Instrumental and integrative responsible leadership behavioral styles: conceptual extension, scale development and validation

Purpose This article develops and validates the scale for instrumental and integrative responsible leadership behavioral styles (IS_RLBS and IG_RLBS, respectively), which may facilitate performance improvement and management. Design/methodology/approach The adopted research approach is a mixed-method design, following standard empirical steps: generating items from a literature review and semi-structured interviews, conducting exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to test item suitability, and performing regression analysis with two criterion variables. Researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with 40 top-level leaders from the manufacturing and service sectors. After analyzing the literature and interview transcripts, 53 items were generated. To test the validity of the items, researchers collected 156 responses (from junior-level employees) for the exploratory factor analysis and 191 responses (from junior and middle-level employees) for the confirmatory factor analysis and generated 13 final items of responsible leadership behavioral styles (RLBS). Further, for regression analysis, 230 responses (from junior, middle and senior-level employees) were collected to check the relationships between Instrumental_RLBS and IG_RLBS with employee well-being and meaningful work Findings The construct of IS_RLBS measures two factors: focus on financial performance and engagement in exclusive decision-making, whereas IG_RLBS measures two factors: motivating stakeholders and focusing on the dual bottom line. Six items measure two factors of IS_RLBS, and seven items measure two factors of IG_RLBS for managing organizational financial and non-financial performance. Originality/value The empirical understanding of the RLBS scale is a novel initiative. The measure of IS_RLBS has a business growth perspective, and IG_RLBS has a stakeholders’ growth perspective, which may provide a new perspective on the organizational and leaders’ performance management.