A Short Measure of Transformational Leadership

Jul 15, 2026

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Development and validation of the Global Transformational Leadership scale (GTL), a short instrument measuring transformational leadership as a single construct. The study used responses from 1,440 subordinates assessing 695 branch managers in a large Australian financial organisation. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported the construct structure and reliability, with evidence for convergent and discriminant validity. The GTL is proposed for assessment, selection, and leadership research.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time43 min

AccessFree to download

# A SHORT MEASURE OFTRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP Sally A.Carless Monash University,Caulfield,Australia Alexander J.WearingLeon Mann University of Melbourne,Parkville,Australia ABSTRACT:This study reports the development ofa short measure oftransforma-tionalleadership:the Global Transformational Leadership scale(GTL).The studysample was 1,440 subordinates who assesed the leader behaviour of 695 branchmanagers in a large Australian financial organisation.Exploratory and confirma-tory factor analysis showed that the GTLmeasured a single construct ofleadershipand had satisfactory reliability.Evidence for the convergent and discriminantvalidity is presented.We conclude that the GTL has a number of potential usesas an assessment and selection tool and in leadership research. The issue of effective leadership in organisations has been raised byConger and Kanungo(1994)in this journal.Leadership skills are takeninto account in the selection,promotion and performance appraisals ofemployees(Atwater,Penn,&Rucker,1991;Bass,1990b;Howell &Hig-gins,1990;Walderman,Bass,&Yammarino,1993).In recognition of itsimportance,organisations typically assist and encourage the developmentofemployees'leadership skills.Appraisal,evaluation and the developmentof leadership skills all require the assessment of leadership behaviour.Although measures of transformational leadership,such as the Multifac-tor Leadership Questionnaire(MLQ;Avolio,Bass,&Jung,1995),theConger-Kanungo scale(Conger &Kanungo,1994)and the LeadershipPractices Inventory(LPI;Kouzes &Posner,1990)assess a range ofleaderbehaviours,these scales are relatively long and therefore time consumingto complete.It was the aim of this study to develop a short,practical instrument of transformational leadership which is easily administeredand scored yet is also reliable and valid. ## TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADER BEHAVIOURS Podsakoff,McKenzie,Moorman,and Fetter(1990),following a reviewof the literature on transformational leadership,concluded that it can besummarised by six behaviours,i.e.,identifying and articulating a vision,providing an appropriate model,fostering the acceptance of group goals,high performance expectations,providing individualised support to staffand intellectual stimulation.We adapted their summary for this research.Specifically,we distinguished between the leader behaviours of providingsupport to staff(Podsakoff et al.)and encouraging their individual devel-opment.Hence,our list consisted of seven behaviours.We also preferredthe broader concept of charisma in contrast to the narrower concept of“high performance expectations”(Podsakoff et al.).The latter is usuallyconsidered to be part of charismatic behaviour(Bass,1985).Accordingly,we propose that the following behaviours encompass the concept of trans-formational leadership:(1)communicates a vision,(2)develops staff,(3)provides support,(4)empowers staff,(5)is innovative,(6)leads by exam-ple,and(7)is charismatic. ### 1.Vision A distinguishing

Jul 15, 2026

116

Upload by Patrick