A Method of Assessing Leadership Effectiveness - Wiley Online Library

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reth, Machiavelli, Moses, Napoleon, Nixon, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt”. (Reeves, 2004 ...... Assessing educational leaders. thousand oaks, ca: corwin Press.
P e r f o r m a n c e I m p r o v e m e n t Q u a r t e r l y , 1 9 ( 1 ) pp . 2 5 - 4 0

A Method of Assessing Leadership Effectiveness

Introducing the Essential Behavioral Leadership Qualities Approach A. Olu Oyinlade

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he purpose of this study is to present a new Assessing the effectiveness of a leader is often a difficult exercise for method for assessing the effectiveness of a many organizations. This is usually leader. because most assessment procedures Scholars (such as Stogdill, 1974; Katz & Kahn, 1978; are influenced by organizational poliYukl, 1981) have defined and explained leadership in tics, they are not standard based, and the items on which a leader is assessed various ways based on their interests and concerns. are undefined or poorly defined. Stogdill (1974), claimed that, perhaps, there were as This study presents the Essential many definitions of leadership as there were scholars, Behavioral Leadership Qualities (EBLQ) and Bennis and Nanus (1985) claimed that researchers approach for assessing leadership effectiveness as an alternative method had defined leadership in over 350 different ways in the to commonly used assessment pro30 years prior to 1985. Also, Conger (1992) indicated cedures. Among other assumptions, that “leadership is largely an intuitive concept for which the EBLQ method is built on the there can never be a single agreed-upon definition” (p. assumptions that a leader should be evaluated on clearly defined behav17). However, central to the various definitions is the ioral qualities and his/her effectiverecurring theme that leadership involves the use of nonness rating should be standard based. coercive influences to coordinate the activities of group Hence, the EBLQ method measures members toward the accomplishment of group goals the effectiveness of a leader against the essentiality levels of behav(Oyinlade, Gellhaus, & Darboe, 2003). iors deemed necessary for effective Just as scholars have defined leadership in different leadership. Leadership effectiveness ways, they equally vary in their perceptions of the facis determined for each leadership tors of effective leadership. The leader traits theory that behavior and for overall leadership performance. dominated leadership literature in the 1930s explained The EBLQ method was demonleadership effectiveness by the natural characterisstrated in the assessment of the leadtics and abilities (such as superior intelligence, good ership effectiveness of the principals memory, bountiful energy, persuasiveness, etc.) of the of schools for students who are blind or visually impaired. leader (Steers, Porter, & Bigley, 1996). Notable leaders that have been affiliated with this theory include “Attila the Hun, Catherine the Great, Alexander the Great, Winston Churchill, George Washington, Queen Elizabeth I, Jesus of Nazareth, Machiavelli, Moses, Napoleon, Nixon, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt” (Reeves, 2004, p. 8). It was, however, discovered that this theory lacked predictive power in linking leadership traits to performance (see Stogdill, 1948), hence, by the late 1940s and early 1950s, the leader behavior theories which explained leadership effectiveness by leader behaviors, instead of natural traits, was introduced to provide a new perspective in understanding leadership effectiveness (Steers et al., 1996). Now, post industrialization perspective on leadership is primarily action oriented, placing leadership Volume 19, Number 1 / 2006

