Judicial leadership: A survey of Wisconsin Circuit Court judges using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire

Scholarship relative to leadership within the Judicial Branch of government is limited, and most existing inquiry has been directed toward appellate and supreme courts, largely ignoring the study of trial courts. In this study I seek to identify how Wisconsin trial court judges perceive their own leadership behaviors relative to the full range model of leadership, and to evaluate the manner in which their component scores vary from those of the normative sample compiled in the 2004 (U.S.) descriptive statistics for the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire 5X (Avolio & Bass, 2004).;I report the findings of a survey administered to 49 Wisconsin Circuit Court judges using the leader self-assessment of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire 5X-short (Avolio & Bass, 2004). Through use of a one-sample t-test where alpha2 = .05, I found evidence that the Circuit judges as a group scored higher than the 2004 (U.S.) normative sample in their self-assessment of idealized influence - attribute (d = .31, p = .042), management-by-exception: active ( d = .34, p = .016), and management-by-exception: passive (d = .55, p = .001).;Through use of product-moment correlations I also found evidence that the Circuit judges associate transformational leadership behaviors with the achievement of leadership outcomes, but as a group they perceive they are only average in exercising these behaviors. I also found evidence that the Circuit judges as a group perceive their strongest leadership behaviors to be passive/avoidant in nature, which they perceive as ineffective in producing leadership outcomes. Together these factors pose a dilemma that may be exacerbated by institutional elements within the judiciary, suggesting that the structure of the judicial system per se impedes the legitimacy and exercise of effective leadership by Circuit Court judges.