Do organizations based in Poland need identity leadership? Polish adaptation of the short and full form of identity leadership inventory

Purpose The study aimed to test the validity and reliability of the Polish version of the identity leadership inventory (ILI) proposed by Steffens, Haslam, Reicher et al. (2014) and to confirm the relationship between identity leadership and various job-related outcomes (i.e., trust in leaders, job satisfaction, work engagement and turnover intentions) among employees from Poland-based organizations. Identity leadership appears to be a universal construct (van Dick, Ciampa, & Liang, 2018) but no one has studied it in Poland so far. Design/methodology/approach The sample consisted of 1078 employees collected in two independent subsamples from different organizations located in Northern and Central Poland. We evaluated the ILI’s factorial structure using confirmatory factor analysis. Findings The results confirm that the 15-item Polish version of the ILI has a four-dimensional structure with factors representing prototypicality, advancement, entrepreneurship and impresarioship. It showed satisfactory reliability. The identity leadership inventory-short form (four items) also showed a good fit with the data. As expected, the relationships between identity leadership and important work-related outcomes (general level of job satisfaction, work engagement, trust toward the leader and turnover intentions) were also significant. Originality/value Despite the cultural specifics of Polish organizations, the research results were generally very similar to those in other countries, confirming the universality of the ILI as shown in the Global Identity Leadership Development project (GILD, see van Dick, Ciampa, & Liang, 2018; van Dick et al. , 2021).