How was the CLS360 Developed?

The development of the CLS360 was sponsored by the Antwerp-based training and coaching company, PerCo. The company also proposed the initial research hypothesis, namely, that leadership styles could be captured in the interpersonal circumplex.


Researchers from three European universities over a six-year period (click here for Research Team) contributed to the CLS360's form and content. In 2008, Marleen Redeker became the principal researcher, undertaking an examination of the CLS360’s construction and psychometric characteristics as her PhD, which was finished December 2012.

The following summary of how the CLS360 was developed is abstracted from her PhD and the CLS360 Technical Manual. The four development stages of the CLS360 were as follows: 

  1. Item construction: the construction of the CLS360 started by gathering as many leadership-descriptive items as possible. 
  2. Dimensions: these items were analysed to study the number of dimensions necessary to summarise the items. 
  3. Circumplex and scales: the circumplex characteristics of the items and the scales were examined in a second set of studies. Other studies included test-retest reliability, convergent validity with other tests, and predictive validity (effort and performance).  
  4. Translation: the Dutch items were translated into English and ‘back-translated’ multiple times, and then tested with a group of Australian leaders. 

Click here to download a free copy of the research article: Marleen Redeker, Reinout E. de Vries, Danny Rouckhout, Patrick Vermeren, & Filip de Fruyt (2012). Integrating Leadership: The Leadership Circumplex. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology. 
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