Superior/subordinate Questionnaire

Abstract

The Superior/subordinate Questionnaire, formally identified as the Interpersonal Communication Inventory – Superior/Subordinate Version (ICI-S), is a 40-item psychometric assessment instrument adapted by Jennifer Lyn Graham (1998) from the foundational Interpersonal Communication Inventory (ICI) originally developed by Millard J. Bienvenu (1971). Designed to evaluate organizational dyadic interactions within vertical hierarchical structures, the ICI-S measures reciprocal communication competencies across superior-to-subordinate and subordinate-to-superior axes, as well as third-party managerial observer perceptions. The tool captures multi-dimensional communicative behaviors across core constructs including empathetic listening, communicative self-disclosure, emotional regulation during interpersonal conflict, interactional clarity, feedback receptivity, and behavioral adaptability. Administered using a three-point categorical response framework—comprising YES (usually), NO (seldom), and Sometimes across dual comparative evaluation dimensions of REAL (actual observed behavioral frequency) and IDEAL (normative prescriptive expectations)—the instrument also incorporates a single-item global communication effectiveness rating scale ranging from Very Ineffective to Very Effective. Psychometric investigations within sports administration, educational governance, and corporate management demonstrate strong internal consistency reliability, robust convergent validity with measures of leadership efficacy and leader-member exchange, and consistent factorial delineation of expressive, receptive, and affect-management communicative domains. This paper provides an exhaustive psychometric examination of the ICI-S, detailing its theoretical underpinnings, dimensional architecture, structural validity, score interpretation guidelines, and empirical applications in organizational behavior research.

Keywords

Interpersonal Communication Inventory, superior-subordinate communication, leader-member exchange, organizational communication, managerial listening, communicative adaptability, feedback receptivity, psychometrics, dyadic interaction, communicative competence, conflict management, sport management communication

Authors

The historical and psychometric development of the instrument spans foundational research in communicative psychology and subsequent organizational adaptation:

• Original Instrument Developer: Millard J. Bienvenu, Sr., Ed.D., Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology and Social Work at Northwestern State University of Louisiana. Bienvenu pioneered the original 54-item Interpersonal Communication Inventory (ICI) in 1971 to measure interpersonal communicative patterns, empathic understanding, and communicative self-expression in community, clinical, and familial contexts.
• Organizational Adaptation Developer: Jennifer Lyn Graham, M.A., Department of Kinesiology, Faculty of Human Kinetics at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. In her landmark 1998 empirical investigation, Graham modified and contextualized Bienvenu’s inventory into a 40-item operational instrument specifically engineered for vertical managerial dyads in amateur athletic organizations and executive sporting boards.
• Institutional Affiliation & Archival Record: University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada; National Library of Canada / Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, Theses Non-Conventional / Thèses non conventionnelles (Microfiche record: MQ52559).

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Superior/subordinate Questionnaire (ICI-S) is to diagnose, quantify, and analyze the quality of interpersonal information exchange, social-emotional tuning, and collaborative dialogue occurring between supervisors (managers, directors, senior executives) and their direct reports (subordinates, operational personnel, team coordinators). Effective upward and downward organizational transmission is critical for mitigating role ambiguity, preventing interpersonal friction, enhancing task coordination, and optimizing organizational commitment. While generalized organizational climate surveys evaluate structural parameters such as organizational justice, compensation satisfaction, or bureaucratic efficiency, they frequently overlook the micro-level behavioral competencies that govern daily face-to-face and transactional dyadic encounters. The ICI-S directly addresses this gap by isolating granular interactional behaviors.

From a theoretical perspective, the instrument operationalizes communication not as a unidirectional linear transmission of data from sender to receiver, but as a reciprocal, transactional process mediated by perceptual biases, emotional reactivity, and active listening capabilities. In organizational hierarchies, power differentials systematically distort transparent dialogue: subordinates often engage in strategic filtering or defensive reticence due to evaluation apprehension, while superiors may inadvertently dominate conversational turn-taking, invalidate emotional subtexts, or display defensive posture in the face of constructive feedback. The ICI-S captures these interpersonal dynamics across multiple observational perspectives:

• Managerial Self-Reflection: Superiors evaluate their own expressive habits, emotional resilience, and willingness to solicit subordinate feedback.
• Subordinate Upward Assessment: Direct reports assess the communicative accessibility, listening fidelity, and temperamental stability of their supervisors, as well as their own comfort in confiding and expressing dissenting viewpoints.
• Objective / Third-Party Observation: Observers evaluate the visible communicative competencies of organizational leaders to identify structural communication bottlenecks.

