Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) as leadership assessment tool in colleges and universities: An exploratory study on potential interest in higher education

As colleges and universities move to establish methods of internal assessment, questions arise regarding the role of leadership assessment within colleges and universities. The Higher Learning Commission, a regional accrediting agency responsible for developing institutional accreditation policies and procedures, has placed an increased emphasis on effective leadership in its two North Central Association accreditation programs—the Total Quality Management (TQM)—based Academic Quality Improvement Project (AQIP) and its more traditionally-based Program to Evaluate and Advance Quality (PEAQ). Prior research also indicates that effective leadership can help facilitate organizational change. This researcher intends to show, through a systemic review of existing literature, that colleges could benefit from adoption of leadership assessment tools designed to provide quantitative results on leadership characteristics of individuals, and will utilize a survey distributed to college and university institutional researchers to determine whether the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) would be beneficial when assessing leadership characteristics, particularly in their relation to assessing leadership characteristics of individuals as part of accreditation self-study reports or site visits or as part of a general program of leadership assessment within colleges and universities.