Leadership Relationship Quality Scale – Employee Version

Abstract

The Leadership Relationship Quality Scale – Employee Version (LRQ-E; German: Skala zur Erfassung der Führungsbeziehungsqualität aus Mitarbeitersicht) is a standardized psychometric instrument designed to assess the multifaceted quality of dyadic interpersonal relationships between employees and their immediate supervisors. Developed by Hans-Joachim Wolfram and Gisela Mohr at the University of Leipzig within a research program supported by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG), the LRQ-E addresses critical conceptual limitations in classical leader–member exchange (LMX) metrics. While conventional instruments (such as the LMX-7) predominantly conceptualize exchange quality as instrumental transactional support or global affinity, the LRQ-E systematically measures four theoretically grounded, behaviorally anchored dimensions: Respect (Respekt), Trust (Vertrauen), Encouragement (Ermutigung), and Affection (Zuneigung). The instrument comprises 16 items formulated to capture observable, everyday supervisory behaviors within organizational settings. Responses are captured along a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (trifft gar nicht zu / does not apply at all) to 5 (trifft völlig zu / completely applies). Maximum-likelihood factor analyses demonstrate a predominant primary factor accounting for 43.2% of the common variance, supporting the computation of a composite overall relationship quality score. The scale exhibits high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = .91) and robust criterion-related and construct validity, correlating strongly with multidimensional LMX (r = .80), transformational leadership (r = .73), and supervisor social support (r = .72), while demonstrating expected relationships with employee job satisfaction, occupational self-efficacy, and affective organizational commitment.

Keywords

Leadership Relationship Quality, Leader–Member Exchange, LMX, Dyadic Leadership, Supervisory Trust, Mutual Respect, Employee Encouragement, Affective Attachment, Organizational Psychometrics, Workplace Social Support, Employee Attitudes, Psychometric Validation

Authors

The Leadership Relationship Quality Scale – Employee Version was developed by:

• Dipl.-Psych. Dr. Hans-Joachim Wolfram: Kingston Business School, Kingston University London, United Kingdom (formerly at the Department of Work and Organizational Psychology, Institute of Applied Psychology, Leipzig University, Germany). Primary research areas: dyadic leadership processes, gender dynamics in corporate leadership, and leader–follower relational exchange. Contact: [email protected].
• Prof. Dr. Gisela Mohr: Emeritus Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology, Institute of Applied Psychology, Leipzig University (Universität Leipzig), Seeburgstraße 14–20, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. Renowned for foundational contributions to occupational health psychology, job insecurity measurement, and organizational behavior. Contact: [email protected].

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Leadership Relationship Quality Scale – Employee Version is to provide an empirically grounded, psychometrically robust, and behaviorally concrete diagnostic tool for quantifying how subordinates evaluate the relational and psychosocial climate established by their direct line managers. Within industrial and organizational psychology, interpersonal workplace dynamics have long been recognized as decisive determinants of employee well-being, engagement, and organizational citizenship. However, many legacy instruments measuring leadership relationships suffer from abstract wording, confounding leadership styles with relationship outcomes, or neglecting fundamental socio-emotional currencies such as mutual trust, explicit appreciation, resilience-building encouragement, and positive affect.

Wolfram and Mohr conceptualized the LRQ-E to overcome two predominant deficits observed in standard leadership metrics:

1. Item Abstraction vs. Behavioral Anchoring: Classical instruments such as the LMX-7 (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995) contain generalized items asking respondents to evaluate theoretical constructs globally (e.g., "How well does your leader understand your job problems and needs?"). Subordinates often find it difficult to anchor such questions in daily work routines. The LRQ-E deliberately employs everyday, observable behaviors (e.g., whether the supervisor praises the subordinate after completing difficult tasks, grants access to required IT systems, stands up for the subordinate against external parties, or shares humor).
2. Neglect of Core Interpersonal Dimensions: Graen and Scandura (1987) posited that mutual respect, interpersonal trust, and psychological obligation are the three fundamental pillars of mature leadership dyads. Despite this theoretical consensus, traditional tools contain minimal explicit coverage of respect and trust. The LRQ-E was intentionally drafted to represent these constructs alongside encouragement during failure and authentic interpersonal affection.

