Abstract Background: Understanding the reasons and consequences of leadership styles in ethical dilemmas is fundamental to exploring nurse managers' abilities to influence outcomes for patients and nursing personnel.
Purpose: To explain the associations between different leadership styles, reasons for their application and its consequences when nurse managers make decisions in ethical dilemmas.
Methods: The data were collected between 15 October 2011 and 30 April 2012 by statistically validated questionnaire. The respondents (N = 278) were nurse managers. The data were analysed using SPSS 20.0, calculating Spearman's correlations, the Stepwise Regression and ANOVA.
Results: The reasons for applying different leadership styles in ethical dilemmas include personal characteristics, years in work position, institutional factors, and the professional authority of nurse managers. The applied leadership styles in ethical dilemmas are associated with the consequences regarding the satisfaction of patients,' relatives' and nurse managers' needs.
Conclusions: Nurse managers exhibited leadership styles oriented to maintenance, focussing more on the 'doing the job' than on managing the decision-making in ethical dilemmas.
Keywords: ethical dilemma; leadership; nurse manager.