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The empowering leadership questionnaire: the construction and validation of a new scale for measuring leader behaviors
Author(s) -
Arnold Josh A.,
Arad Sharon,
Rhoades Jonathan A.,
Drasgow Fritz
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of organizational behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.938
H-Index - 177
eISSN - 1099-1379
pISSN - 0894-3796
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1099-1379(200005)21:3<249::aid-job10>3.0.co;2-#
Subject(s) - psychology , scale (ratio) , applied psychology , quantum mechanics , physics
This paper describes the construction and empirical evaluation of a new scale for measuring empowering leader behavior. Study One consisted of thorough interviews with external leaders and team members in three organizations. Behaviors elicited in the interviews were classified by researchers into eight categories of leader empowering behavior and the Empowering Leadership Questionnaire (ELQ) was constructed to measure each of these categories. In Study Two, the ELQ was administered to team members and leaders from two organizations. The results indicated that five‐factors (Coaching, Informing, Leading By Example, Showing Concern/Interacting with the Team, and Participative Decision‐Making) adequately describe the data. In Study Three, we cross‐validated the scale in a sample from five organizations and the factor analysis confirmed the five‐factor model. The ELQ dimensions were also compared with behaviors measured by two well‐established measures of leader behavior. The results indicated that the ELQ dimensions partially overlap with previously identified constructs, but that empowering leadership behavior can not be entirely accounted for by the earlier measures. Definitions and implications for the categories of empowering leader behaviors are offered. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.