The criticality of first-line supervisors’ roles emerged as a major theme in the
interviews. Among hourly employees, there seemed to be a general distrust and
suspicion of management in general and of first-line supervisors in particular.
Following these interviews, a survey instrument was created and pilot tested on a
small, randomly selected (nผ25) sample of employees. Following modifications to
improve readability and validity considerations, a final instrument was developed,
consisting of specially created items and scales to measure issues brought up during
the interviews, and standardized measures of leadership from Bass and Avolio’s (1990)
Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ).