Leadership styles among leaders of urban and rural healthcare organizations

Abstract

Background: This study investigated leadership styles in urban and rural Mongolian healthcare organizations, focusing on transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire behaviors, against the backdrop of Mongolia’s unique socio-economic and geographic context. Despite the lack of significant disparities, this research underscores the importance of considering local contextual factors in leadership practices. It contributes to the leadership literature by highlighting the consistent leadership dynamics across Mongolia and calls for further studies to examine additional factors affecting leadership effectiveness. Such insights are vital for developing strategies to improve healthcare leadership and outcomes in Mongolia. Aim: The purpose of this study is to compare and contrast the leadership styles of Mongolian healthcare organisations’ managers in urban and rural areas. Materials and Methods: This study conducted by a cross-sectional method and included leaders from the healthcare organisations in Ulaanbaatar and rural areas. Data was collected using the MLQ-360 questionnaire to determine 3 styles of transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership, and statistical processing was performed using SPSS 26.0 software. Results: A total of 110 leaders from 14 urban and rural healthcare organisations were included in the study, 24.5% of the participants were male and 75.5% were female participants. The mean age of the participants were 40.6 (±9), and the mean working year was 9.0 (±8.4). The mean score of the 5 factors of transformational leadership of the leaders was 2.97±0.59, which was similar in urban and rural areas. The mean score for transactional leadership was 2.6±0.55, indicating that this style was practiced “sometimes” and “frequently”. One of the main indicators of laissez-faire leadership is the frequency with which a leader avoids responsibility, which is “fairly often” and “sometimes” and is similar across regions and genders. Conclusion: Although there are differences in leadership styles among leaders of healthcare organisations in urban and rural areas, there is no statistically significant difference between region and gender.