Abstract
There is a growing concern about the global nursing shortage, with burnout being themost common reason nurses leave their jobs. Several studies have proposed strategies to
increase nurse retention rates and reduce burnout, with nursing leadership, particularly
authentic leadership, playing a crucial role in impacting this healthcare issue. The
purpose of this dissertation-in-practice (DIP) study was to examine the relationship
between nurses’ burnout experiences, their turnover intentions, and perceptions of their
managers’ authentic leadership practices with the goal of informing retention efforts in
Hawai‘i hospitals. This study employed a non-experimental, cross-sectional, correlational
quantitative design. Three hypotheses were tested using validated instruments: The
Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI) to assess nurses’ burnout, the Turnover Intention
Scale (TIS-6) to measure turnover intentions, and the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire
(ALQ) to measure perceptions of authentic leadership. Based on the findings of this DIP,
the aim of this study is twofold. First, develop a nurse-led educational wellness program
that includes annual burnout assessments to help Hawai‘i hospital nurses prevent and
reduce burnout, guided by the descriptive statistics revealed in the study. Second, create
an authentic leadership training program for managers. This training will provide
benchmarks for managers’ authentic leadership practices and help them develop targeted
strategies to strengthen the balanced processing component of their authentic leadership.
Guided by the study’s results, two strategic solutions are proposed to fulfill these
objectives.
Keywords: Burnout, turnover intentions, authentic leadership