The scale serves diverse applications across organizational and scientific domains:

• Applied Organizational Diagnostics: The LRQ-E functions as an evaluation instrument in 360-degree leadership feedback processes, organizational climate surveys, and pulse assessments. It pinpoints whether relational deficits stem from lack of informational transparency (trust), absence of public recognition (respect), punitive responses to error (lack of encouragement), or interpersonal alienation (low affection).
• Leadership Training and Executive Coaching: Because items reflect tangible actions, coaches can formulate targeted behavioral interventions. Rather than receiving an abstract score on "relational competence," supervisors obtain actionable feedback on concrete behaviors, such as acknowledging suggestions in team meetings or shielding subordinates during external disputes.
• Academic Research: The scale enables occupational researchers to investigate dyadic leadership as an antecedent, mediator, or moderator in stress-strain models, models of workplace burnout, creative voice behavior, organizational turnover intentions, and gender-dyad interaction effects.

Psychological Construct

The construct assessed by the LRQ-E is Perceived Leadership Relationship Quality (Führungsbeziehungsqualität). Rather than assessing a unilateral leadership "trait" or rigid managerial "style," the construct captures the quality of the socio-emotional and instrumental exchange existing within a unique vertical dyad. Although maximum-likelihood factor analytic investigations show that the scale possesses strong unidimensionality—allowing the extraction of a single composite index of relationship quality—the instrument is theoretically founded upon four interconnected dimensions:

1. Respect (Respekt)

The Respect dimension measures the extent to which the supervisor acknowledges the professional competence, personal dignity, and organizational value of the employee. Respect reflects psychological validation within the social hierarchy. When supervisors exhibit respect, they treat subordinates as capable, autonomous contributors whose perspectives warrant genuine consideration. Within the LRQ-E, this dimension is operationalized through behavioral indicators such as:

• Explicitly highlighting the employee's organizational importance to the team or enterprise (Item 1).
• Expressing verbal recognition and praise following the mastery of demanding challenges (Item 2).
• Actively adopting and integrating the employee's proposed problem-solving suggestions (Item 3).
• Affirming and validating the employee's professional opinions during operational deliberations (Item 4).

2. Trust (Vertrauen)

Trust in leadership dyads is defined as the willingness of one party to be vulnerable to the actions of another, founded upon expectations of competence, reliability, benevolence, and integrity. In supervisory contexts, trust is manifested when leaders grant autonomy and empower subordinates rather than exercising micromanagement. Within the LRQ-E, trust is evaluated through concrete delegative and information-sharing behaviors:

• Relying consistently on the accuracy and honesty of the employee's statements and reports (Item 5).
• Accepting and backing the independent decisions rendered by the employee (Item 6).
• Granting unrestricted access to critical information, internal computer systems, and enterprise databases without gatekeeping (Item 7).
• Entrusting the employee with complex, high-stakes assignments that require professional discretion (Item 8).

3. Encouragement (Ermutigung)

The Encouragement dimension reflects supervisory behaviors that foster psychological safety, resilience, and personal development. High-quality leadership dyads do not merely reward success; they provide a developmental safety net during operational challenges or errors. Subordinates who perceive encouragement feel empowered to innovate, engage in calculated risk-taking, and persist in the face of setbacks. Operational expressions of this dimension include:

• Offering psychological reassurance and constructive cheerfulness after errors occur, rather than levying punitive blame (Item 9).
• Actively instilling courage and confidence when the employee initiates unfamiliar or ambitious tasks (Item 10).
• Collaborating supportively with the subordinate during the search for complex problem resolutions (Item 11).
• Providing steadfast advocacy and backing when the subordinate encounters challenges or scrutiny from external stakeholders or senior executives (Item 12).

4. Affection (Zuneigung)

The Affection dimension assesses the interpersonal warmth, mutual liking, informal rapport, and emotional harmony that characterizes mature dyadic partnerships. While purely transactional leadership focuses strictly on contractual duties, high-quality exchange relationships invariably encompass authentic socio-emotional bonds. Subordinates who experience interpersonal affection feel recognized as distinct human beings rather than replaceable cogs. Within the LRQ-E, affection is captured by:

• Cultivating a warm, collegial, and mutually supportive social climate within the workgroup (Item 13).
• Experiencing mutual psychological alignment and informal understanding ("being on the same wavelength"; Item 14).
• Maintaining an intrinsically positive, harmonious overall interpersonal relationship (Item 15).
• Sharing spontaneous humor, laughter, and lighthearted moments during workday interactions (Item 16).

