Development of three scales to measure leader accountability

The purpose of this research is to focus on the development of three scales to measure the three dimensions of accountability presented by Wood and Winston (2005): responsibility; openness; and answerability.

The scale development process followed the method proposed by Spector in 1992 and DeVellis in 2003 in that each of the three constructs were defined and through a search of the literature the authors generated pools of 26, 21, and 19 items respectively. The items were submitted to a panel of six experts, who reviewed them for relevance to the construct and who made suggestions for the general improvement of the scales. The scales were then tested online by 148 participants.

Factor analyses revealed that the item pools measured one construct in each of the scales. Reliability analysis revealed Cronbach alpha coefficients of 0.98 (Responsibility), 0.99 (Openness) and 0.98 (Answerability). The scales were reduced to 10 items by removing items deemed redundant or confusing. Alpha scores for the ten‐item scales were 0.97 (Responsibility), 0.97 (Openness) and 0.98 (Answerability).

The study participants were primarily Caucasian males. Further study should be done to validate the instrument in other ethnic groups.

The three scales may be useful for leadership selection, development, and research in overall leadership effectiveness.