There are lots of scales to measure different aspects of positive leadership. Can you be more specific about what sort of positive leadership you have in mind?

Does your positive leadership is connected with positive psychology? If so, check this http://www.viacharacter.org/www/

A standard questionnaire for positive leadership concept is: The empowering leadership Questionnaire (ELQ). This questionnaire was technically constructed based on leadership skills and workplace categories ranging from (coaching, informing, leading by example, showing concern/interacting with the team, and participative decision-making). ELQ can be administered to team members as well as on leaders in any organization. A cross-validation of the scale can be used in conjunction with factor analysis to account for leader's positive behavior or negative behavior.

A positive lead by example creates positive workplace experiences such as: employee job engagement and optimal job performance, employee job satisfaction, employee career growth and organization sustainability and development whereas, negative lead by example creates negative workplace environment such as counterproductivity workplace, absenteeism, presenteeism, "eye-service or lip-service," and finally, poor organizational citizen behavior (OCB).

A positive leader expresses deep concern by interacting with team which is an attribute found among empowering and servant leadership models. Both models elicit positive leadership styles. A negative leader don't care about his followers/subjects even when he/she should, since the piper dictates the tune. When subjects/followers become the piper, the leader losses charm, essence and the power of participative decision-making. A positive leader is caring, empowering, empathic, close to subjects and followers, i.e., down-to-earth. Since empowerment is a kernel attribute of positive leadership quality, study conducted by Arnold, Arad, Rhoades and Drasgow (2000) examined this in great detail. The link is as follows: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/%28SICI%291099-1379%28200005%2921%3A3%3C249%3A%3AAID-JOB10%3E3.0.CO%3B2-%23

Dear Prof. Paul E. Spector

as i am working on conceptual model which considered positive leadership with other variables, i read all the articles about positive leadership to get to an in depth-knowledge. by reading literature i figure out that positive leadership implicitly refers to those kind of leadership which stimulate positive or extra role behavior in employees like: leader-member-exchange, servant leadership, authentic leadership and so on.

however, the question is here that if i should include positive leadership as a distinct or better to say single variable, or see it as a variable which has a lot of dimensions?

by this question i come up with two other sub-question

1. if positive leadership is a variable with various dimensions (servant leadership, authentic leadership and...), which variables are consist this concept (positive leadership) and should all those variables be regarded in constructing a questionnaire?

2. if positive leadership known as single variable, is there any standardized questionnaire to measure that?

Dear Nayele Macini

As i read the literature positive leadership theoretically connected with positive psychology.

thank you for you favor.

Dear Gerald Ogbuja

Thank you for you complete explanation. however, i somehow become confused and a lot of questions rise in my mind:

1. by your explanation i figure out that i can use empowering leadership questionnaire to measure positive leadership. is it correct?

If yes, please show me a reference or a study in which the scales of empowering leadership are used in order to measure positive leadership.

And if my thought is incorrect please clarify it for me by giving more details. i appreciate your feedback.

Hello Nosrati,

The following is the reference of a study in which the scales of empowering leadership is used: Arnold, J. A., Arad, S., Rhoades, J. A., & Drasgow, F. (2000). The Empowering Leadership Questionnaire: the construction and validation of a new scale for measuring leader behaviors. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 21(3), 249-269.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-1379(200005)21:33.0.CO;2-#

Another interesting study addressed the scales of empowering leadership model from the perspective of psychological empowerment and from the perspective of business practice. The reference of this study is: Liu, Y. (2015). The review of empowerment leadership. Journal of Business and Management, 3, 476-482. https://file.scirp.org/pdf/OJBM_2015102914141026.pdf

Gerald Ogbuja

Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge.

Here are two free tools that may be useful:

1. The App "LeaderShaper" available on Apple and Android platforms - is a self assessment for emotional intelligence and leadership styles with tips how to improve.

2. A leadership v Management questionnaire that identifies positive leadership characteristics. Go to https://www.leadershapeglobal.com/ and scroll halfway down the page or go directly to http://www.youropinion.co.uk/on_poll/showq40.php?poll=LeadershipPollA

Regards, John

John Knights

Thank you so much for your kindly response. i appreciate your tactful guidance.

Your'e welcome. John

Educational leaders play a pivotal role in affecting the climate, attitude and reputation of their schools. They are the cornerstone on which learning communities function and grow. With successful school leadership, schools become effective incubators of learning, places where students are not only educated but challenged, nurtured and encouraged.

On the other hand, poor or absent school leadership can undermine the goals of an educational system. When schools lack a strong foundation and direction, learning is compromised and students suffer. According to a Wallace Foundation study, “Indeed, leadership is second only to classroom instruction among school-related factors that affect student learning in schools.”

The Makings of a Successful School Leader

But what makes a successful school leader? How do you become truly effective as a principal or in a leadership position? While there is no one solution to successful school leadership, there are certain strategies, skills, traits and beliefs that many of the most effective school leaders share.

[RELATED] How to Advance Your Career: A Guide for Educators >>

The majority of effective school leaders believe in the importance of:

Building Community

Effective school leaders build and sustain reciprocal family and community partnerships and leverage those partnerships to cultivate inclusive, caring, and culturally responsive school communities. This is an essential component of effective leadership and the best leaders know it. To build these community networks it is essential that school leaders are visible in their schools and community, develop trust and create a sense of transparency and shared purpose with parents, staff, community members and students.