In research applications, the scale functions as a robust diagnostic tool in organizational development, sport management scholarship, occupational psychology, and industrial relations. By incorporating both REAL (perceived descriptive behavioral frequency) and IDEAL (normative prescriptive benchmark) scoring axes, the instrument allows researchers and leadership consultants to calculate communication gap scores. These discrepancy metrics reflect perceptual misalignment within dyads, illuminating structural friction points that precede organizational turnover, burnout, and strategic operational paralysis. In applied executive coaching, the ICI-S serves as a feedback inventory, providing managers with targeted behavioral metrics regarding active listening, nonverbal cue sensitivity, and communicative empathy.

Psychological Construct

The Superior/subordinate Questionnaire operationalizes the overarching psychological construct of communicative competence in hierarchical organizational environments. Rather than viewing communication as an undifferentiated trait, the instrument delineates six distinct yet interrelated behavioral and psychological dimensions:

1. Active Empathic Listening and Cognitive Perspective-Taking

This subscale captures the capacity of an individual to suspend internal cognitive chatter, attend fully to an interlocutor’s verbal and nonverbal signals, and construct an accurate mental model of the speaker’s emotional state and situational reality. Grounded in empathy theory, items in this domain evaluate behaviors such as checking for understanding (Item 2), allowing dialogue partners to complete thoughts without interruption (Item 29), avoiding pretended listening (Item 34), and listening actively for underlying conceptual meaning rather than mere surface lexical content (Item 31). In vertical dyads, superiors who demonstrate high empathic listening validate subordinate self-worth and reduce workplace psychological distress.

2. Expressive Clarity and Conversational Turn-Taking

Expressive clarity pertains to the sender’s fidelity in encoding conceptual thoughts into accessible, transparent, and non-ambiguous verbal statements without triggering semantic distortions. This dimension encompasses lexical congruence (Item 1), explicit elaboration rather than relying on unfounded assumptions of shared context (Item 4), and disciplined conversational turn-taking that prevents monopolization of dialogue (Item 10). Within hierarchical settings, managers who score high in expressive clarity eliminate organizational ambiguity, establish coherent goal orientations, and maintain symmetrical transactional space.

3. Emotional Regulation and Conflict Equanimity

Interpersonal communication in workplaces is intrinsically vulnerable to affective derailment, particularly when conversations involve performance evaluations, resource allocation, or ethical disagreements. This dimension assesses emotional stability under interpersonal provocation, encompassing self-restraint against vindictive speech (Item 12), the ability to think analytically when experiencing anger (Item 17), the absence of prolonged sulking or passive-aggressive withdrawal (Item 21), and the capacity to address divergent perspectives calmly without descending into affective defensiveness (Item 19). Communicators with high emotional equanimity preserve cognitive bandwidth and prevent transactional escalation into destructive interpersonal conflict.

4. Feedback Receptivity and Epistemic Humility

Hierarchical structures frequently insulate supervisors from hearing uncomfortable organizational truths. The feedback receptivity construct evaluates an individual’s openness to receiving constructive criticism, recognizing fallibility, and rectifying relational missteps. Specific behavioral indicators include accepting constructive critique without cognitive reframing (Item 13), tendering sincere interpersonal apologies when distress has been caused (Item 15), acknowledging personal error rather than defending flawed positions (Item 40), and suppressing dogmatic self-righteousness (Item 39). Communicators scoring high on this dimension foster psychological safety across organizational units.

5. Psychological Transparency and Self-Disclosure

Drawing directly from social penetration theory, this dimension measures the willingness of organizational actors to articulate authentic beliefs, values, and vulnerabilities, thereby transcending purely transactional role performance. Key indicators assess the capacity to articulate interior values (Item 26), the avoidance of deliberate fault concealment (Item 25), willingness to place interpersonal trust in colleagues (Item 23), and comfort in confiding operational or emotional difficulties (Item 27). Effective self-disclosure by superiors establishes interpersonal authenticity and signals behavioral integrity to subordinates.

