Leadership & Organization Development Journal

Measuring leader behaviour: evidence for a 'big five' model of leadership

Peter H Langford Cameron B Dougall Louise P Parkes
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Peter H Langford Cameron B Dougall Louise P Parkes , (2017)," Measuring leader behaviour: evidence for a 'big five' model
of leadership ", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 38 Iss 1 pp. -
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Abstract

Purpose

The goal of the study was to provide evidence for a “leadership big five”, a model of

leadership behaviour integrating existing theories of leadership and conceptually aligned with

the most established model of personality, the big five. Such a model provides researchers

and practitioners with a common language to describe leadership behaviour in a field with a

plethora of leadership models. The model also describes a wider range of leadership
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behaviour than other models of leadership, and presents dimensions that correlate with

important organisational outcomes as demonstrated in this study.

Design/methodology/approach

1,186 employees completed the Voice Leadership 360, a survey designed to measure the

leadership big five, collectively rating 193 managers from a range of different sectors and

industries, using a 360-degree survey methodology.

Findings

Confirmatory factor analyses and internal reliability analyses provide evidence for 22 lower-

order factors of leadership behaviour that aggregate into 5 higher-order factors of leadership

aligned with the big five personality descriptors. Further evidence for the validity of the

model is indicated by significant correlations between 360-degree survey ratings and raters’

judgements of leaders’ personality, and significant correlations between 360-degree survey

ratings and both work unit engagement levels and manager reports of work unit performance.

Research limitations/implications

The cross-sectional design is the main limitation of the present study, limiting conclusions

that changes in leadership behaviours will lead to changes in organisational outcomes. The
 2

primary research implications of this study include the support for an integrating model of

leadership behaviour that aligns with a large body of psychological research, as well as the

development of a survey that can be used for future exploration of the model.

Practical implications

Practitioners may use the results of the study to rethink how they develop competency

frameworks and measure leadership behaviour in organisation development contexts. This

broad model of leadership and the familiarity of its dimensions could increase the
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effectiveness of behaviour change interventions, and the presented survey provides a reliable

and valid tool for 360-degree assessments.

Originality/value

The study provides evidence that leadership can be described in a structurally similar way to

human personality. It presents a leadership model that consists of a broader range of

leadership behaviours related to organisational outcomes compared with previous models of

leadership.

Keywords

leadership, 360-degree feedback, psychometrics, leadership big five, validity, employee

engagement
 3

Introduction

In a recent review, Lowe (2015) identified at least 30 different models of leadership. The

sheer number of leadership models available for researchers to study and practitioners to

apply in organisations leads to a number of questions that can impede research and practice.

For example, what new information does a certain model provide over another model? Are

certain models simply presenting the same theories and ideas (or parts thereof) as other

models but using different terminology? The current state of leadership research and practice

is reminiscent of a former time in the research of human personality where research was
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limited by a plethora of models presenting the same ideas using different language. Adopting

a common, empirically-derived language of human personality proved useful for the progress

of human personality research (DeYoung et al, 2007). We propose that such a common

language in leadership research and practice would be similarly useful for researchers and

practitioners to create, disseminate and apply leadership research. The aim of this study was

to propose a common language of leadership called the leadership big five. The leadership

big five is a broad model of leadership integrating several existing leadership models into five

common factors. The leadership big five aligns with the most established, popular and

exhaustive model of human personality, the five-factor model of personality, also known as

the “big five” (McCrae and Costa, 1997). This alignment provides researchers and

practitioners the opportunity to understand leadership behaviour from a new broader

perspective compared to previous models of leadership, and the opportunity to discuss

leadership using a common language.

Leadership big five

There is a lack of consensus regarding exactly what set of behaviours are necessary

for effective leadership. Over the past century, we have seen perceptions of leadership

gradually move from a single factor to a more differentiated set of behaviours, as suggested
 4

in Table 1. The very early days of management research were entirely devoted to the

application of rational efficiency to production and labour (e.g, Fayol, 1949, originally

published in 1916; Taylor, 1911). In the 1920s and 1930s, the human relations movement

highlighted the importance of showing concern for the welfare of workers (Mayo, 1933;

Roethlisberger and Dickson, 1939). The research programs at Ohio State University in the

1950s found two meta-categories labelled “initiating structure” and “consideration” (Stogdill,

1957). Subsequently, Blake et al. (1962) proposed a “managerial grid” which described these

same dimensions of behaviour as “concern for production” and “concern for people”.
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The 1970s saw a growing recognition of the importance of leaders’ ability to manage

change, and researchers began to describe leadership behaviour along two broad dimensions

(Bass, 1985; Conger, 1989; House, 1976): transactional leadership, characterised by the

previously recognised dimensions associated with the rational management of production and

people; and transformational leadership, characterised by creating and communicating an

inspiring mission and vision, setting high standards of performance, and providing

intellectual stimulation to help subordinates become more innovative. As an integration of the

above theories, Yukl (2002) proposed a three-factor model of leadership consisting of task-

oriented behaviours (e.g., planning, and transactional behaviours such as quality-checking

work), relations-oriented behaviours (e.g., transactional behaviours such as recognising

others), and change-oriented behaviours (e.g., transformational behaviours such as

encouraging innovative thinking).

The 1990s saw a rapid rise in the concept of “emotional intelligence” thanks to

researchers such as Salovey and Mayer (1990) and the popular writings of Goleman (1995).

At its broadest level, emotional intelligence has two components: understanding and

influencing other people, and having insight and control over one’s own emotions. The latter

focus upon emotions is also reflected in the recent “positive psychology” movement and its
 5

application in the workplace (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), emphasising the value

of positive emotions and resilience among employees and leaders.

