Relationship Between Idealized Leadership Behavior and Change Initiative Success

Abstract

Change is an important process that organizations must go through to remain competitive. However, change initiatives fail resulting in costly financial losses for the organizations. Idealized behavior is critical to the effectiveness of change initiatives. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine the relationship between idealized behavior and change initiative success. Midlevel managers who successfully implemented 1 or more change initiatives in any industry in the United States (n = 105) were conveniently selected to participate in the study. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) Form 5X-Short was used to measure idealized behavior and the Project Implementation Profile (PIP) was used to measure change initiative success. The overall model, simple linear regression, revealed a statistically significant relationship between idealized behavior and change initiative success, F (1, 103) = 7.803, p < 0.006, R2 = 0.070. The independent variable (change initiative success) was also significant, p < 0.006. The results of the study provide a practical model for understanding the relationship between idealized behavior and change initiative success. Keywords: Idealized Behavior, Transformational Leadership, Change Initiative, Change Implementation, Correlational Study