The 50-item Self-Leadership Scale (SLS) and a 20-item brief SLS were developed by Mary Steinhardt, Christyn Dolbier and colleagues at UT Austin using data collected from 745 government employees. The SLS was designed to measure aspects of Self-leadership based on the authors’ interpretation of the 8 Cs, with feedback from Richard Schwartz and IFS therapists. The SLS differs from the IFS Scale which was designed to measure aspects of Self AND parts; however, the 20-item brief SLS appears to be comparable to the 25-item IFS Self Scale.

The internal reliability of the SLS is high, with a Cronbach's alpha of .95 for the 50-item scale and .93 for briefer 20-item SLS.

The convergent construct validity of the SLS and brief SLS were supported by the significant positive relationships to hardiness, dispositional optimism, approach coping style, and trait positive affectivity. The divergent construct validity of the scales was supported by the significant inverse relationships to dispositional pessimism, avoidance coping style, and trait negative affectivity.

The SLS and brief SLS were found to have significant positive relationships with general health perceptions, life satisfaction, supervisor support, coworker support, and job satisfaction. Significant negative relationships were found between the SLS and brief SLS and symptoms of illness, perceived stress, and work stress.

Scale items and administration instructions can be found in this article:

Steinhardt, M.A., Dolbier, C.L., Mallon, M.W., & Adams, D.T. (2003). The development and validation of a scale for measuring self-leadership. Journal of Self-Leadership, 1, 20-31.

This scale was used in the following peer-reviewed journal articles:

Dolbier, C.L., Soderstrom, M., & Steinhardt, M.A. (2001). The relationship between self-leadership and enhanced psychological, health and work outcomes. Journal of Psychology, 135(5), 469-485.

Robinson, B.E., Flowers, C., & Burris, C. (2006). An empirical study of the relationship between Self-leadership and workaholism "firefighter" behaviors. Journal of Self-Leadership, 1, 91-98.

These authors also designed a resilience intervention, based in part on the IFS model, and implemented it among college students. In the study described in these articles, the 20-item SLS was used and showed increase in Self-leadership among those who received the intervention compared to the wait-list control group:

Steinhardt, M., & Dolbier, C. (2008). Evaluation of a resilience intervention to enhance coping strategies and protective factors and decrease symptomatology. Journal of American College Health, 56(4), 445-453.

Dolbier, C.L., Jaggars, S., & Steinhardt, M.A. (2010). Stress-related growth: Pre-intervention correlates and change following a resilience intervention. Stress and Health: Journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress, 26(2), 135-147.