Theoretical Framework

The Leadership Relationship Quality Scale is anchored primarily in Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) Theory, originally formulated as the Vertical Dyad Linkage (VDL) model by Dansereau, Cashman, and Graen (1973), and subsequently refined by Graen and Uhl-Bien (1995). Classical leadership paradigms assumed an "average leadership style" (ALS) where a leader behaves similarly toward all subordinates. Conversely, LMX theory postulates that leaders develop differentiated relationships with different followers through progressive iterations of role-making, social exchange, and mutual attribution.

The Social Exchange Mechanism

According to Social Exchange Theory (Blau, 1964; Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005), workplace interactions fall along a continuum ranging from purely transactional (economic) exchanges to rich, high-trust socio-emotional exchanges. In low-quality LMX dyads ("out-group" status), the relationship is governed strictly by the formal employment contract: the employee performs designated duties, and the supervisor delivers formal remuneration. In contrast, in high-quality LMX dyads ("in-group" status), the exchange transcends contractual parameters. The leader offers psychosocial resources—such as autonomy, developmental encouragement, inside information, and social support—while the subordinate reciprocates with enhanced discretionary effort, loyalty, and proactive voice behavior.

Graen and Scandura's Dyadic Currency Model

Graen and Scandura (1987) identified three fundamental exchange currencies that define mature dyadic partnerships: competence/respect, trust, and obligation. Later conceptualizations expanded these currencies to include multidimensional facets such as affect, loyalty, contribution, and professional respect (Liden & Maslyn, 1998). Wolfram and Mohr observed that existing operationalizations frequently failed to capture these currencies behaviorally in the German-speaking work environment. By integrating Mayring's (1983) qualitative content analysis of field interviews with front-line banking and insurance employees, the authors bridged conceptual LMX theory with inductive, grounded behavioral realities.

Conservation of Resources (COR) and Psychological Safety

The LRQ-E also integrates principles from Hobfoll's (1989) Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory and Edmondson's (1999) construct of Psychological Safety. In stressful corporate environments, supervisory trust, error-tolerant encouragement, and socio-emotional affection function as vital psychological resources. When leaders treat errors as learning opportunities (Item 9) and shield followers from external threat (Item 12), they reduce cognitive threat appraisals, diminish workplace strain, and foster proactive employee voice.

Validity

Empirical validation of the LRQ-E was conducted on a sample of N = 202 employees across 19 corporate organizations in the banking and insurance sectors in Germany, nested within 49 work teams. The validation protocol established content, construct, convergent, criterion-related, and discriminant validity.

Content Validity

To ensure high content validity, Wolfram and Mohr initiated scale development via structured qualitative interviews with 19 banking and insurance professionals. Employees described concrete, daily supervisor behaviors indicating respect, trust, encouragement, and affection. The resulting qualitative corpus yielded 251 verbatim statements. Using Mayring's (1983) qualitative structuring and reducing content analysis, academic organizational psychologists evaluated and distilled these statements down to 42 prototypical items. A quantitative pilot investigation (N = 70) further eliminated items with insufficient item-total correlations, skewness, or ceiling effects, yielding the final 16-item instrument.

Convergent and Criterion-Related Validity

Bivariate correlation analyses between the composite LRQ-E score and validated organizational benchmarks demonstrated robust convergent and criterion-related associations, conforming precisely to theoretical predictions (all correlations reported below are significant at p < .01 unless noted):

Note: ** p < .01; * p < .05.

The substantial correlation with Liden and Maslyn's multidimensional LMX scale (r = .80) validates the instrument as an authentic measure of leader–member exchange. Strong positive correlations with Transformational Leadership (r = .73) and Supervisor Support (r = .72) confirm that relational quality is intimately linked to charismatic, developmental leadership styles and perceived managerial helpfulness. In terms of criterion-related utility, the LRQ-E positively predicted overall job satisfaction (r = .33), employee proactive voice behavior (r = .21), and occupational self-efficacy (r = .21), while exhibiting an inverse correlation with workplace social stressors (r = -.29). The modest correlation with affective commitment (r = .15) supports discriminant validity, illustrating that interpersonal relationship quality with a direct line manager remains distinct from broader emotional attachment to the macro-organization.

Reliability

The Leadership Relationship Quality Scale demonstrates excellent internal consistency. In the primary validation sample of 202 employees in the banking and insurance sectors, the 16-item scale achieved an overall Cronbach's alpha of α = .91. This high coefficient indicates strong homogeneity among the items, well exceeding the .80 benchmark recommended by psychometric standards for applied diagnostic tools.

