Background: Exploitative head nurses have a deep inside busy thinking of ways to achieve their
personal goals through their nurses. These challenges create a hostile environment, reduce
motivation, and inhibit work involvement, which may create a feeling of alienation at the
workplace. Aim: This study aimed to assess the influence of head nurses' exploitative leadership
style on nurses' workplace alienation. Design: A descriptive-correlation research design was used.
Setting: This study was conducted at Tanta Main University Hospital in all departments. Subjects:
All nurses (1057) who were working in the previously mentioned settings. Tools: Two tools were
used to collect data: head nurses' exploitative leadership, and a workplace alienation questionnaire.
Results: The study's findings indicated that more than half of the studied nurses had a moderate
perception level of exploitative leadership behaviors and workplace alienation. There were
statistically positive correlations between the overall score of exploitative leadership dimensions
and workplace alienation dimensions, except between under-challenging followers of exploitative
leadership and powerlessness, meaninglessness dimensions, and total workplace alienation.
Conclusion: The study found a strong and positive influence of nurses' perceptions of head nurses'
exploitative leadership behaviors on their feelings of workplace alienation. Recommendations:
Conducting continuous training programs related to new approaches to constructive leadership to
improve professional behaviors as well as annually assessing the perceived level of nurses'
workplace alienation