Aim: To test the relationships among staff nurses' work engagement, nurse managers' ambidextrous leadership and staff nurses' clinical leadership and workload.
Design: A multicentre cross-sectional survey design was used.
Methods: The study was conducted in eight medical centres from six representative provinces of China in October 2019. The participants completed electronic questionnaires that measured ambidextrous leadership, clinical nurse leadership, workload and work engagement. We used structural equation modelling to test a hypothetical model.
Results: The hypothetical model had a good fit to the actual data. Ambidextrous leadership was positively associated with clinical nurse leadership and work engagement, and clinical nurse leadership had a significant positive relationship with work engagement, which partially mediated the path from ambidextrous leadership to work engagement. In addition, workload moderated the relationship between ambidextrous leadership and clinical nurse leadership.
Conclusion: This study makes a timely contribution to the nursing literature by demonstrating that nurse managers' ambidextrous leadership and clinical nurse leadership are important determinants of work engagement. Improving the level of ambidextrous leadership and clinical nurse leadership helps to enhance work engagement.
Impact: This study provides a new strategy to increase nurses' work engagement from a new perspective of nursing leadership. Enhancing nurse managers' ambidextrous leadership and clinical nurse leadership can increase work engagement. Nurse managers should value the role of ambidextrous leadership and clinical nurse leadership in promoting work engagement, especially when nurses perceive they have a low workload.
Keywords: ambidextrous leadership; clinical nurse leadership; nurses; work engagement; workload.
© 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.