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emphasis on the interaction between multiple behavioral factors that occur within the leadership process (Rost, 1991). Regardless of the perspective on leadership to which one may subscribe, measuring leadership effectiveness in meaningful and useful ways often prove to be a difficult exercise, and very often, the exercise is a resounding failure (Schellhardt, 1996; Smith, Hornsby, & Shirmeyer, 1996). Worse still, as indicated by Hogan and Hogan (2001) very few empirical literature on how to measure leadership effectiveness exist, therefore creating a dearth of empirical resources for scholars and leadership practitioners interested in studying approaches to measuring leadership effectiveness. Available studies on the assessment of leadership effectiveness include, but are not limited to, Stogdill (1948), Bray and Howard (1983), and Bentz (1985). One common factor among these studies is that individual researcher’s definition or theory of leadership was the most determining factor of what was assessed. When a researcher defines leadership in terms of certain behaviors, only those behaviors are assessed while other behaviors of the leader are typically not assessed (Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy, 1999). Examples of what had been assessed in the past by other scholars include leader’s behaviors (Hazucha, 1992; Komacki, 1986), charisma and rhetorical skills (Shamir, Arthur, & House, 1994; Bass & Yammarino, 1988) intelligence levels (Lord, DeVader, & Allinger, 1986), and personality traits (Hogan, Curphy, & Hogan, 1994). This shows that leadership effectiveness is a relative decision based on definition and assessed characteristics. Another factor that makes the assessment of good leadership effectiveness difficult is organizational politics and fear of potential backlash from giving negative feedback to a superior (Heck, Johnsrad, & Roser, 2000). As expressed by Guinn (1996), giving a superior, especially an executive, negative feedback can be a career-limiting move. This is especially true when the evaluation of the leader is tied to decisions for such things as promotion, raise, contract renewal and other positive or negative job conditions (Heck et al., 2000). In addition to organizational politics, leadership expectations are often ambiguous, contradictory, and undefined or poorly defined (Reeves, 2004). Given these conditions, most executives get virtually no regular performance feedback, other than superficial praise or criticism (Longenecker, 1992). They “seldom get the kind of feedback that can enable them to change the behaviors that everyone whispers about behind their backs…the result is that the organization limps on being less than its potential, or the inevitable crisis arises and the executive derails” (Guinn, 1996, p. 9). In determining what is assessed, Hughes et al. (1999) indicated that many organizations use a competence model whereby frequently assessed behaviors crystallized into a set of skills and behaviors in which a leader must excel to be effective. Usually, these behaviors are observable, they require no references, assumptions or interpretations, and they include definitions and behavioral indicators that describe each behavior in action (Guinn, 1996). Literature on the competence model indicates that 26

Performance Improvement Quarterly

a competence is a way of behaving or thinking across situations (Guion, 1991), and it is an “underlying characteristic of an individual that is causally related to criterion-referenced effective and/or superior performance in a job situation” (Spencer & Spencer, 1993, p. 9). Competence items for effective leadership have included a leader’s ability to motivate others, to provide support for subordinates, to listen well, to have knowledge of his/her organization, to have vision, to have good interpersonal skills, to be able to resolve conflicts, to have knowledge of the law, to be able to establish directions for others, as well as align people toward common directions (Spencer & Spencer, 1993; Conger, 1992; Kotter, 1990). Other characteristics (for effective leadership) have included a leader’s ability to be a strategic opportunist, being globally adept, being a keen data analyst, having the ability to lead across organizational boundaries, being a community builder, having sensitivity to …most executives get diversity issues, having the ability to develop leaders virtually no regular in his/her subordinates, and having good communicaperformance feedback, tion skills (Conger & Benjamin, 1999). other than superficial Competency models, hence, help to determine what is assessed, as well as carry significant implicapraise or criticism tions for rewards and punishments within an organiza(Longenecker, 1992). tion (Hughes et al., 1999). The model can be used to They “seldom get the determine who is promoted, demoted, trained, and kind of feedback that can so forth. One major advantage of the competence enable them to change the model is that it helps to keep congruity between what behaviors that everyone is assessed and the behaviors expected of a leader for effectiveness, so that there is no misalignment between whispers about behind skills and behaviors that are evaluated and those that their backs…” are necessary for leadership effectiveness (Hughes et al., 1999). To arrest the problem of undefined or poorly defined leadership standards, Reeves (2004) expressed that a good leadership effectiveness method should be standard based—based on clear standards or specified objective standards. “Without standards, evaluations are constantly subject to the shifting standards of relative performance rather than the bedrock of clear, fair, and immutable standards” (p. 21). Standard based evaluations avoid the fallacy of false complacence and inaccurate disparagement found in non-standard based systems where performance is based on relative comparison of one leader’s performance against another. In false complacency, a non-effective leader is reassured because he is better than another leader. Here ineffectiveness can be rewarded simply because one is better than another. In inaccurate disparagement, an effective leader can be (is) labeled as ineffective or insufficiently effective because another leader is more effective. In addition to having clear standards, an evaluation method for measuring leadership effectiveness should be designed such that both the evaluator and the person being evaluated have a common and clear understanding of the difference between various levels of performance (Reeves, 2004). Volume 19, Number 1 / 2006

