Proposing and Measuring the Concept of “Constancy in Leadership” in a World of Disruptive Innovations

Abstract

In this ever-changing world, the only anchor that could help provide the much-required stability to businesses could be the values that are enshrined by the organizations as their principle guiding force. Leaders have a great role in upholding these values and also further developing future leadership which preserves those values as identity and heritage of the organization. The paper attempts to create a scale to recognize such leaders so that corporate leadership could be continued without fluctuations, firmly upon values and passed on to coming generations of leaders as a legacy. The paper envisions the concept of constancy in leadership and also generates a context specific scale to measure the construct. The paper proposes the conditions that provide the constancy in leadership and describes the process of developing a scale that could measure the extent of such constancy in leadership. Both qualitative and quantitative research has been used for purpose of developing a scale to measure the construct of constancy in leadership. Initially using secondary researchand informal interviews a list of items was generated. Its face and content validity was established through ratification by a panel of experts which included industry leaders with over 20 years of working experience and academics. Sampling population included private sector employees with at least 10 years ofworking experience, so that they had rich experience of working with different leaders. Respondents were requested to respond as followers to a set of items on a 7-point Likert scale. Analysis of data was done using SPSS 16 which included Factor analysis and reliability tests. Further, qualities of sustainableleadership as derived from literature study were equated with the top five qualities, which the respondents perceived as the basis of timeless/sustained leadership to confirm if the basis of the construct showed consistency. The results indicate that the scale shows initial evidence of being both valid, reliable and unidimensional, suggesting that the same construct was being measured using highly related dimensions. There was a reasonable correspondence between qualities using highly related dimensions. There was a reasonable correspondence between qualities for sustained leadership as derived from literature surveyand those derived from respondents’ answers in which they named top five qualities, required for constancy in leadership as defined in the paper. The qualities were found to be in harmony with the Spiritual leadership theory and also servant leadership and authentic leadership.