Psychometric Properties of the Authentic Leadership Inventory in the Nursing Profession

Validity and reliability of the Korean version of authentic leadership among ICU nurses

BACKGROUND

Authentic leadership affects the safety climate or job satisfaction of nurses, especially in intensive care unit (ICU). It is extremely challenging to find a suitable instrument for measuring authentic leadership among Korean nurses. Because the existing scales were developed within a Western cultural context and among business students, a new scale for measuring authentic leadership among Korean nurses must be evaluated.

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to assess the reliability of the Korean version of the Authentic Leadership Inventory (K-ALI) for ICU nurses.

DESIGN

A cross-sectional study and secondary data analysis were used.

METHODS

This study evaluated 203 ICU registered nurses from four South Korean university hospitals. The ALI developed by Neider and Schriesheim was developed. The reliability and validity of this scale were analyzed using Cronbach's alpha and factor analysis.

RESULTS

The factor analysis identified two subconstructs that accounted for 57.3 % of the total variance. The overall model fit indices for the K-ALI from the confirmatory factor analysis were an acceptable fit. Cronbach's alpha for the internal consistency of the reliability was 0.92.

CONCLUSION

Using the K-ALI, nurses can assess authentic leadership and develop or demonstrate their professional leadership.

Psychometric properties of leadership scales for health professionals: a systematic review

Background

The important role of leaders in the translation of health research is acknowledged in the implementation science literature. However, the accurate measurement of leadership traits and behaviours in health professionals has not been directly addressed. This review aimed to identify whether scales which measure leadership traits and behaviours have been found to be reliable and valid for use with health professionals.

Methods

A systematic review was conducted. MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Cochrane, CINAHL, Scopus, ABI/INFORMIT and Business Source Ultimate were searched to identify publications which reported original research testing the reliability, validity or acceptability of a leadership-related scale with health professionals.

Results

Of 2814 records, a total of 39 studies met the inclusion criteria, from which 33 scales were identified as having undergone some form of psychometric testing with health professionals. The most commonly used was the Implementation Leadership Scale (n = 5) and the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (n = 3). Of the 33 scales, the majority of scales were validated in English speaking countries including the USA (n = 15) and Canada (n = 4), but also with some translations and use in Europe and Asia, predominantly with samples of nurses (n = 27) or allied health professionals (n = 10). Only two validation studies included physicians. Content validity and internal consistency were evident for most scales (n = 30 and 29, respectively). Only 20 of the 33 scales were found to satisfy the acceptable thresholds for good construct validity. Very limited testing occurred in relation to test-re-test reliability, responsiveness, acceptability, cross-cultural revalidation, convergent validity, discriminant validity and criterion validity.

Conclusions

Seven scales may be sufficiently sound to be used with professionals, primarily with nurses. There is an absence of validation of leadership scales with regard to physicians. Given that physicians, along with nurses and allied health professionals have a leadership role in driving the implementation of evidence-based healthcare, this constitutes a clear gap in the psychometric testing of leadership scales for use in healthcare implementation research and practice.

Trial registration

This review follows the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) (see Additional File 1) (PLoS Medicine. 6:e1000097, 2009) and the associated protocol has been registered with the PROSPERO International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (Registration Number CRD42019121544).

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13012-021-01141-z.