles.For instance, Alghamdi et al. ( 2017) found the perception of nurse managers' leadership style to vary with their gender whereby male managers were perceived to demonstrate higher transformational leadership attributes than female managers.However, the authors the instruments of measuring perceived transformational leadership behaviours of the nurse managers may not accurately and reliably used in Saudi Arabia as they were developed based on samples of the United States nurses with different gender roles compared to Saudi nurses.Contrarily, Eneh et al. ( 2012) did not find any influence of background or demographic variables of staff nurses on their perceptions of nursing leadership practices complicating the interpretations of these relationships.

Problematic Nature of 'Evidence' and its Collection, Collation, and Interpretation
The presented evidence is associated with challenges related to the contextual application as well as the methods that were used to collect, collate and interpret it.Apart from S1, the rest of the studies were based on a theoretical framework of full range leadership theory that may be affected by the study setting and different interpretation of leadership style.The use of questionnaires to collect data on specific outcomes limits the freedom of the participants to give adequate information regarding the topic under investigation.This affects the reliability of the collected data.Moreover, the use of English language in non-English settings may hinder the participation of choosing leaders, and the varying analytical variables for analysis in different studies affect the analytical approach in individual studies and their outcomes.

Identification of Gaps in the Evidence
There are pertinent issues related to the evidence presented in this critical appraisal.Most of the studies were conducted in different cultural contexts that may not be applicable to the Saudi hospitals.The perceptions and interpretations of leadership styles also vary with individuals as well as culture, making it difficult to obtain conclusive results.For instance, S2 focused on Saudi nurses only to make its conclusions yet expatriates might have different perceptions and it is conducted in public hospitals only yet private and military hospitals could have different administration experiences.Even though majority the of the nurses perceived their leaders to use transformational style, Eneh et al. ( 2012) noted that perceptions are personal opinions that are subjective and difficult to measure.The participation of nursing leaders is also necessary to help in formulating a favourable work environment that allows full utilisation of potential and improving nursing care.The evidence could also be affected by the bias of the included studies as they mainly involved cross-sectional designs that do not show cause and effect relationships

Implications for Practice, Management, Education, and Future Research
Practice: All the studies acknowledge that nursing leadership styles are related to job satisfaction and nursing retention with transformational leadership being the most effective style.It results in several benefits such as intention to stay, improved organisational commitment, and general health status that lead to better nurse and patient outcomes.These findings imply that nurses' job satisfaction that is can be improved by transformational leadership is critical for better outcomes.As a result, nurse leaders should develop systems to monitor, assess, address, and evaluate the specifics of the nurses' work and their work environment and collaborate with them in a mutually-supportive and transparent manner to sustain subordinate job satisfaction.
Health management: The hospital management or administrators should focus on effective support and training programmes and life coaching methods such as Belbin role assessment, individual coaching, group session and working with other nursing degrees to provide their nurse managers with effective leadership skills such as transformational leadership (Williamson, 2008).
Moreover, this appraisal is critical to the implementation of Saudisation policy whereby effective nursing leadership, such as transformational leadership could be used by Saudi hospital managers or administrators as a potent intervention for enhancing nursing job satisfaction.However, a lot of caution is required when replacing the experienced non-Saudi nurse managers who mainly practice transformational leadership style with the less experienced Saudi predominantly using passive laissez-faire leadership style (Alshammari, 2014).
Emphasis should also be placed on innovation to facilitate engagement between nurse managers and staff nurses and increase effective supervision to achieve the organisational goals and improve nurse job satisfaction.A clear hospital vision and mission and nurse empowerment will not only increase job satisfaction among nurses but also leads to role model nurse managers who inspire and instil trust and confidence in their followers to transform and become transformational leaders.
Education: Transformational leadership concepts can be included in the in-service education programmes and leadership training for nurse managers conducted within or outside academic settings (Casida & Parker, 2011).
Future research: Due to the dearth of information on the cultural influence on transformational leadership style and job satisfaction, future studies should investigate the effects of cultural beliefs and practices in leadership styles and nursing job satisfaction as well as other factors that contribute to transformational leadership in the hospital organisations.This would help to identify the potential barriers to developing transformational nurse leaders or managers.It is also clearly evident that most of the previous research has targeted staff nurses while evaluating job satisfaction associated with transformational leadership style, leaving out nurse managers, nurse administrators and nurse educators who play a significant role in nursing education and practice.Future research should, therefore, include this target population to allow comparison from the leader-follower perspective.

Comments
This paper evaluated the outcomes exhaustively making it very important for discussion in this research.The high reliability of MSQ also makes the study reliable for use in this research.However, the authors used English language for questionnaire, but ethically same language should be used to keep it clear for respondents.This study through understanding methodology process used cross sectional and descriptive and not mention by authors.Transformational leadership dimensions were positively correlated with intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction with inspirational motivation having the strongest relationship.
Contingent reward and management by-exception (active) of transactional leadership had a similar but weak correlation while passive and laissez-faire style had a negative relationship.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.PRISMA Flow Diagram for Study Selection Process

Table 1 . Hits from the databases Database Number of hits with unlimited database
Table 1 below gives a summary of the number of hits obtained from the individual database search.

Table 2 .
Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

Table 3 .
Included Study Symbols Do staff nurse perceptions of nurse leadership behaviors influence staff nurse job satisfaction?The case of a hospital applying for Magnet® designation.S4 Choi et al. (2016) Transformational leadership, empowerment, and job satisfaction: the mediating role of employee empowerment.S5 Lin et al. (2015) The influences of nursing transformational leadership style on the quality of nurses' working lives in Taiwan: a cross-sectional quantitative study.S6 Nequssie and Demissie (2017) Relationship between leadership styles of nurse managers and nurses' job satisfaction in Jimma University Specialized Hospital.S7 Wang et al. (2012) Transformational leadership: Effect on the job satisfaction of Registered Nurses in a hospital in China.S8

Table 4 .
Quality assessment