Purpose: To examine nursing faculty job satisfaction and their perceptions of nursing deans' and directors' leadership styles, and to explore how the perceptions of leadership styles relate to faculty job satisfaction in Taiwan.
Methods: Descriptive, correlational, and cross-sectional study with self-administered questionnaires. The sample was recruited from 18 nursing programs, and 286 questionnaires were returned.
Results: Faculty perceived that Taiwan's nursing deans and directors showed more transformational than transactional leadership. Taiwan's nursing faculty were moderately satisfied in their jobs, and they were more satisfied with deans or directors who practiced the transactional leadership style of contingent reward and the transformational style of individualized consideration. A style with negative effect was passive management by exception.
Conclusions: Three types of leadership behaviors explained significant variance (21.2%) in faculty job satisfaction in Taiwan, indicating the need for further attention to training and development for effective leadership behaviors.