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The impact of leadership can be measured on both the organization and on the leader’s subordinates. The impact of leadership on an organization mostly focuses on the organization’s bottom line, such as unit sales, profit margins, number of students graduated, amount of money raised, increase in productivity, and win-loss record, while the impact of leadership on subordinates usually focuses on subordinates’ job satisfaction (Hughes et al., 1999). Measuring leadership effectiveness through unit performance and employee satisfaction, may, however, be riddled with problems. For example, a leader’s unit performance can be affected by many factors beyond the leader’s control. A period of economic recession, for example, can cause poor sales, while sales may be high during periods of economic boom and lower interest rates without much strategic efforts by the leader (Hughes et al., 1999). The impact of leadership on the subordinate is most commonly measured by the leader’s superior, using a specified assessment instrument which often focuses on rating the leader on several leadership domains such as integrity, administrative skills and communication. However, such assessment often fails to reflect the true impact of a leader on his/her followers. As indicated by Hughes et al. (1999): Sometimes, superiors do not take the time to provide accurate and comprehensive performance appraisal ratings; at other times, superiors may be largely unaware of, or unfamiliar with a target leader’s performance...also…some superiors have difficulties dealing with conflict and would rather give average ratings than have to deal with the emotions and distress associated with unflattering rating. (p. 120) In some situations, superior’s ratings may also reflect the impact of strategic sucking-up by a leader to his/her superiors. In addition, subordinates may rate a leader as effective simply because the leader did not make them work hard, or the leader may be rated ineffective if he/she makes the subordinates work too hard (Hughes et al., 1999). Given the flaws in various assessment processes, Hughes et al. (1999) stated that there was no one perfect or best method of assessing leadership effectiveness. They (the authors), however, still proclaimed that, “if leadership is defined partly in the eyes of the followers, then perhaps a better way to judge leadership success is to ask subordinates to rate their level of satisfaction or the effectiveness of their leader” (Hughes et al., 1999, p. 120). Except for conducting a real-time assessment through direct observational method, surveying subordinates’ opinion on leadership effectiveness is the most capable way of telling the direct impact of leadership on subordinates’ levels of job satisfaction.

Purpose The purpose of this present study is to develop a new method for measuring leadership effectiveness, by building on some of the assessment char28

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acteristics (such as competence model and standards) already explained in existing literature, to produce an evaluation system that will be meaningful, constructive and instructive to both the evaluator and the evaluated. This method, the Essential Behavioral Leadership Qualities (EBLQ) approach, is rooted in the principles of the leader behavior theories which emphasize action orientation to leadership, and on the competence model, which indicates that for effective leadership, a leader would need to excel at certain specific behaviors. These behaviors are systematically determined by people who are familiar with the leader’s roles in his/her specific organization. Such people may include the leader (and his/her peers) and the leader’s subordinates who are most likely to be very familiar with the expected leadership behaviors of the leader. Such people may or may not include the leader’s supervisor, depending on the extent to which the supervisor is accurately familiar with the details of the …the Essential Behavioral leader’s everyday activities. The specific assumptions Leadership Qualities underpinning the EBLQ approach are as follows:

(EBLQ) approach, is rooted

in the principles of the 1. Leadership behaviors rather than natural traits determine leadership outcomes. leader behavior theories 2. A good evaluation system should be effective which emphasize action in coaching. The system should be capable, orientation to leadership, in systematic ways, of indicating the areas of and on the competence leadership in which a leader is doing well and model, which indicates that those areas where the leader may need improvefor effective leadership, ment. 3. Competency model: Relative to the job situaa leader would need to tion, a leader ought to be competent in certain excel at certain specific skills and behaviors to be successful. Those skills behaviors. and behaviors are termed essential behavioral leadership qualities (EBLQ), and the assessment of a leader’s effectiveness should be based solely on these qualities. 4. Decisions about EBLQ to assess are to be made by a select group (called judges) of the leader’s subordinates and others with adequate knowledge of the leader’s roles. 5. The best way to assess the effectiveness of a leader is through the perceptions of his/her followers. The most direct impact of leadership behaviors is upon subordinates, hence, the subordinates are best positioned to indicate leadership impact on themselves. The subordinates provide the most direct looking-glass for leadership feedback. 6. Effectiveness of a leader is best determined based on relative essentiality of the EBLQ items being measured. That is, the evaluation of a leader on EBLQ items must be compared to the extent to which the items are assessed to be essential for effective leadership. Details of the elements and procedure of the EBLQ method are contained in the following case study of leadership effectiveness of the principals of the schools for students who are blind or visually impaired. Volume 19, Number 1 / 2006

