This study was developed to determine the relationship between actual versus desired organizational culture norms and the leader effectiveness of the nurse executive. Two-hundred nurse executives in acute-care hospitals were surveyed. The Kilmann-Saxton Culture Gap Survey was used to measure differences in actual organizational norms and the subject's preferred norms, Hersey and Blanchard's LEAD-Self measured leader effectiveness, and demographic data on both the subject and the organization was collected.

The response rate was 43.8%. Size and type of organization was evenly distributed with size ranging from 150 to 950 beds. Subjects were predominantly female, less than 50 years old, hold a Master's Degree, and have been an executive for at least 10 years. No significant differences were found between actual and desired cultural norm scores. Thus, hypothesis I was rejected. The majority of subjects were found to be effective leaders. Spearman product-moment correlations and analysis of variance revealed few significant correlations between organizational demographics, nurse executive demographics, cultural norm scores, and leader effectiveness. Hypothesis II, that a significant relationship between actual versus desired organizational norm scores and nurse executive effectiveness scores would be proven, was also rejected.

The lack of significant relationships may have been reflective of the nurse executive maintaining an autonomous position within the hospital setting. The hospital can be seen as a vehicle through which nursing provides its product. Thus, the greatest cultural influence on the nurse executive is the profession itself and not the setting. Therefore, the nurse executives of the study are considered effective as nurse leaders and not necessarily organizational leaders.