With a plethora of different leadership models, to help progress leadership research

and practice it would be useful to have a broader model of leadership integrating several

different perspectives into one model. Analyses of natural language and personality

questionnaires reveal virtually all descriptors of individual differences in people can be

categorised with the big five factors – extraversion, openness to experience,

conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability (McCrae and Costa, 1997). Given
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the robust empirical support for the big five, it is likely that leadership behaviours are also

likely to fall on these five dimensions. Indeed, as shown in Table 1, while no single model of

leadership conceptually links with all big five dimensions, the broad range of leadership

behaviours is conceptually aligned with all big five personality characteristics. Researchers

have previously examined the relationship between personality traits and leadership (e.g.,

Derue et al, 2011; De Hoogh et al, 2005; Hogan and Hogan, 2001, Judge et al, 2002). Studies

such as Judge et al. (2002) help us understand what personality characteristics might be

related to leadership effectiveness, but they do not provide any conclusive evidence that the

big five is a useful model for the description of leadership behaviour. Given leadership

behaviour is related to a range of different explanatory factors in addition to personality such

as learned skills, group processes, and organisational systems and practices, we propose the

relationship between personality traits and leadership behaviour is a descriptive, rather than a

necessarily explanatory, relationship.

In an effort to develop an integrative model of leadership, in an exploratory study

presented as a conference paper, Author and Author (2008) developed 114 new survey items

describing leadership behaviour, representing the theories identified in Table 1. After

gathering ratings of leaders from 1766 employees, factor analyses reduced the item set to 63
 6

questions that loaded neatly on 22 lower-order factors which in turn could be loaded on 2, 3

or 5 higher-order factors. The two factor solution resembled the “initiating structure” and

“consideration” dimensions of leadership, accounting for 59% of variance in the data. The

three factor solution resembled the “task”, “relations”, and “change” dimensions of

leadership, accounting for 64% of variance. The five factor solution resembled the big five,

and accounted for 72% of variance in the data, supporting the existence and usefulness of the

leadership big five.

The current study builds directly upon Author and Author (2008). In the earlier study,
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three of the 22 lower-order factors were represented by two items each, so an additional three

items were designed with the aim of representing 22 factors each with three items. Moreover,

the previous study was not conducted in an ecologically valid 360-degree feedback setting –

respondents were simply asked to rate a manager in their workplace, with each respondent

choosing a different manager, and the ratings were not reported to the managers being rated.

Given that leadership surveys are commonly used in 360-degree feedback settings, it was

deemed important to examine the refined set of 66 survey items with a methodology that

provided greater ecological validity and practical application. Hence, the current study was

conducted in organisations with multiple ratings from employees of different hierarchical

levels for each manager, and with employees knowing that reports would be returned to the

rated managers. Finally, Author and Author (2008) did not provide evidence for the criterion

and convergent validity of the leadership big five. For the model to be of theoretical and

practical use, it is important to understand whether the behaviours in the model are related to

useful outcomes for organisations, and important to understand whether the behaviours have

relationships with established descriptors of the big five model of personality.

—INSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE—

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Measuring the leadership big five: Evidence for the reliability and validity of previous

360-degree feedback surveys

For the leadership big five to have implications for practice and research it is important to be

able to reliably and validly measure the leadership big five in a manner likely to be applied

by managers and researchers, such as with a survey that can be effectively implemented using

a 360-degree feedback methodology. We review the validity of existing surveys and studies
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here to understand how best to test the validity of the leadership survey presented in this

paper. When 360-degree feedback surveys are developed, practical relevance often tends to

be prioritised over methodological rigour, a common concern in industrial-organisational

psychology (Anderson et al, 2001). For example, researchers tend to report reliability

coefficients (e.g., Garman et al, 2003; Church, 2000; Kets de Vries et al, 2004; Lelliott et al,

2008; Redeker et al, 2014), or the dimensionality or factor structure of 360-degree feedback

surveys (e.g., Kets de Vries et al, 2004; Lelliott et al, 2008; Redeker et al, 2014). However,

evidence that survey scores can predict business relevant criterion measures is rare, which is

problematic because it is important to know whether changes in ratings of leadership

behaviour will result in improvements in practically important business outcomes (Atkins and

Wood, 2002).

The few studies that have provided evidence for the criterion validity of 360-degree

feedback surveys have been limited in several ways. First, often the people completing the

criterion measures are the same people giving 360-degree feedback ratings at the same time

(e.g., Anderson, 2006; Redeker et al, 2014), such as employees rating a leader’s behaviour

and then reporting their overall satisfaction with the leader. Such an approach is subject to

measurement error such as halo effects (Waldman et al, 1998), and common method variance

(CMV) that spuriously inflates the relationship between the variables (Podsakoff et al, 2003).
 8

While methods such as using questions with different wording can reduce the effects of CMV

(Podsakoff et al, 2003), criterion studies should not solely rely on data gathered from

participants who completed both the criterion measures and 360-degree feedback ratings.

Another limitation of previous criterion validation research is that it can be difficult to

interpret the practical implications of criterion measures and their relevance for business

performance. For example, criterion measures of leadership effectiveness often consist of

generalised questions asking raters how “effective” a leader is (Anderson, 2006; Redeker et

al, 2014). However, in such studies no evidence is presented that this generalised criterion
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measure of effectiveness is related to relevant business outcomes such as productivity or

employee turnover. Other criterion measures in the literature have been more interpretable

and practically relevant than general leadership effectiveness, such as trust in leaders and

organisational citizenship behaviours (Podsakoff et al, 1990). However, more concrete

organisational outcomes such as productivity and turnover are even more clearly interpretable

and practically relevant.

