An Integrative Factor Analysis of Leadership Measures and Theories

Summary

Since the instruments for measuring most of the current leadership models have never been reconciled, it is important that the relationships between them be clearly understood before assumptions of similarity are made. A sample of 103 male working students were given a battery of tests measuring leadership orientations. The tests included role preference and role pressure measures from Sweney's Response to Power Model, the California F Scale, Fiedler's Least Preferred Co-Worker Scale and Assumed Similarity Between Opposites Scale, Costley and Downey's six scales to measure McGregor's “Theory X” and “Theory Y” constructs, modified scales for the Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid, and relevant scales from the 16 PF.

The results were intercorrelated and yielded 11 varimax factors based upon a Guttman criterion, as follows: Authoritarian Role Preference, Authoritarian Role Pressure, Equalitarian Role Preference, Equalitarian Role Pressure, Balanced Manager, People Oriented Manager, Assumed Similarity Between Opposites, Contemptuous Indulgence, Supportive Values, People Tolerance, and Organizational Tolerance. The instruments measuring authoritarianism loaded the first factor in the right direction, but most of them had their primary loadings elsewhere, suggesting greater conceptual complexity to this area than previously recognized.