Development and validation of the Work Environment Complexity Scale for leaders

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a Work Environment Complexity (WEC) Scale for leaders. Design/methodology/approach: The paper uses both cross-sectional and longitudinal data, gathered in the course of major organisational restructuring, using samples from employees (n=305) and leaders (n=120) in two health care organisations. Findings: The research developed and validated a scale of WEC for leaders with two factors: frequent change and events, and uncertain work demands. Comparisons between samples suggest diverging employee and leadership representations of WEC. Practical implications: Being the first scale to measure the comprehensive construct of WEC, a foundation is laid to measure the amount of complexity in a leader’s work and the functioning of leaders with regards to WEC. Originality/value: This paper contributes to leadership research and practice by clarifying the construct of WEC for leaders empirically and validating a bidimensional scale of WEC.