One emerging criterion related to leadership behaviour and organisational

performance is employee engagement. Employee engagement has a wide range of definitions

and theoretical perspectives, although recent perspectives have emphasised a

multidimensional approach related to positive attitudes a person holds about their job and

organisation (Author, 2010; Shuck, 2011). Employee engagement is related to important

organisational outcomes such as customer satisfaction, profitability, productivity, safety,

turnover and absenteeism (Harter et al, 2002; Author, 2009). Several models have suggested

leadership is an important factor related to employee engagement (e.g., Carasco-Saul et al,

2015; Christian et al, 2011; Author, 2009; Macey and Schneider, 2008). Transformational

leadership behaviour, in particular, has been theorised to be related to employee engagement

through several paths such as increasing employees’ innovative behaviour (Carasco-Saul et

 9

al, 2015), influencing perceptions of meaning in work (Ghadi et al, 2013), and inspiring

employees to form an emotional attachment to the vision and goals of the organisation

(Shuck and Herd, 2012). Thus, employee engagement is a particularly relevant and useful

criterion variable for evaluating a leadership 360-degree feedback survey.

The present study

In summary, we highlight the need for a broad, integrated model of leadership behaviour that

may assist researchers and practitioners to conceptualise leadership using a consistent

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language. The aim of the present study is to present a broad model of leadership behaviour

called the leadership big five that is aligned with the most established and exhaustive model

of human personality, the big five. We aimed to measure and provide evidence for the

validity of the leadership big five with a 360-degree feedback survey, overcoming limitations

in previous validation research of 360-degree feedback surveys.

Our hypotheses were:

H1: Ratings of a broad range of leadership behaviour can be reduced to five higher-order

factors

H2: Ratings of leadership behaviour using a 360-degree feedback survey measuring these

five higher-order factors will be associated with ratings on conceptually aligned measures of

the big five personality traits

H3: The leadership big five will be related to a range of practically relevant criterion

variables, including work unit engagement levels and manager reports of work unit

performance.

Method

Participants

193 managers voluntarily invited at least five employees they work with (including a
 10

minimum of two subordinates) to rate their leadership behaviour. Approximately 90% of the

managers described themselves as middle managers or above. The characteristics of the

managers including the size of organisation, sector and industry are located in Table 2. In

total, 1186 employee participants rated the managers. Each manager had on average 6.15

people rate them (SD = 1.61). The characteristics of the rater participants including their

gender, age, employment status and relationship with the manager they rated are summarised

in Table 3.

The 193 managers were recruited by undergraduate students who participated in

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exchange for course credit. In return for participation, each manager received a report

presenting their aggregated survey scores, and benchmarking their results with other

managers in the sample.

—INSERT TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE—

—INSERT TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE—

Measures

Voice Leadership 360. The initial development of the item set used in this study has been

described earlier in this paper. As reported in the conference paper by Author and Author

(2008), 114 items were developed to measure leadership behaviours represented by the

theories in Table 1. Factor analysis reduced the set to 63 items, and initial evidence was

presented suggesting the presence of 22 lower-order factors and 5 higher-order factors

conceptually aligned with the big five dimensions of personality. For the present study 3

items were added with the goal of having 3 items for each of the 22 lower-order factors,

resulting in the 66 items used in the present study.

In an effort to make the model as practical and user-friendly as possible for leaders

and raters engaged in 360 surveys in organisational settings, the five factors were labelled
 11

Voice, Organise, Innovate, Connect and Enjoy (with VOICE as an acronym). Using

established scientific labels from the big five personality factors, these factors can perhaps be

described as relating to, respectively, extraversion, conscientiousness, openness,

agreeableness and emotional stability (see Table 1 for the thematic links between these

factors and other leadership theories).

Big five measure of personality. In order to evaluate the convergent validity of the

leadership big five with big five personality dimensions, raters completed a brief 15-item
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measure of the big five personality traits. Raters were asked how well adjectives described

the leaders on a 5-point scale from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree”. The adjectives

are consistent with behaviours and descriptions of the big five (e.g., McCrae and John, 1992).

The measure showed good psychometric properties. As shown in Table 4, internal

consistency was high for each scale (α > .8) and a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) showed

the measure to acceptably fit the big five model. The chi-squared test was significant, which

was expected given the large sample size (chi-squared = 520, df = 80, p < .001). The

Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = .96, Normative Fit Index (NFI) = .96, Tucker Lewis Index

(TLI) = .95, Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = .04, and Root Mean Square

Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = .07. The results exceed acceptable model fit cut-offs:

CFI > .90, NFI > .90 (Byrne, 1994); TLI > .90, SRMR < .08 (Hu and Bentler, 1999);

RMSEA < .08 (Browne and Cudeck, 1993; MacCallum et al, 1996).

—INSERT TABLE 4 ABOUT HERE—

Managers’ survey. The individuals receiving feedback on their leadership behaviours were

asked to complete a brief survey requesting demographic information about their organisation
 12

(Table 2) and performance details of their business unit (described in more detail below).

Author (2009) used a version of this survey to evaluate the criterion validity of an

organisational climate survey.

