Assessing leadership styles and organisational context

Purpose – To investigate the new leadership dimensions questionnaire (LDQ) and a related framework for assessing an individual's leadership style in relation to the context in which the leader works; the three new LDQ sub‐scales designed to measure organisational context, follower commitment and leader performance; and the relationship between personality and leadership. Design/methodology/approach – Research is reported on LDQ data from a large sample of leaders and managers ( n 222) from a range of public and private organisations. A style score was calculated and then related to data on respondents' biographical – job function, gender, sector and nationality – and FFM personality data. Findings – Results show a reasonably even allocation across all three leadership styles and that the styles are independent of the four important biographical variables. They also show that the five FFM personality factors do not account for any additional variance on any of the styles at a significant level. Results on the factor structure of the organisational context, follower commitment and leader performance scales show them to be reliable scales. Research limitations/implications – A majority of the sample were from the UK, from the private sector and were male. This study did not incorporate measures of job performance or investigate the style and context link. The self‐assessed, not the 360° version of LDQ was used. Practical implications – Some support is provided for the LDQ's use for leadership assessment and development, and for identifying potential, in both public and private sector organisations, with a standardisation sample of more than 1,000 now available. Results also show that the LDQ can be used without losing significant personality‐related variance. Originality/value – LDQ provides a unique opportunity for managers to relate leadership dimensions to three different leadership styles – engaging, goal‐oriented and involving – and, in turn, to the degree of organisational volatility faced by the leader, thus enabling respondents to identify the most appropriate style. Leader performance and follower commitment sub‐scales should facilitate further research by academics into leadership performance.