The conceptualisation, development and validation of an Ubuntu leadership measure within a Southern African organisational context

Abstract

This study explored the nature of Ubuntu leadership through the perspectives of South African organisational leaders, and an Ubuntu leadership instrument was developed that was empirically tested on a large scale using advanced statistical techniques to confirm validity. A systematic literature review over a 25-year period was used to explore how Ubuntu leadership manifests itself in an organisational context in literature. The study then followed an exploratory sequential design starting with the collection and analysis of qualitative data using Northcutt and McCoy’s Interactive Qualitative Analysis (IQA) (2004), followed by a development phase where the qualitative findings were translated into a measure which was then tested quantitatively. During the qualitative phase, data was collected from three focus groups of 9 – 17 organisational leaders. The outcome of each IQA focus group was a systems influence diagram which provided a visual picture of Ubuntu-style leadership through the eyes of the organisational leaders. The qualitative findings were used to develop an instrument with good psychometric properties that was administered to a sample of 2 129 public and private sector employees and subjected to factor analysis, scale reliability, invariance analysis, group differences using t-tests and ANOVA, confirming convergent and discriminant validity using correlations and testing for common method bias using IBM SPSS. The results show that Ubuntu in an organisational leadership context can be measured in a reliable and valid manner in the South African multicultural and diverse organisational context. The findings are optimistic in stimulating future empirical research around the measure and assessing how organisational Ubuntu leadership affects positive organisational behaviour.