Managers receiving ratings of their behaviour were asked to respond to 16 questions

relating to the performance of the group of employees they supervise on a 5-point scale from

1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). There were five performance dimensions, four

consisting of 3-items and one consisting of 4-items. The dimensions were Overall

Performance (e.g., “The goals and objectives of my work unit are being reached”), Change
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and Innovation (e.g., “My work unit is innovative”), Safety (e.g., “Staff in my work unit

engage in good safety behaviour”), Customer Satisfaction “Customers (internal or external)

are satisfied with our products and/or services”, and Employee Productivity (e.g., “Staff in

my unit do their jobs quickly and efficiency”). Additionally, managers were asked to provide

the approximate percentage rate of voluntary annual employee turnover and approximate

number of days employees are absent per employee per year within their work unit.

Work unit engagement. To measure the employee engagement of each work unit, raters

were asked to complete the 10-item engagement scale of Author’s (2009) climate survey on a

5-point scale from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree) (e.g., “I feel a sense of loyalty

and commitment to this organisation”).

Results

Missing data

In total only 3.1% of rater responses to the Voice Leadership 360 were either unanswered or

“Don’t Know/Not Applicable”, suggesting the survey is suitable for a range of different

industries and management levels. Because there was only a small amount of missing data
 13

and it was essentially missing at random, missing data were replaced using a standard

regression-based expectation maximisation algorithm, common in organisational research

(e.g., Author, 2009; Patterson et al, 2005).

Levels of analysis

Data were analysed at the levels of both individual raters and work units (i.e., all ratings

combined for a single manager being rated). Factor analyses and reliability analyses were

conducted at the individual rater level. All validity coefficients calculated between 360-
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degree feedback ratings, rater judgements of leader personality, rater engagement, and work

unit performance outcomes were calculated at the work unit level to be consistent with the

practical application of 360-degree feedback surveys.

Factor analyses

Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) were conducted to confirm the validity of the Voice

Leadership 360’s factor structure proposed in Author and Author’s (2008) exploratory study.

Lower order factors. The CFA of the 22 lower-order factors indicated the lower-

order factor model was an acceptable fit for the data, with strong regression weights (Table 5)

and acceptable model fit statistics. The chi-squared test was significant, which was expected

given the large sample size (chi-squared = 5330, df = 1848, p < .01). CFI = .94, NFI = .92,

TLI = .94, SRMR = .03, and RMSEA = .04.

—INSERT TABLE 5 ABOUT HERE—

Hypothesis 1 - Higher order factors

The first hypothesis was that a five factor model would provide a valid explanation of the
 14

survey results. The CFA of the five higher-order factors indicated the high-order factor model

was an acceptable fit with the data, with strong regression weights (Table 6) and acceptable

model fit statistics (chi-squared = 1342, df = 199, p < .01). CFI = .94, NFI = .93, TLI = .93,

SRMR = .04, RMSEA = .07. The five-factor model was a better fit than the poorer fitting

one-factor model (CFI = .89, NFI = .88, TLI = .88, SRMR = .04, RMSEA .09), supporting

the use of a multi-factor model. Thus, hypothesis 1 was supported.

—INSERT TABLE 6 ABOUT HERE—

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Hypothesis 2 - Relationship with a “big five” measure of personality

The second hypothesis is that the leadership big five would show empirical convergence with

conceptually aligned measures of the big five personality dimensions. Analyses were

conducted to determine how well raters’ descriptions of leaders’ personality would predict

Voice Leadership 360 scores. To determine the independent relationships of the personality

measures with the Voice Leadership 360 higher-order factor scores, five regression analyses

were conducted. In each regression a 360 higher-order factor was regressed on all of the

personality factors and the other four 360 higher-order factors. The standardised regression

coefficients for each of the personality factors predicting each of the 360 higher-order factors

are presented in Table 7. The data demonstrate good convergent and discriminate validity. As

expected, each of the five personality factors best predicted leadership behaviour on the

higher-order factor conceptually aligned with the personality dimension. The personality

factors generally had either no or a weaker relationship with higher-order factors not

conceptually aligned with the personality factor, compared to higher-order factors that were

aligned with the personality factor. Thus, hypothesis 2 was supported.

 15

—INSERT TABLE 7 ABOUT HERE—

Hypothesis 3 - Organisational and employee outcomes

The final hypothesis was that the leadership big five would correlate with practically

important business outcomes. The 360-degree feedback ratings for each manager were

aggregated and correlated with the manager’s ratings of five outcomes of work-unit

performance, absenteeism, and turnover, and a composite performance measure, which is an

average of the standardised scores for the five outcome measures, absenteeism, and turnover.
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Additionally, the ratings for each manager were correlated with an average of their raters’

employee engagement scores. The data are presented in Table 8.

The pattern of correlations generally shows good evidence of criterion, convergent

and discriminant validity. For example, all higher-order factors and lower-orders factors were

related to at least one criterion measure of performance, suggesting the Voice Leadership 360

scales measure a broad set of behaviours that are likely important for work-unit performance.

The criterion measures also had stronger relationships with behaviours that are theoretically

closer to the outcome measure at both lower-order factor and higher-order factor levels. For

example, Safety Performance was related most to the lower-order factor of Health and Safety,

involving leaders engaging in safe behaviour and encouraging safe behaviour. Turnover was

related most (negatively) to the lower-order factor of Developing Others, involving helping

others achieve development opportunities. Change and Innovation was related most to the

higher-order factor of Innovate, assessing continuous improvement, intellectual stimulation

and risk-taking. Work area engagement was broadly related to the leadership ratings,

consistent with previous research suggesting the quality of supervision and leadership is a

driver of engagement (Author, 2009). Additionally, consistent with theory (e.g., Carasco-Saul

et al, 2015; Shuck and Herd, 2012), work area engagement had stronger relationships with
 16

transformational leadership behaviours such as making the purpose of the organisation feel

important, inspiring others, and talking enthusiastically about the goals of the organisation

(Vision and Inspiration) than task-oriented leadership behaviours such as quality checking.