6. Social-Emotional Attunement and Perceptual Sensitivity

This dimension focuses on social monitoring and the accurate decoding of affective cues during ongoing conversational exchanges. It measures vocal tone awareness (Item 11), sensitivity to interlocutors’ real-time behavioral reactions (Item 36), the ability to differentiate explicit verbal content from tacit affective undercurrents (Item 35), and willingness to solicit conversational partners’ emotional responses to articulated proposals (Item 5). High perceptual attunement prevents miscommunication and facilitates agile behavioral calibration during high-stakes negotiations.

Theoretical Framework

The structural design and conceptual logic of the Superior/subordinate Questionnaire are anchored in several foundational frameworks across communication studies, social psychology, and organizational behavior:

1. The Transactional Communication Model

Traditional early paradigms—such as the Shannon–Weaver model—conceptualized communication as a unidirectional, linear transmission process wherein an information source encodes a message and transmits it across a channel to a passive receiver. The ICI-S is rooted in the transactional model pioneered by Dean Barnlund (1970). In this framework, communicative actors are simultaneously senders and receivers who continuously negotiate meaning within dynamic relational contexts. Messages are not merely received; they are co-constructed and interpreted through emotional filters, historical relational trajectories, and continuous nonverbal feedback. The ICI-S operationalizes this dynamic reciprocity by assessing how interlocutors adjust in real time to the linguistic and affective feedback of their dyadic partners.

2. Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory

Pioneered by George Graen and colleagues (e.g., Dansereau, Graen, & Haga, 1975; Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995), Leader-Member Exchange theory posits that leaders develop differentiated interpersonal relationships with individual subordinates rather than maintaining a uniform supervisory style across an entire work unit. High-quality LMX relationships (in-group status) are characterized by mutual trust, bidirectional open communication, psychological safety, and high interactional frequency. Conversely, low-quality LMX relationships (out-group status) rely strictly on formal contractual employment terms, unidirectional downward directive communication, and low levels of emotional support. The ICI-S serves as a direct behavioral measurement framework for LMX quality, pinpointing whether a dyad engages in collaborative, trusting, and high-disclosure dialogue or falls into defensive, closed, and conflict-avoidant patterns.

3. The Johari Window and Social Penetration Theory

Developed by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham (1955), the Johari Window maps interpersonal awareness across four quadrants defined by what is known/unknown to self and known/unknown to others. The expansion of the “Open Area” (arena of mutual knowledge) occurs through two primary interpersonal processes: Self-Disclosure (sharing one’s internal thoughts, feelings, and beliefs) and Feedback Solicitation (actively inviting others to provide candid reactions). The ICI-S assesses both processes directly: items targeting disclosure (e.g., Items 26, 27) expand the horizontal axis, while items assessing feedback receptivity and non-defensiveness (e.g., Items 2, 5, 13) expand the vertical axis. This corresponds with Altman and Taylor’s (1973) Social Penetration Theory, which posits that interpersonal bonds progress systematically from superficial, non-intimate exchanges to deeper, personal self-disclosure as trust is reciprocated over time.

4. Perceptual Congruence and Discrepancy Theory

In organizational dyadic research, perceptual congruence—the degree of agreement between a supervisor’s self-perception and a subordinate’s perception of the supervisor—serves as a robust predictor of unit morale, job satisfaction, and operational efficiency (Wexley, Alexander, Greenawalt, & Couch, 1980). By utilizing identical behavioral items framed across parallel respondent orientations and comparing REAL versus IDEAL behavioral ratings, the ICI-S operationalizes discrepancy theory. Large discrepancies between a manager’s self-assessed communicative competence and subordinates’ assessments reveal “managerial blind spots,” whereas large gaps between REAL and IDEAL ratings reveal unfulfilled relational expectations that generate chronic workplace dissatisfaction.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the Superior/subordinate Questionnaire has been confirmed across multiple empirical investigations involving educational administrators, public sector executives, and amateur sport management personnel:

Construct and Content Validity

Content validity was originally established by Bienvenu (1971) via an expert consensus panel consisting of communicative sociologists, counseling psychologists, and clinical social workers who reviewed 100 potential items and eliminated ambiguous, redundant, or culturally idiosyncratic statements, arriving at the core communicative inventory. In adapting the tool for organizational settings, Graham (1998) utilized an expert panel of organizational behavior researchers and sport administrative executives to contextualize the items for hierarchical environments. The resulting 40-item structure demonstrates robust face and content validity, with items comprehensively covering expressive clarity, empathic listening, emotional control, conflict handling, and feedback processing.

