Identity Leadership Going Global: Validation of the Identity Leadership Inventory (ILI) across 20 Countries

Abstract

Recent theorizing applying the social identity approach to leadership proposes a four dimensional model of identity leadership that centers on leaders’ management of a shared sense of “we” and “us”. The present research validates a scale assessing this model — the Identity Leadership Inventory (ILI). We present results from an international project with data from all six continents and from more than 20 countries/regions with 5,290 participants. The ILI was translated (using back-translation methods) into 13 different languages (available in the Appendix) and used along with measures of other leadership constructs (i.e. LMX, transformational, and authentic leadership) as well as employee attitudes and (self-reported) behaviors — namely identification, trust in the leader, job satisfaction, innovative work behavior, organizational citizenship behavior, and burnout. Results provide consistent support for the construct, discriminant, and criterion validity of the ILI across countries. We show that the four dimensions of identity leadership are distinguishable and that they relate to important work-related attitudes and behaviors above and beyond other leadership constructs. Finally, we also validate a short form of the ILI, noting that is likely to have particular utility in applied contexts.