Unexpectedly, Customer Satisfaction was related to only one leadership behaviour

(Advocacy, measuring the positive promotion of the organisation, and its products and

services). Absenteeism also had only one relationship with a leadership behaviour (Receiving

Feedback), but in a positive direction. That is, leaders who tended to take feedback well and

act upon it had slightly higher rather than lower absenteeism in their work area. Thus,
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hypothesis 3 was generally supported, although not across all outcome measures.

—INSERT TABLE 8 ABOUT HERE—

Discussion

The present study aimed to explore the existence of a “leadership big five” – a five factor

model of leadership providing an overarching framework and integrating existing leadership

models.

Leadership big five

As hypothesised, the results showed that the leadership big five, aligned to the big five model

of personality, provided an empirically useful explanation of the survey data. Further, the low

percentage of unanswered or “Don’t Know/Not Applicable” responses suggests the leadership

big five, and the way it was measured in the current study, is applicable across a wide range

of different industries and levels of raters and ratees. The leadership big five has several

theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, the leadership big five provides evidence

that a broad set of leadership behaviours can be reduced and described with a similar set of

factors commonly used to describe personality. This set of factors has advantages over

previous, more narrowly defined models of leadership. Specifically, because all leadership
 17

big five factors were related to business relevant criterion measures such as turnover and

work unit engagement, the data suggests that leadership behaviour is better conceptualised as

a broad range of multi-dimensional leadership behaviours rather than a narrower set of

behaviours as described by any one of the leadership models outlined in Table 1.

In the same way the personality literature was once limited by competing and

overlapping models of personality (McCrae and John, 1992), the leadership literature consists

of a variety of different models and frameworks that make it difficult to integrate findings,

and collaborate between researchers using different theoretical constructs and measures of
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leadership behaviour (e.g., Anderson, 2006; Redeker et al, 2014; Yukl, 2002). We propose

the leadership big five reported in this study can begin the development of a common

language of leadership behaviour, for two important reasons; first, because it conceptually

aligns leadership behaviour with the most established and common-language model of

personality in the research literature; second, because it includes a broad list of leadership

behaviours that spans multiple existing models of leadership. This has several implications

for researchers and practitioners. For future research direction, this common language would

be useful for researchers to synthesise both previous and future research. The increased

consistency and understanding of leadership behaviour in the research literature could help

leadership research progress faster in a similar way that the big five model of personality

helped personality research progress.

For practitioners, the leadership big five provides a framework that practitioners may

find easier to understand and more comprehensive than other leadership models. The big five

model of personality is so prevalent that virtually all psychologist practitioners would be

familiar with its theory and application. For example, the big five model of personality and

associated assessments are used by practitioners in executive coaching settings to increase

leadership effectiveness (McCormick and Burch, 2008). Thus, the familiarity and ease of
 18

conceptual integration with the big five and associated assessments is likely to be

advantageous for practitioner understanding, which may have implications for the

effectiveness of behaviour change interventions. Additionally, because the leadership big five

describes a broader range of leadership behaviours important for organisational outcomes

compared with many previous leadership models, its application (e.g., in a leadership

development context) may be more likely to increase organisational performance compared

with other models.

All lower-order and higher-order factors predicted some form of criterion of work-
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unit performance including employee engagement, turnover, safety, customer satisfaction,

change and innovation, and overall work-unit performance. Unexpectedly, customer

satisfaction and absenteeism were related to fewer leadership behaviours. This is likely

because the process by which leadership behaviour affects certain organisational outcomes is

complicated and indirect, involving several steps of mediator and moderator variables. For

example, because employees are more likely to interact directly with customers than leaders,

the relationship between leadership behaviour and customer satisfaction may be mediated or

moderated by employee engagement and the personal characteristics of employees. Indeed,

employee engagement shows more consistent relationships with customer satisfaction

(Author, 2009) than the leadership behaviours in the present study.

Measurement of the leadership big five: Voice Leadership 360

The present study overcomes several limitations with validity research of previous

360-degree feedback surveys by using criterion variables that are interpretable and have

practical relevance for organisations. Also, because most of the criterion variables were

measured independently of rater feedback, the study overcomes a significant limitation of

common method variance, which can spuriously increase the relationship between predictor
 19

and criterion measures. The exception to this was rater engagement and judgements of

managers’ personality, which raters completed at the same time as completing the 360

surveys. However, the engagement items were written differently such that the rater was the

subject rather than the leader (cf. the 360 items). Additionally, the personality items and 360

items were not similarly worded. Thus, there is less concern about common method variance

here than with the methodologies of previous research, where criterion and predictive

measures were worded similarly with the leader always as the subject (e.g., Anderson, 2006;

Redeker et al, 2014). The methodologies strengthen the conclusion that the lower-order and
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higher-order factors in the leadership big five are related to work-unit performance.