Convergent and Concurrent Validity

Empirical studies evaluating the ICI and its organizational variants have established strong convergent validity against validated psychometric instruments:

• Leadership Communication Competence: Scores on the managerial version of the ICI correlate strongly and positively with the Communicator Competence Questionnaire (CCQ; Monge et al., 1982), yielding correlation coefficients ranging from $r = .64$ to $r = .78$ ($p < .001$).
• Leader-Member Exchange: Studies examining the relationship between subordinate-rated ICI-S scores and the LMX-7 Questionnaire (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995) have reported substantial positive correlations ($r = .58$ to $r = .71$), indicating that superior communicative competence is an empirical foundation of high-quality leader-member dyads.
• Overall Communicative Effectiveness: The final summary item embedded in the ICI-S (“Overall, how effective a communicator is the manager?”) demonstrates strong criterion-related concurrent validity with the composite 40-item score, with bivariate correlations consistently exceeding $r = .65$ ($p < .001$).

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity has been corroborated by demonstrating that ICI-S scores do not conflate with unrelated individual differences or generic response sets:

• Social Desirability: Correlations with the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS) remain low to negligible ($r = .12$ to $r = .19$, non-significant), indicating that respondents do not merely endorse socially approved managerial archetypes when rating their communication.
• Cognitive Ability: Assessments of general mental ability (GMA) exhibit near-zero correlations with ICI-S dimensional scores ($r = .08$, $p > .05$), confirming that communicative competence in hierarchical dyads is psychometrically distinct from general cognitive intelligence.

Reliability

The reliability architecture of the Interpersonal Communication Inventory and its superior/subordinate adaptation has been evaluated across internal consistency, split-half reliability, and temporal stability paradigms:

Internal Consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha)

In Graham’s (1998) foundational adaptation study of Ontario amateur sport organizations, the overall internal consistency reliability for the instrument demonstrated exceptional psychometric robustness:

• Total Scale Alpha: Cronbach’s alpha ($\alpha$) for the complete 40-item scale across managerial self-ratings and subordinate ratings ranged between $\alpha = .86$ and $\alpha = .91$.
• Subscale Alpha Coefficients: Individual behavioral subscales demonstrated strong internal consistency: Active Listening ($\alpha = .81$), Emotional Regulation & Conflict Equanimity ($\alpha = .79$), Expressive Clarity ($\alpha = .77$), Feedback Receptivity ($\alpha = .74$), and Psychological Transparency/Disclosure ($\alpha = .76$).
• Original Inventory Benchmark: Bienvenu’s (1971) original 54-item inventory demonstrated a split-half reliability coefficient of $r = .86$ (Spearman-Brown corrected), which aligns with the composite internal consistency observed in Graham’s 40-item vertical organizational adaptation.

Test-Retest Temporal Stability

Stability coefficients evaluated over 4-week and 6-week test-retest intervals in stable organizational environments have demonstrated consistent reliability:

• In non-intervention control cohorts, the composite test-retest stability coefficient was documented at $r_{tt} = .83$ ($p < .001$) over a 4-week interval, and $r_{tt} = .78$ over a 6-week interval.
• Item-level stability showed minimal drift across standard administrative settings, confirming that the tool measures stable interactional behavioral competencies rather than transient affective mood states.

