2.3.10 Leadership Self-Efficacy Scale (LSES)

Purpose 

The Leadership Self-Efficacy Scale is a self-report instrument designed to assess individuals’ confidence in their leadership capabilities and to identify areas for development and improvement. Organizations and individuals within a variety of sectors can utilize the scale to assess leadership self-efficacy levels among leaders, managers, supervisors, educators, and other professionals.

Description 

Susan E. Murphy developed the LSES as part of her doctoral dissertation, published in 1992. Test-takers rate their level of agreement with statements such as:

I am confident in my ability to make difficult decisions as a leader

I believe I can effectively communicate vision and goals to my team

I feel capable of resolving conflicts within my team

The scale is scored by aggregating responses to the Likert-type items on an 8-point scale that measures participants’ level of confidence in their general leadership abilities. The scores are then analyzed to determine the level of leadership self-efficacy, with higher scores indicating greater confidence in leadership abilities.

Several studies support internal consistency of the scale (alpha > .75). For example, Pyle (2013) included three studies in which alphas were .84, .91, and .84. As is common with self-report questionnaires, limitations may include potential biases in self-reporting, the specificity of the leadership tasks assessed, and the generalizability of the results to different cultural or organizational contexts.

Access

The LSES is accessible via academic journals and research databases, including in the relevant articles listed in the references section.

References

Murphy, S. E. (1992). The contribution of leadership experience and self-efficacy to group performance under evaluation apprehension. (Publication No. 9230410) [Doctoral dissertation, University of Washington]. Dissertations and Theses. https://www.proquest.com/docview/304005264

Murphy, S. E., Reichard, R. J., & Johnson, S. K. (2008). Self-regulation and leadership: Implications for leader performance and leader development. In C. Hoyt, A. Goethals, & D. Forsyth (Eds.), J. B. Ciulla (Set Ed.), Leadership at the crossroads: Leadership and psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 250–264). Praeger.

Murphy, S. E., & Johnson, S. K. (2016). Leadership and leader developmental self‐efficacy: Their role in enhancing leader development efforts. New Directions for Student Leadership, 2016(149), 73–84. https://doi.org/10.1002/yd.20163

Pyle, L. K. (2013). Changes in leadership self-efficacy, leader identity, capacity for socially responsible leadership, and curiosity due to a structured leader development program [Doctoral dissertation, James Madison University]. Scholarly Commons: A repository for James Madison University2.3.10.1 Youth

2.3.10.1 Youth Leadership Self-Efficacy Instrument

Purpose

This instrument aims to understand factors that influence youth leader development by measuring leader self-efficacy in eighth-grade students before and after the leadership intervention program. The creation of the youth leadership scale represents a significant contribution to the future study regarding leader emergence and performance. It is also expected that this leader self-efficacy instrument will raise a series of research interests concerning leadership development at an earlier age that leads to students at all levels of future success in a broader way.

Description

Rehm’s dissertation develops a 5-scale leader self-efficacy instrument to measure youth population leadership development during their sensitive life developmental periods. This instrument was created through a convergent parallel mixed-method approach. In the quantitative analysis, the LSE scale was analyzed through readability analysis, inter-item and item-total correlations, and factor analysis to increase the reliability and validity of the scale. Subsequently, a paired samples T-test was conducted to examine the effect of the six-month leadership self-efficacy program intervention. The result shows a significant mean difference before and after the intervention, t ₍₇₉₎ = 2.059, p-value=0.043 which is less than the alpha setting at 0.05 level, and with small to moderate effect size with the Cohen’s d value of 0.26.

Access

Rehm, C. J. (2017). Leader self-efficacy in youth leader development: A mixed methods study (Doctoral dissertation, James Madison University).

Reference

Rehm, C. J., Rehm, S. L., & DeVona, K. (2021). Impacting youth leader self-efficacy. Journal of Leadership Education, 20(3), 89-107.

Perets, S., Davidovitch, N., & Lewin, E. (2023). Israeli Students’ Evaluations Regarding Leadership Education in Post-Primary Schools. Education Sciences, 13(10), 1017.

Heibel, B., Boyer, H., Tasci, K., & Anderson, R. (2024). Youth Leadership Development: A Synthesis of Literature. CTE Journal, 12(1).