Conflict of interest: none declared.
Introduction: Employees' job satisfaction and commitment depends upon the leadership style of managers. This study clarifies further the relationships between leadership behaviors of managers and two employees' work-related attitudes-job satisfaction and organizational at public hospitals in Iran. A better understanding of these issues and their relationships can pinpoint better strategies for recruiting, promotion, and training of future hospital managers and employees, particularly in Iran but perhaps in other societies as well.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted using self-administered questionnaires distributed among 814 hospital employees and managers through a stratified random sampling.
Results and discussion: The dominant leadership style of hospital managers was participative style. Hospital employees were moderately satisfied with their jobs and committed to their organization. Salaries, benefits, promotion, contingent rewards, interpersonal relationships and working conditions were the best predictors of job satisfaction among hospitals employees. Leadership, job satisfaction and commitment were closely interrelated. The leadership behavior of managers explained 28% and 20% of the variations in job satisfaction and organizational commitment respectively.
Conclusion: This study clarifies the causal relations of job satisfaction and commitment, and highlights the crucial role of leadership in employees' job satisfaction and commitment. Nevertheless, participative management is not always a good leadership style. Managers should select the best leadership style according to the organizational culture and employees' organizational maturity.
Keywords: Hospital; Job satisfaction; Leadership; Organizational commitment.