Development and Validation of the LEADS Scale

LEADS in a Caring Environment has been adopted as the primary leadership framework by the Canadian Health Leadership Network. This study developed and validated a 20-item behaviourally anchored rating scale to assess the twenty LEADS capabilities. Canadian healthcare employees and support staff (N = 156) were asked to rate their managers using the scale and also completed measures of transformational leadership, job-related affective well-being, and intent to stay for validation purposes. Exploratory factor analysis suggested that the scale was best represented by a single factor structure. A shorter five-item scale was also developed and tested based on factor loadings. Internal consistency of both tools was high (α ≥ 0.96) and results supported their criterion validity for predicting turnover intentions and job-related affective well-being and convergent validity with a measure of transformational leadership.