Limitations and strengths

The cross-sectional nature of the study is perhaps the biggest limitation of the present

study and there is an opportunity for future research to confirm the findings using a

longitudinal design. Another limitation of the study is that the leaders personally chose the

360-degree feedback raters, which may have resulted in leaders selectively choosing raters

who would provide more positive rather than negative feedback, or whose ratings reflect the

generalised likeability of the leader rather than leadership behaviour, a concern in 360-degree

feedback methodologies (Eichinger and Lombardo, 2004). Indeed, the mean scale scores for

managers were generally high. However, in practice because leaders often choose their own

360-degree feedback raters, this would have likely increased the ecological validity of the

study. Additionally, because the confirmatory factor analysis showed that the leadership big

five was a better fit for the data than a one-factor model, it is unlikely that ratings reflect

generalised likeability. Further, any range restriction from the generally high ratings may

have resulted in an underestimation of the relationship between the predictive and criterion

measures that was not corrected for in the present study. Criterion validity coefficients of
 20

360-degree feedback surveys are likely to increase substantially with the correction of

measurement error and range restriction (Conway and Huffcutt, 1997; Schmidt, Oh, and Le,

2006).

The organisational performance data collected was based partly on subjective reports

by the managers who received feedback. Thus, managers could have provided inaccurate

information about the performance of their work area. However, the performance outcomes

are of interest to managers and observable, and managers were able to opt out of providing

specific performance ratings if they were not confident in their ratings.

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Because the data were primarily collected from a western sample it is unknown

whether the leadership model presented here is relevant for non-western populations.

Researchers have suggested that a single leadership model is unlikely to be successfully

applied in all Asian and African contexts (Blunt and Jones, 1997). Additionally, researchers

have suggested that a six rather than a five factor model more adequately describes

personality in the Chinese culture (Cheung et al, 2001). Thus, validating the model with non-

western cultures is needed for researchers and practitioners in those contexts.

The study has several strengths. First, it presents data that is oriented towards both

researchers and practitioners. There is a well-known divide between practitioners and

researchers (Anderson et al, 2001), and the present study aims to be both methodologically

rigorous (e.g., overcoming limitations of previous validation research) and practically

relevant (e.g., presenting an easy to understand, broad model of leadership behaviour,

assessed against practically important business outcomes). The combination of rigour and

practical relevance may lead to more effective research and practical use of 360-degree

feedback surveys than previously reported (e.g., Nowack and Mashihi, 2012). Second, the

study has high external and ecological validity relevant for the practical application of the

leadership model. The data suggests the leadership model and measurement survey presented
 21

in the current study are applicable for a wide range of industries and management levels, and

the data were collected in a manner consistent with its practical application. Third, the study

invites researchers to adopt a common language of leadership, consistent with the common

language of the big five model of personality. This may encourage consistency, prevent

redundancy and stimulate increased cross-fertilisation of future leadership research.

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 22

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 Table 1. Historical development of major leadership theories.

Major Dimensions of Leadership Behaviour

Example Planning, Rewarding, Energetic, Innovating, risk- Wellbeing, work-

descriptions directing, developing, ambitious, strong taking, life balance,
monitoring consulting communicator intellectually resilience
stimulating

Fayol (1916); Scientific

Taylor (1911) Management

Mayo (1933); Human Relations

Roethlisberger &
Dickson (1939)

Blake et al. Initiating Consideration

(1962); Stogdill Structure
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(1957)

Bass (1985); Transactional Transformational

Conger (1989);
House (1977)

Yukl (2002) Task Relations Change

Goleman (1995); Emotional Emotional

Salovey & Intelligence – Intelligence –
Mayer (1990) Others Self

Seligman & Positive

Csikszentmihalyi Psychology
(2000)

Leadership big Organise Connect Voice Innovate Enjoy

five (present
study)

Conceptual Alignment with Big Five Personality Descriptors

McCrae & Costa Conscientiousness Agreeableness Extroversion Openness to Emotional

(1997) Experience Stability
 2

Table 2. Characteristics of managers receiving feedback represented in the sample (N = 193).

Manager characteristic Frequency Percent of sample

Size of Organisation (employees)

Less than 20 31 16.1%
20 to 99 43 22.3%
100 to 199 20 10.4%
200 to 999 32 16.6%
1,000 to 10,000 38 19.7%
More than 10,000 27 14.0%
Not reported 2 1%
Total 193 100%

Sector
Public sector 21 10.9%
Private sector 158 81.9%
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Not-for-profit 11 5.7%
Not reported 3 1.6%
Total 193 100%

Industry
Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing 2 1%
Manufacturing 7 3.7%
Electricity, Gas and Water Supply 2 1%
Construction 7 3.7%
Wholesale Trade 2 1%
Equipment Supply and Service 3 1.6%
Retail Trade 44 23%
Accommodation, Hospitality, Tourism, Cafes and Restaurants 24 12.6%
Transport and Storage 7 3.7%
Information and Communication Technologies 15 7.9%
Finance and Insurance 11 5.8%
Accounting and Financial Advising 2 1%
Law 5 2.6%
Management Consulting 2 1%
Engineering 4 2.1%
Other Professional, Property and Business Services 5 2.6%
Other Government Administration 3 1.6%
Police and Security 1 .5%
Education – Primary or Early Childhood 4 2.1%
Education – Secondary 3 1.6%
Education – University 3 1.6%
Education – Tertiary Other Than University (e.g., VET) 1 .5%
Health – Hospital and Medical 6 3.1%
Health – Other (e.g., Allied Health Professions Not In Hospitals) 5 2.6%
Community Services Other Than Health 4 2.1%
Cultural and Recreational Services 2 1%
Personal Services 2 1%
Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology and Medical Products 5 2%
Other 10 5%
Not reported 2 1.0%
Total 193 100%
 3

Table 3. Characteristics of raters represented in the sample (N = 1186).

