The Measurement of Job Satisfaction among Workplace Leaders: Scale Development and Validation of the Leader Satisfaction Assessment
Abstract
As one of the most well-researched constructs in I/O psychology, the job attitudes literature is saturated with assessments of job satisfaction. However, none of these measures have explicitly examined the nature of job satisfaction among workplace leaders, a subset of employees who have the potential to influence organizations in substantive and meaningful ways. As such, the purpose of this dissertation was to examine the measurement of job satisfaction among leaders. A series of interviews and open-ended survey questionnaires were administered to a diverse group of leaders, employed across a variety of organizations and industries, to identify what facets contributed most to their satisfaction at work. Unique facets that were identified as important to leaders’ satisfaction included Mentorship, Team Development, Strategic Planning, and Transparency. Based on leaders’ responses a novel measure of satisfaction, the Leader Satisfaction Assessment (LSA), was created to assess those facets of satisfaction that were important to leaders. Two versions of the LSA were developed (an Extended and a Brief version) to maximize the utility of the measure for both researchers and practitioners. Preliminary validation evidence supporting the LSA-Extended was reviewed by examining the relations between leaders’ satisfaction and various work attitudes and behaviours, including core self-evaluations, general mental ability, emotional intelligence, organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs), counterproductive workplace behaviours (CWBs), organizational commitment, and turnover intentions.