Megan Tschannen-Moran, author and professor of educational leadership at the College of William and Mary, discusses the importance that trust plays in building communities in her book, Trust Matters: Leadership for Successful Schools. Tschannen Moran explains,

“In schools with high levels of trust:

• Teachers are motivated and willing to try new strategies because they trust leaders to support them.
• Students are motivated and connected to the school because they trust their teachers.
• Families are supportive because the principal and teachers have built trusting relationships with them.”

Supporting Teachers and Cultivating Leadership

Great school leaders know that they are not running a one-man show; that they can not do it all alone. They know that they must surround themselves with great teachers and colleagues and not only that, but they must fully support teachers and staff by encouraging them to continually learn, develop and perhaps most importantly, become leaders themselves.

It is no secret that when people are fulfilled and given opportunity for career growth as well as autonomy and control over their careers, they are more productive, more engaged and overall more effective. In a recent Gallup poll it was discovered that 31% of U.S. teachers are engaged in their work, while 56% are not engaged and 13% are actively disengaged. These statistics are startling to say the least.

Through offering professional development opportunities and support services to teachers as well as by creating an environment where teachers are able to experiment, innovate and lead, principals can ensure a healthy environment for educators that will have positive repercussions for students. According to another Gallup study, it was “found that highly talented principals on Gallup’s Principal Insight assessment were 2.6 times more likely to have above average employee engagement at the schools they lead three years later.”

In his book, What Great Principals Do Differently, Todd Whitaker wrote,

“Great principals focus on improving the quality of the teachers within their buildings. By carefully hiring the best teachers, by supporting their efforts and their ambitions, by holding all staff members to high expectations, and by working to carefully support the individual development of each professional, principals impact student achievement.”

Utilizing Data and Resources

Successful school leaders use data, including standardized and school-based assessments, to drive continuous improvement through site-based decision-making for the express purpose of promoting equitable and culturally responsive opportunities for all students. The opportunities that data present are many and the most effective leaders are able to leverage that data to make strategic decisions to benefit their students.

One example of how data can reveal surprising results and help better learning was discussed in an ASCD article,

“Staff members at Canyon View High School wanted to use their data to understand why more than half of the school’s 9th grade students failed the state reading proficiency examination. Working backward through the students’ education experiences to determine the earliest occurrence of a characteristic common to all students who had not passed the exam, the teachers were shocked to see that most of these students had missed up to 30 or 40 days in a 180-day school year when they were 1st graders.”

And according to the Wallace Foundation,

“When it comes to data, effective principals try to draw the most from statistics and evidence, having ‘learned to ask useful questions” of the information, to display it in ways that tell “compelling stories” and to use it to promote “collaborative inquiry among teachers.’ They view data as a means not only to pinpoint problems but to understand their nature and causes.”

Beyond these four tenants, successful school leaders:

• Have a vision and a plan.
• Set high expectations for everyone, that includes teachers, students, staff and themselves.
• Create learning environments that are collaborative and accepting of everyone.
• Constantly find ways to improve instruction.
• Stay with a school for five years or more. The long game has been proven extremely important in successful school leadership.
• Have a passion for what they do—for improving learning and elevating students.
• Inspire others to reach higher and work harder.

“LEADERSHIP AND LEARNING ARE INDISPENSABLE TO EACH OTHER” —JOHN F. KENNEDY

Yet, perhaps the most important of all qualities that a school leader can posses is the unquenchable thirst for knowledge. As John F. Kennedy said, “leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” The best leaders, no matter what industry they work in, know they will never know it all. They are humble in their knowledge yet confident in their abilities. They’re endlessly curious individuals who never stop questioning, and learning. The Harvard Business Review put it perfectly when they said,

“It takes a real sense of personal commitment, especially after you’ve arrived at a position of power and responsibility, to push yourself to grow and challenge conventional wisdom. Which is why two of the most important questions leaders face are as simple as they are profound: Are you learning, as an organization and as an individual, as fast as the world is changing? Are you as determined to stay interested as to be interesting? Remember, it’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.

The best leaders I’ve gotten to know aren’t just the boldest thinkers; they are the most insatiable learners.”

It is hard to think of an industry where constant learning is more applicable than in the education industry itself.

To be a successful and effective leader is no easy feat. Yet, effective school leaders are desperately needed in thousands of schools and educational institutions across this country and world today. As Kenneth Leithwood stated in a Hechinger Report, “Indeed, there are virtually no documented instances of troubled schools being turned around without intervention by a powerful leader.”

Sajad Hussain Deen

Thank you for your complete explanation. but as i said, i want to measure positive leadership as a independent variable affecting other variables. i want to know if i can measure it by standard questionnaire or not?

Hassan Izzeddin Sarsak

you are welcome. however, i do not receive to the point answer to my question.

There are many definitions about positive leadership. For further reading:

Enthusiasm as a driving force in vocational education and training (VET) teachers’ work. Defining positive organization and positive leadership in VET, Acta electronica Universitatis Lapponiensis 269 http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-337-185-9

One measeurement tool based on Cameron (2012) is:

Antino, M., Gil-Rodríguez, F., Rodríguez-Muñoz, A., & Borzillo, S. (2014). Evaluating positive leadership: pilot study on the psychometric properties of a reduced version of the Positive Leadership Assessment Scale. Revista de Psicología Social, 29(3), 589 - 608. https://doi.org/10.1080/02134748.2014.972705