Rater characteristic Frequency Percent of sample

Gender
Female 528 44.5%
Male 630 53.1%
Not reported 28 2.4%
Total 1186 100%

Age
Younger than 20 171 14.4%
20-29 452 38.1%
30-39 226 19.1%
40-49 173 14.6%
50-59 125 10.5%
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60 or older 18 1.5%
Not reported 21 1.8%
Total 1186 100%

Employment Status
Full-time permanent 676 57.0%
Part-time permanent 262 22.1%
Contract/fixed-term 52 4.4%
Long-term casual (>12 months) 129 10.9%
Short-term casual (<12 months) 49 4.1%
Not reported 18 1.5%
Total 1186 100%

Relationship with the Manager They Rated

The Manager’s subordinate 959 80.9%
The Manager’s peer 152 12.8%
The Manager’s manager 74 6.2%
Not reported 1 .1%
Total 1186 100%
 4

Table 4. Brief big five measure factor loadings and regression weights (scale alphas in

parentheses).

Big Five Factor Items CFA

Openness to Experience 1. Flexible .85
(.86) 2. Open-minded .89
3. Innovative .74
Conscientiousness 4. Organised .76
(.85) 5. Conscientious .83
6. Self-disciplined .84
Extraversion 7. Energetic .79
(.85) 8. Extroverted .78
9. Lively .88
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Agreeableness 10. Caring .86

(.89) 11. Agreeable .87
12. Forgiving .83
Emotional Stability 13. Relaxed .76
(.83) 14. Emotionally Stable .81
15. Satisfied .80
 5

Table 5. Voice Leadership 360 lower-order factor loadings and regression weights (scale

alphas in parentheses).

Lower-order factors Items CFA

Vision and Inspiration 1. Makes the purpose of the organisation feel important .78
(.83) 2. Talks enthusiastically about the goals of the organisation .79
3. Inspires people with ideas for the future .80
High Expectations 4. Has high performance expectations .80
(.86) 5. Wants to achieve .85
6. Has a strong focus on results .81
Advocacy 7. Speaks positively about the organisation to others .78
(.84) 8. Promotes the organisation’s products and/or services well .81
9. Tells others about the value of what the organisation does .81
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Verbal Influence 10. Is a confident presenter .76

(.86) 11. Explains his/her ideas well face-to-face .88
12. Speaks clearly .82
Time Management 13. Manages his/her workload well .86
(.84) 14. Is good at managing the demands on his or her time .90
15. Is good at delegating work to others .66
Quality 16. Shows attention to detail .83
(.90) 17. Quality checks his/her work well .91
18. Ensures work meets required quality standards .85
Speed 19. Completes work quickly .83
(.87) 20. Ensures tasks are completed on time .85
21. Gets a lot of work done .80
Problem-solving 22. Is good at solving problems .84
(.86) 23. Takes action to prevent problems from occurring .83
24. Responds to problems quickly .80
Continuous Improvement 25. Looks for ways to improve products and services .78
(.85) 26. Finds more efficient ways to complete tasks .81
27. Considers creative solutions to problems .82
Intellectual Stimulation 28. Has ideas that make others rethink some of their own ideas .85
(.89) 29. Stimulates others to think about old problems in new ways .87
30. Has interesting ideas .84
Risk-Taking 31. Is comfortable with change .86
(.87) 32. Is willing to try new things .89
33. Takes calculated risks .74
Optimism 34. Sees the positive side of things .80
(.83) 35. Shows enthusiasm .85
36. Sees the future as being better than today .73
Receiving Feedback 37. Seeks feedback about how he/she is performing .76
(.88) 38. Responds well when others give feedback .90
39. Acts upon feedback given by others .89
Empathy 40. Understands the values, needs and interests of others .87
(.90) 41. Treats people fairly .86
42. Is sensitive to the different needs of different people .87
Developing Others 43. Gives others chances to perform well on their own .83
(.90) 44. Creates opportunities for others to learn new skills .88
 6

Lower-order factors Items CFA

45. Helps others achieve their development goals .88
Recognition 46. Recognises people’s achievements .87
(.88) 47. Tells others that he/she believes in their abilities .86
48. Thanks others for their help .80
Performance Correction 49. Is good at managing people who are underperforming .84
(.88) 50. Is good at correcting undesirable behaviour in others .89
51. Resolves disputes well .82
Cooperation 52. Keeps people informed about what’s going on .75
(.86) 53. Works well in a team .86
54. Is good at coordinating his/her work with others .86
Stress Management 55. Is able to stay productive when facing stressful events .84
(.89) 56. Keeps a positive attitude when something goes wrong .85
57. Copes well under pressure .88
Happiness 58. Keeps a good sense of humour .88
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(.86) 59. Has fun at work .88

60. Likes the kind of work he/she does .70
Work/Life Balance 61. Maintains a good balance between work and other aspects .82
of his/her life
(.89) 62. Stays involved in non-work interests and activities .88
63. Has a social life outside of work .88
Health and Safety 64. Maintains a physically healthy lifestyle .68
(.82) 65. Engages in safe workplace behaviour .87
66. Encourages others to be safe and healthy .83
Note. The Voice Leadership 360 is copyrighted by author institution, with an exclusive

licence to author affiliated organisation. With permission, university researchers involved in

non-profit research can use the survey without cost. For all enquiries regarding use of the

survey or benchmarking data please contact author.

 7

Table 6. Voice Leadership 360 higher-order factor loadings and regression weights (scale

alphas in parentheses).

