A configural approach to leadership using latent profile analysis: a key to addressing construct proliferation

In this paper we explore a configural perspective of leadership. From this configural perspective, leadership is not conceptualized or modelled as distinct styles, but rather provides a way to encompass a broad range of leadership approaches arising from the co-occurrence of the same underlying leadership behaviours. As initial support of our theorizing, in two samples, an online sample from the United States (n = 1025) and an organizational sample from The Netherlands (n = 193), we found that the profiles emerging from our data could be mapped onto existing leadership styles. These promising initial results indicate the potential of a configural approach to leadership – which we theorize in our discussion section. We suggest that more attention should be devoted to developing and studying a taxonomy of leader behaviour categories, and subsequently how they combine, rather than siloed leadership styles. Applying a configural approach such as this addresses the construct redundancy and proliferation problems in leadership research.