Research on Leadership Assumptions
What underpins your leadership thinking?
We would be very grateful if you would agree to participate in this research study to identify trends in thinking about leadership. The research is being carried out by Dr. Simon Western. Simon proposes that four 'discourses of leadership' can be used to identify the assumptions that people make about leadership. These have evolved gradually over time and he describes them in his forthcoming book 'Leadership A Critical Text', published by Sage in 2007.
Please fill out the questionnaire below. You will receive a report identifying the 'discourses of leadership' that underpin how you think about leadership and the combined results of all participants will give us valuable information about how leaders have formed their views about leadership. This will be very helpful for future leadership development work.
Thank you for your participation.
Purpose
The purpose of this questionnaire is to help you identify the 'discourses of leadership' that underpin how you think about leadership. This research is not telling you how you lead, but about what YOUR norms and assumptions are regarding leadership. Eg if you think about leaders as being charismatic, this might be what you aspire to as a leader or it might mean that you would never consider yourself to be a leader because you consider that leadership is only for charismatic people. The information you submit will be confidential, but we will collate the results to suggest trends.
Instructions
There are 20 short questions to complete which should only take you around 5 minutes of your time. There are no right or wrong answers, so please be as honest as you can!
You have 3 points to rate the following four questions: you can use all three points on one question if you feel very strongly drawn to this, or you can divide the three points as you feel appropriate.
So you may score:
3: points for a single answer
2-1: divide the point between two answers
1,1,1: Divide the points between three answers
Example 1 - you feel really strongly that leadership is happy!
Leadership is…
| Happy | 3 |
| Sad | |
| Big | |
| Small |
Example 2 - you feel quite strongly that leadership is happy but also a bit sad.
Leadership is…
| Happy | 2 |
| Sad | 1 |
| Big | |
| Small |
Example 3 - You are even minded about leadership being happy, big and small, but less sure about it being sad.
Leadership is…
| Happy | 1 |
| Sad | |
| Big | 1 |
| Small | 1 |