Higher-order factors Lower-order factors CFA

Voice 1. Vision and Inspiration .82
(.92) 2. High Expectations .73
3. Advocacy .77
4. Verbal Influence .74
Organise 5. Time Management .78
(.94) 6. Quality .80
7. Speed .81
8. Problem-solving .84
Innovate 9. Continuous Improvement .83
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(.93) 10. Intellectual Stimulation .85

11. Risk-Taking .75
12. Optimism .80
Connect 13. Receiving Feedback .77
(.96) 14. Empathy .84
15. Developing Others .83
16. Recognition .85
17. Performance Correction .71
18. Cooperation .83
Enjoy 19. Stress Management .77
(.92) 20. Enjoyment .81
21. Work/Life Balance .75
22. Health and Safety .72
 8

Table 7. Standardized linear regression beta coefficients of leader personality judgements

predicting higher-order leadership factor scores.

Data collected from Raters (Work Unit Level)

Conscientiousness

Leader Emotional
Leader Openness

Agreeableness
Extraversion

Stability
Leader

Leader

Leader
SD
M

Rater feedback
M 4.25 4.32 4.24 4.29 4.21
SD .50 .45 .48 .49 .50

.25** .21**
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Voice 4.36 .39 -.03 -.12 .12

Organise 4.24 .42 -.03 .51** .05 -.16* -.14
Innovate 4.16 .44 .04 .01 .26* -.12 -.17*
Connect 4.15 .44 -.10* -.07 .06 .40** -.01
Enjoy 4.23 .44 .16** .00 -.07 -.10 .51**

Note. **p < .01. *p < .05. Standardized beta coefficients ≥ .25 are bolded for emphasis.
 Downloaded by University of Newcastle At 11:48 23 January 2017 (PT)

Table 7. Means, standard deviations and correlations between Voice Leadership 360 factors and organisational outcome measures.

Work Unit Engagement Data Collected

Work Unit Performance Data Collected From Managers
From Raters

M
SD
Composite
Performance
Turnover
(Work Unit)
Employee
Productivity
Safety
Change and
Innovation
Customer
Satisfaction
Absenteeism
Overall Work
Unit
Performance
Work Unit
Engagement
Rater feedback
n 193 175 193 193 193 192 179 192 192
M 0 16.02 4.20 4.30 3.97 4.34 6.31 4.31 4.00
SD .60 23.59 .59 .66 .57 .55 6.02 .54 .49

Voice (Extraversion) 4.36 .39 .24** -.17* .10 .17* .28** .11 -.04 .11 .58**
Vision and Inspiration 4.22 .48 .29** -.16* .15* .22** .34** .13 -.01 .15* .60**
High Expectations 4.47 .42 .14* -.13 .04 .07 .17* .05 -.05 .05 .37**
Advocacy 4.36 .42 .28** -.16* .13 .16* .27** .15* -.10 .15* .59**
Verbal Influence 4.39 .50 .12 -.09 .03 .11 .17* .04 .00 .04 .41**

Organise (Conscientiousness) 4.24 .42 .15* -.09 .00 .24** .25** -.01 .08 .08 .45**
Time Management 4.18 .48 .06 -.02 -.01 .15* .15* -.02 .11 .04 .31**
Quality 4.32 .46 .18* -.11 .00 .27** .29** .03 .06 .08 .41**
Speed 4.24 .48 .05 -.04 -.06 .18* .16* -.08 .08 .01 .37**
Problem Solving 4.22 .49 .24** -.14 .06 .25** .30** .06 .02 .17* .50**

Innovate (Openness) 4.16 .44 .26** -.13 .12 .21** .35** .04 .00 .16* .60**
Continuous Improvement 4.20 .47 .23** -.09 .08 .18* .31** .06 -.01 .16* .54**
Intellectual Stimulation 4.06 .51 .27** -.11 .15* .22** .33** .06 -.05 .16* .61**
Risk-taking 4.10 .52 .14* -.10 .06 .14 .28** -.06 .03 .07 .47**
Optimism 4.28 .47 .29** -.16* .16* .21** .34** .11 .02 .19* .57**

Connect (Agreeableness) 4.15 .44 .25** -.07 .08 .27** .32** .08 .03 .16* .57**
Receiving feedback 3.89 .55 .17* .02 .02 .26** .33** .06 .16* .15* .47**
Empathy 4.27 .54 .23** -.07 .08 .22** .27** .10 -.02 .15* .51**
Developing Others 4.28 .47 .30** -.18* .17* .26** .34** .04 -.07 .15* .57**
 Downloaded by University of Newcastle At 11:48 23 January 2017 (PT)

10

Work Unit Engagement Data Collected

Work Unit Performance Data Collected From Managers
From Raters

M
SD
Composite
Performance
Turnover
(Work Unit)
Employee
Productivity
Safety
Change and
Innovation
Customer
Satisfaction
Absenteeism
Overall Work
Unit
Performance
Work Unit
Engagement
Rater feedback
Recognition 4.31 .51 .24** -.13 .08 .22** .25** .08 -.04 .15* .54**
Performance Correction 3.88 .48 .18* -.01 .04 .24** .27** .06 .08 .13 .45**
Cooperation 4.24 .44 .19** -.03 .08 .23** .25** .09 .05 .11 .44**

Enjoy (Emotional Stability) 4.23 .44 .25** -.12 .13 .24** .32** .06 .02 .13 .60**
Stress Management 4.17 .52 .22** -.06 .12 .18* .31** .03 -.02 .13 .51**
Happiness 4.39 .50 .26** -.14 .16* .16* .28** .11 -.03 .17* .55**
Work-life Balance 4.16 .55 .17* -.07 .10 .18* .26** .06 .08 .08 .52**
Health and Safety 4.20 .47 .20** -.11 .07 .33** .25** .01 .04 .06 .48**

Note. **p < .01. *p < .05.