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Case Study The Essential Behavioral Leadership Qualities (EBLQ) approach was used to determine the effectiveness of the principals of the schools for students who are blind and visually impaired. This population of school leaders was chosen for this case study because effective leadership is important to them as it is for other organizations, and leadership effectiveness in these schools has not been widely studied. A sample of principals in several schools, rather than just one school, was studied to conceal the identity of the principals because there is only one school of the blind in each state in the country. The following is a step-by-step description of the assessment process, using the EBLQ method, in four stages. Stage I: Instrument Design This is the beginning stage of the competence model. At this stage, judges were used to provide basic information that was used to construct two leadership effectiveness evaluation scales. The following is a full description of this stage as conducted in the case study. Borrowing from studies by Oyinlade et al. (2003) and Oyinlade and Gellhaus (2005), ten professionals in the field of visual impairment (four principals, four teachers and two superintendents) from ten different states were selected, through availability sampling, to serve as judges for the construction of two questionnaire scales used for data collection on leadership effectiveness of the principals. Each judge described, in open-ended format on separate forms, the behavioral qualities he/she perceived to be essential for effective leadership for a principal at the schools for students with visual impairments. Their responses were summarized, coded and analyzed for frequency. All items with a minimum frequency of five (cited by at least 50% of the judges) were deemed acceptable for inclusion in the effectiveness scales. This process yielded 18 essential behavioral items which were operationalized (see below) from the general descriptions and narratives used by the judges. These items and their accompanying definitions were used to construct one seven-point (extremely unessential, very unessential, unessential, somewhat essential, essential, very essential, extremely essential), Likert-type scale of essential characteristics for effective leadership. The higher the value obtained on an item, the greater the essentiality of the item for effective leadership of the principals. The 18 behavioral items were also used to construct a second scale which requested respondents to rate their principals on a range from 1 (low) to 7 (high) on how they (respondents) perceived their principals to be performing effectively, on each of the 18 items of essential leadership behaviors. Validity and Reliability Validity was obtained through two measures: 1. Face Validity—was used to ensure that all the EBLQ items were logical and conceptually valid in measuring effective leadership. Two conditions sufficiently helped to establish face validity in this study: comments of the judges who provided the EBLQ items (see Vogt, 1993), and the consistency 30

Performance Improvement Quarterly

Table 1 Factor analysis using principal components factor extraction method, 75% variance extraction rule and orthotran/varimax transformation method

Oblique Solution Reference Structure Factor 1

Factor 2

Factor 3

Factor 4

Sampling Adequacy

Good listening skills

.822

-.166

-.240

.056

.982

Good presentation skills

.732

-.074

.193

.528

.946

EBLQ Items

Participative decision-making style

.813

-.275

.010

-.175

.963

Motivation

.774

-.329

-.021

.156

.961

Honesty and good ethics

.834

-.006

-.297

-.065

.969

Organizational Knowledge

.764

-.368

-.186

.037

.961

Good interpersonal skills

.808

-.350

-.166

.197

.938

Fiscal efficiency

.789

-.332

.100

.017

.965

Knowledge of policies

.687

-.542

-.132

-.044

.917

Vision for the future

.841

-.221

.140

.020

.955

Delegating authority

.705

-.208

.367

-.394

.951

Providing support

.871

-.211

.082

-.160

.960

Fairness

.868

-.176

-.247

-.090

.957

Courage and firmness

.807

.117

.201

-.011

.974

Creativity

.822

-.051

.298

.149

.962

Hardworking

.807

.305

-.036

-.022

.960

Good prioritization skills

.841

.001

.043

-.105

.961

Problem resolution skills

.886

.044

.107

-.048

.971

Total matrix sampling adequacy

.959

Factor Analysis Summary: Number of items=18 Number of factors=4 Number of cases=238 Number missing=23 Degree of Freedom=170 Bartlett’s Chi Square=4162.485 P-Value