The Development of a Leader Power Inventory

Area of Science:

• Organizational Psychology
• Leadership Studies
• Measurement Theory

Background:

• Understanding leader power bases is crucial for organizational dynamics.
• Existing measurement tools may lack factorial independence or be susceptible to response biases.
• A robust instrument is needed to accurately differentiate between various leadership power sources.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a new instrument for measuring five distinct bases of leader power.
• To ensure the instrument's subscales are factorially independent.
• To create a reliable and valid tool free from social desirability response set.

Main Methods:

• Iterative item selection based on expert feedback and statistical analysis.
• Factor analyses conducted on data from multiple convenience and random samples (total N = 1,256).
• Validation using national random samples of executives (n = 476) and business students (n = 297).

Main Results:

• The developed instrument demonstrated adequate reliability and validity.
• Factor analysis confirmed the independence of the five subscales measuring coercive, reward, legitimate, expert, and referent power.
• The instrument was found to be free from social desirability response set.

Conclusions:

• The new instrument effectively measures the five bases of leader power with distinct, independent subscales.
• This tool provides a psychometrically sound method for assessing leadership power.
• The findings contribute to more accurate research and practice in leadership and organizational behavior.