Detailed item-level reliability and distribution metrics demonstrate consistent measurement precision across the instrument:

• Corrected Item-Total Correlations (r_it): Discriminatory power values ranged from .37 to .79. Thirteen of the 16 items exhibited corrected item-total correlations ≥ .50. The highest discrimination was observed for Item 14 ("My supervisor is on my wavelength," r_it = .79), Item 10 ("My supervisor encourages me to tackle new things," r_it = .72), Item 12 ("My supervisor supports me against outsiders," r_it = .70), Item 15 ("My supervisor has a good relationship with me," r_it = .69), and Item 11 ("My supervisor helps me find problem solutions," r_it = .68). Lower discrimination was observed for items reflecting baseline structural procedures, such as Item 7 (granting IT system access, r_it = .37) and Item 5 (relying on statements, r_it = .37).
• Scale Descriptive Indices: Across the sample, the overall scale mean was M = 3.96 (SD = 0.56; Median = 4.00; Mode = 4.00). Skewness for the composite scale was -0.44 and kurtosis was -0.03, indicating an approximately normal distribution with mild, typical positive evaluation bias common to workplace leadership measures.

Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the 16 items was evaluated using Exploratory Factor Analysis with Maximum-Likelihood (ML) Estimation based on the empirical data from 202 respondents. Examination of the initial eigenvalue distribution and visual inspection of Cattell's scree test strongly supported a unidimensional factor solution:

• Eigenvalue Structure: The first extracted factor accounted for 43.2% of the total common variance, with an initial eigenvalue far exceeding subsequent factors. The second factor explained only 8.5% of the variance, followed by negligible subsequent components.
• Scree Test Interpretation: The sharp elbow inflection after the first factor confirmed that the items share a predominant primary dimension of general dyadic relationship quality.

Standardized maximum-likelihood factor loadings for all 16 items are summarized below:

Factor loadings ranged from .31 (Item 7) to .81 (Item 14). Items from the Affection (λ = .51 to .81) and Encouragement (λ = .66 to .72) subscales exhibited particularly high saturation on the primary relationship quality dimension. Because the unidimensional model accounts for the dominant variance, the authors recommend using the global sum or mean score in general predictive research. However, researchers conducting granular investigations into leadership exchange currencies may retain the four sub-dimensions for exploratory profile analyses upon consultation with the authors.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Formal Tool Name: Leadership Relationship Quality Scale – Employee Version (LRQ-E; German: Skala zur Erfassung der Führungsbeziehungsqualität aus Mitarbeitersicht).
• Target Population: Employed adult professionals across corporate, industrial, and administrative sectors who report to a designated direct line manager or supervisor.
• Administration Format: Standardized self-report pencil-and-paper or web-based survey questionnaire. Completion time is approximately 4 to 6 minutes.
• Item Count: 16 items structured across four conceptually balanced dimensions (Respect: Items 1–4; Trust: Items 5–8; Encouragement: Items 9–12; Affection: Items 13–16).
• Response Format: Symmetrical 5-point Likert rating scale:
  • 1 = trifft gar nicht zu (Does not apply at all)
  • 2 = trifft wenig zu (Applies slightly)
  • 3 = trifft mittelmäßig zu (Applies moderately)
  • 4 = trifft überwiegend zu (Largely applies)
  • 5 = trifft völlig zu (Completely applies)
• Scoring Procedures:
  • All 16 items are positively keyed; no reverse scoring is required.
  • An unweighted global sum score can be computed by summing all 16 items (ranging from 16 to 80).
  • Alternatively, a mean composite score is calculated by averaging all 16 items (ranging from 1.00 to 5.00), preserving the original response metric.
  • Higher aggregate scores indicate greater perceived leadership relationship quality, characterized by mutual trust, high respect, developmental encouragement, and warm interpersonal affection.
• Parallel Leader Version: A reciprocal parallel instrument exists for supervisors (Leader Version; Führungspersonen-Version), in which the item formulations are reflected to capture the leader's perspective of the exchange with a specific subordinate.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Leadership Relationship Quality Scale was developed between 2002 and 2004 as part of the research project "Führungsverhalten im Kontext der Geschlechterbeziehung" (Leadership Behavior in the Context of Gender Relations), funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG). The scale is published for scientific and academic research purposes.

No licensing fee is charged for non-commercial academic research and university teaching. Researchers planning to utilize the German original items, the parallel leader version, or adapted language forms in empirical investigations are requested to contact the primary authors (Dr. Hans-Joachim Wolfram or Prof. Dr. Gisela Mohr) for official documentation and permission.

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13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)