Validation of the Norwegian versions of the Implementation Leadership Scale (ILS) and Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) in a mental health care setting.

Background: The implementation of evidence-based practices (EBPs) is of crucial importance in health care institutions and requires effective management from leaders. However, there is a lack of assessment tools sufficient to evaluate the degree to which the employees´ rate how well their leaders are at implementing EBPs. This emphasises the need for validated and widely used scales relevant for EBPs.

Methods: The current study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) and Implementation Leadership Scale (ILS) in a Norwegian mental health care setting.

Results: Results from confirmatory factor analyses indicate that the MLQ and ILS are valid instruments for measuring general and implementation leadership. The scales demonstrate good convergent validity. In addition, attitudes towards EBPs did not seem to be associated with the ILS and MLQ, further supporting the applicability of the instruments.

Conclusions: The two scales demonstrate good psychometric properties in a Norwegian mental health care setting, which suggests that the MLQ and ILS are valid and reliable tools for measuring leadership in an implementation setting. More research is greatly needed to disentangle the link between perceived leadership and objective measures of successful implementation of EBPs. Trial registration NSD 690,133, NSD 60,059/3/OOS.