Development of an Instrument to Measure Leadership Excellence

The study focused on developing an instrument to measure leadership excellence. There is a need to see leadership excellence globally, but in Uganda or East Africa particularly, there were no assessment tools developed to measure this construct (Cooper, Strateg Leadersh 29(4):15–20, 2001; Dorfman et al., J World Bus 47(4):504–518, 2012; Gutterman, A. S., Organizational management and administration: A guide for managers and professionals. Thomson Reuters/West, 2009). Leadership excellence was defined as being a result of exceptional performance in four dimensions: personal qualities of a leader, managerial behaviors of a leader, organizational demands, and environmental influences (Selvarajah et al. Leadersh Org Dev J, 34(8), 784–804, 2013; Kanji and Moura E Sá, Total Qual Manag 12(6):701–718, 2001). DeVellis (Scale development: Theory and applications (2nd ed). Sage, 2003; Scale development: Theory and application (4th ed). 2017) eight steps toward scale development were followed in developing the instrument. A literature review was conducted, out of which 111 items were generated from all the articles reviewed. The items were later administered to a panel of experts, after whose review they were reduced to 87 items. An online survey with a five-point scale was created and administered to 530 participants, who, based on their leadership experiences/encounters, scored the items according to the extent to which they described leadership excellence. The sample size was in alignment with DeVellis’ (2003) recommendation of a minimum of 300 participants to scale development. Factor analysis was conducted on 406 participant results after cleaning the data and a two-factor model merged, accounting for 66% of the variance. Factor optimization resulted in a two-scale instrument; the two scales were labeled leader qualities and leadership behavior. The process generated six items per scale of the Leadership Excellence Instrument (LEI) with Cronbach’s alpha of 0.947 and 0.949 for each scale respectively. LEI can be used in hiring, organizational development, and future research to inform how leadership excellence may be assessed in various settings and cultures.