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Asian J Bus Ethics (2014) 3:5764
DOI 10.1007/s13520-013-0031-2
Rick Roof
Received: 5 August 2013 /Accepted: 2 September 2013 /Published online: 22 September 2013 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Authenticity, the concept of self-awareness acted out (Caza et al. 2010) or the functioning in a manner aligned with values (Leroy et al. 2012), has been the subject of great interest recently (Nelder and Schriescheim 2011), and is considered by many to be a root construct (Avolio and Gardner 2005) forming the foundation for all contemporary positive leadership theories (Qian et al. 2012) including transformation, ethical, servant, spiritual, and even charismatic leadership (Avolio and Gardner 2005; Nelder and Schriescheim 2011). While the early stage nature of authentic leadership has resulted in multiple conceptualizations (Caza et al. 2010), and there is contention over whether the construct includes moral and ethical prescriptives (Peus et al. 2012), the subject of this research note, the authentic leadership questionnaire (ALQ), was designed to include the ethical dimension of leadership (Walumbwa et al. 2008). My focus within this research note is not on the current theoretical debate, but only exploring whether the ALQ exhibits adequate validity and reliability to suggest its use in appropriate research.
Quality leadership research relies on sound, theoretically driven research design, and a critical element is the use of reliable and valid instruments (Girden and Kabacoff 2011) that can be applied across cultures to support global research (Walumbwa et al. 2008). Since the ALQ is widely applied in leadership research to measure the genuine nature of leadership, this research note consolidates validity and reliability testing from existing studies to inform researchers considering using the scale to assess leader authenticity including moral or ethical characteristics. A search of literature in Academic Search Complete revealed that over 138 journal articles discussed both authentic leadership and ethics suggesting significant interest in the connection of leader authenticity to ethical and moral organizational behavior. To evaluate the cultural transferability of the ALQ, the instruments reliability and validity characteristics were considered across a wide
R. Roof (*)
Regent University, 1000 Regent University Drive, Virginia Beach, VA 23464, USA e-mail: [email protected]
R. Roofe-mail: [email protected]
R. Roof46 Abbey Court, Fishersville, VA 22939, USA
Authentic leadership questionnaire (ALQ) psychometrics
58 R. Roof
range of countries including...