Construct validity indicates what meaning can be attached to the scores from an instrument, in other
words does it really measure what it says it measures. Even though the 16 items are well spread across
the four strategic leadership dimensions, it does not necessarily imply that these items fully capture
the content of the corresponding dimensions. Hence, the following chapter (chapter seven) includes an
expert panel test on the 16 items that resulted from this study. The next chapter also takes up the
challenge of determining whether the factor structure is sensitive to sample characteristics (Kerlinger,
1986). A possible shortcoming of this preliminary study is that the validation of the instrument was
done within one engineering firm. This focus helped to control for corporate-, industry- and country-
specific differences that might have otherwise masked certain effects. Yet this focus raises questions
about the generalizability of the findings to other industry settings.
Additionally, part of the construct validity of the strategic leadership model is the extent to which it is
distinct from supervisory leadership. In order to demonstrate whether the strategic leadership measure
was distinct from previous supervisory leadership measures, the discriminant validity of the model
needs to be tested against a frequently used measure of transformational leadership.
Concurrent validity in turn, deals with the relationship between scores of a measurement instrument
and performance or effectiveness measured at approximately the same time the instrument was
completed. The relevant question is: How accurate is the strategic leadership assessment of current
performance or effectiveness? This topic is taken up in chapter eight, where both strategic and
supervisory leadership are related to the internally-oriented effectiveness measure, VXERUGLQDWH¶ job
satisfaction and in chapter nine where strategic leadership is related to the criterion of team
effectiveness (including externally-oriented measures).