The Leading-Managing Index (LMI): Bridging Conceptual and Practical Gaps in Leadership and Management Research

There is no one-size-fits-all model for how individuals should run organizations, coordinate work activities, and motivate employees given that different organizations and different groups of employees have different needs in order to perform and be successful. Building on recent substantiations of long-standing popular distinctions between prototypical leading and managing as two different influence strategies, we develop the Leading-Managing Index (LMI) partly to increase the precision with which a given individual’s focal influence strategy is assessed. Through pre-registered replication studies involving seven samples of working adults at least 25 years old (N = 2,196), we show (in Study 1) evidence that the two-factor LMI has internal and discriminant validity as well as within-person reliability while affirming (in Study 2) the face validity and relevance of our distinction between leading and managing for various organizational settings. In Study 3, we demonstrate nomological validity between the LMI’s two factors and an array of personality and individual difference variables and, in Study 4, we test a set of hypotheses regarding the LMI’s predictive validity in relation to a wide array of organizational and employee-related outcomes. Our work applies a psychometrically sound approach to scale development and builds new theory through its framework that presumes that prototypical leading and managing should be considered as equivalent focal influence strategies. Concurrent with recent calls for greater attention to management competencies, the LMI offers a novel and necessary innovation to advance debates on leading and managing as two distinct and core approaches for running organizations and coordinating work activities.