Entrepreneurial Leadership Questionnaire (ELQ)

Appendix C
Entrepreneurial
Leadership
Questionnaire
(ELQ)
The purpose of the following questionnaire is to assess the
importance to you of various behaviors that your direct supervisor
may practice and the extent to which he/she actually practices
these behaviors. The questionnaire is completely
anonymous. Your responses will be aggregated with the
responses of your boss’s other direct reports in order to be
scored (at least three direct reports must fill in this questionnaire
for each boss).
Please rate the importance to you of each behavior on a
five-point scale, with 1 being very unimportant to 5 being
extremely important.
Then rate each behavior on the frequency with which your
boss actually practices this behavior on the job: 1 indicates
almost never, while 5 indicates almost always.
Importance 1 2 3 4 5
Rating (I) Not at all Somewhat Important Very Extremely
important important important important
Frequency 1 2 3 4 5
Rating (F) Almost To some Frequently Often Very
never extent often
257

258 Appendix C
1. Spends time on new business development.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
2. Points out the competition’s weaknesses and how we could
exploit them.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
3. Listens to and acts upon customer complaints.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
4. Challenges us to think about new and better ways to do our
work.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
5. Encourages the bending/circumvention of company rules when
they get in the way of achieving business goals.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
6. Assertively communicates to upper manager regarding how
things could be run better.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
7. Looks for creative ways to manage, use, or rearrange company
assets and resources.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
8. Passionately looks for new ways to grow the business.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
9. Motivates us to think of innovative ways to beat the competition.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
10. Effectively sells new business ideas to upper management.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
11. Supports our suggestions for improving the business.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
12. Gets things done even if it means going around the system.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
13. Communicates a vision of how the organization could be better in
the future if we were to make certain improvements.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
14. Encourages us to challenge the status quo.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
15. Makes sure that we keep the customer in mind when making
changes to our organization.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5

Entrepreneurial Leadership Questionnaire (ELQ) 259
16. Tells us where we stand visa-vis the competition.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
17. Pushes us to innovate in how we do our work.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
18. Actively identifies, develops, and goes after new business
opportunities.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
19. Makes sure that we have the right team of people in place to
successfully capture these new opportunities.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
20. Displays enthusiasm for us learning new skills.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
21. Quickly takes a different direction when results aren’t being
achieved.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
22. Encourages others to take the initiative and action for their
own ideas.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
23. Motivates people to think about how to do their work in new
and interesting ways.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
24. Allots time to helping others find ways to improve our products
and services.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
25. Creates a climate that encourages continuous improvement.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
26. Willingly moves ahead with a promising new approach when
others might hold back.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
27. Promotes an environment where risk taking is encouraged.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
28. Identifies, encourages, and protects rebels who might think
and act differently than the majority of employees.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
29. Encourages others to outwit and outmaneuver the company’s
bureaucracy.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5

260 Appendix C
30. Quickly utilizes different approaches to overcoming obstacles
when the initial one doesn’t work.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
31. Creates an environment where people feel free to try new
things.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
32. Challenges us to creatively discover ways to do more with less.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
33. Demonstrates an entrepreneurial orientation at work.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
34. Pushes the organization to be fast, flexible, and adaptable so
that we can react quickly when new business opportunities
arise.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
35. Actively fights the encroachment of bureaucracy in the
company.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
36. Utilizes an extensive network of people throughout the
organization that is willing to help if called upon.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
37. Analyzes work flow, resources, processes, and procedures to
see how we can do our work better, faster, and cheaper with
better impact for the customer.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
38. Expects us to constructively identify and solve crossorganizational
problems and issues.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
39. Willingly listens to suggestions from others about how to do
things differently.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
40. Support us in fighting for changes which will improve the way
the company works.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
The following survey items should only be rated in reference to
your views of Senior Management. Senior Management refers
to the CEO or top manager of the organization and his/her

team of direct reports. Clearly there are individual differences
among senior managers so please refer to what you believe
most of them do. If the behaviors are too varied among the
Senior Management team, then rate each item with just the
CEO/Top Manager in mind.
41. Strives to build an innovative culture within our company.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
42. Encourages entrepreneurial thinking and risk taking.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
43. Reacts quickly to remove organizational barriers that get in
the way of doing business.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
44. Encourages open communications and ideas sharing across
organizational units and functions.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
45. Keeps the organization informed and updated on industry
trends and competitor strategies.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
46. Actively encourages business improvement suggestions
throughout the organization.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
47. Takes action to implement many of these suggestions.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
48. Keeps the organization focused on its core strategy but also
supports new business initiatives.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
49. Puts aside money outside of the normal budget process in
order to fund and support innovative ideas.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
50. Encourage employees to challenge their decisions.
(I) 1 2 3 4 5 (F) 1 2 3 4 5
ELQ Scoring Key
Entrepreneurial Leadership Questionnaire (ELQ) 261
The questions on the survey map to the five dimensions of
entrepreneurial leadership:

262 Appendix C
• GEL—general entrepreneurial leader behaviors
• E—explorer behavior
• M—miner behavior
• A—accelerator behavior
• I—integrator behavior
Simply add the rating associated with each question under
each dimension to get the overall scores for both importance (I)
and frequency (F). Normally, this is done by computer, but you
can do a self-rating to see where you fall in your own estimation.
GEL Explorer Miner Accelerator Integrator
5 I F 1 I F 6 I F 4 I F 13 I F
12 I F 2 I F 7 I F 11 I F 28 I F
26 I F 3 I F 15 I F 14 I F 34 I F
27 I F 8 I F 32 I F 17 I F 36 I F
29 I F 9 I F 37 I F 20 I F 41 I F
30 I F 10 I F 38 I F 21 I F 42 I F
33 I F 16 I F 40 I F 22 I F 43 I F
35 I F 18 I F 23 I F 44 I F
39 I F 19 I F 24 I F 45 I F
31 I F 46 I F
47 I F
48 I F
49 I F
50 I F
Add up the scores under each dimension for each question
on both importance and frequency, and then look at the table
below to get an idea into which category your scores fall. Please
keep in mind that your self-ratings may be different from how
others see you.
Score
Range GEL Explorer Miner Accelerator Integrator
High 34–45 34–45 26–35 42–55 53–70
Medium 23–33 23–33 18–25 31–41 36–52
Low 9–22 9–22 17–24 11–30 14–35