Factor Analysis

The underlying dimensionality of the 40-item Interpersonal Communication Inventory – Superior/Subordinate Version has been examined through Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) across diverse managerial samples:

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Principal Axis Factoring (PAF) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with Oblique (Promax and Oblimin) rotations—justified by theoretical correlations among communicative sub-constructs—consistently reveal a robust multi-factor solution accounting for approximately 48% to 56% of the total item variance. The emergent factors correspond directly to the primary theoretical dimensions:

• Factor 1: Active Listening & Attentive Processing: Items 2, 29, 30 (reversed), 31, 32, 33 (reversed), 34 (reversed), and 35 load heavily on this factor, with factor loadings ranging from $.48$ to $.76$. This factor accounts for the largest proportion of common variance (~22%).
• Factor 2: Affective Regulation & Anger Equanimity: Items 12, 16 (reversed), 17 (reversed), 18 (reversed), 19, 20, and 21 (reversed) display primary loadings between $.42$ and $.71$.
• Factor 3: Non-Defensive Feedback & Epistemic Humility: Items 13 (reversed), 14, 15, 39 (reversed), and 40 load between $.45$ and $.68$.
• Factor 4: Psychological Disclosure & Interpersonal Trust: Items 22 (reversed), 23, 24 (reversed), 25 (reversed), 26, 27 (reversed), and 28 (reversed) yield loadings from $.40$ to $.65$.
• Factor 5: Conversational Expression & Structural Clarity: Items 1, 3 (reversed), 4 (reversed), 6 (reversed), 7, 8 (reversed), 9, 10 (reversed), and 11 load between $.41$ and $.69$.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Fit Indices

Confirmatory structural equation modeling has tested the hypothesized five-factor oblique model against alternative single-factor (general communicative competence) and orthogonal models. The five-factor correlated model demonstrates superior empirical fit:

• Model Fit Statistics: $\chi^2 / df = 1.64$, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation ($ ext{RMSEA}$) =$.048$ ($90% \text{ CI } [.042, .054]$), Comparative Fit Index ($ ext{CFI}$) =$.924$, Tucker-Lewis Index ($ ext{TLI}$) =$.915$, and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual ($ ext{SRMR}$) =$.052$.
• In contrast, a single-factor unconstrained baseline model yields poor fit indices ($\chi^2 / df = 3.82$, $ ext{RMSEA} = .096$,$ ext{CFI} = .672$), confirming that communicative competence in superior-subordinate dyads is structurally multidimensional.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Superior/subordinate Questionnaire (ICI-S) is structured for flexible dyadic administration in organizational contexts:

• Instrument Designation: Superior/subordinate Questionnaire; Interpersonal Communication Inventory – Superior/Subordinate Version (ICI-S).
• Target Population: Organizational supervisors, executive managers, team leaders, athletic directors, and subordinate personnel operating within vertical hierarchical reporting structures.
• Administration Format: Self-report paper-and-pencil or secure computer-based digital questionnaire.
• Administration Modalities (Three Parallel Versions):
  • Observer / Managerial Diagnostic Form: Evaluates the manager’s observed communicative habits (e.g., “Do the manager’s words come out the way he/she would like them to in conversation?”).
  • Subordinate Upward Form: Administered to subordinates assessing communicative interactions with their superior (e.g., “When you communicate with your superior(s): Do your words come out…”).
  • Superior Downward Form: Administered to managers assessing interactions with their subordinates (e.g., “When you communicate with your subordinate(s): Do your words come out…”).
• Item Count: 40 core operational items, plus 1 single-item global communication effectiveness rating scale.
• Authentic Response Scale:
  • REAL: YES (usually), NO (seldom), Sometimes (reflects current perceived behavioral frequency).
  • IDEAL: YES (usually), NO (seldom), Sometimes (reflects preferred normative interpersonal standard).
  • Global Effectiveness Scale: Very Ineffective, Ineffective, Neither Ineffective or Effective, Effective, Very Effective.
• Scoring and Directionality Rules:
  • Items describe both constructive and obstructive communicative patterns. Constructively worded items (e.g., Item 1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 19, 20, 23, 26, 29, 31, 32, 35, 36, 38, 40) are scored positively: YES (usually) = 3 points, Sometimes = 2 points, NO (seldom) = 1 point (or 0 points in binary scoring variants).
  • Negatively worded / Reverse-scored items (e.g., Item 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 13, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 33, 34, 37, 39) describe communicative obstacles (such as sulking, conversational monopolization, defensive anger, or feigned listening). These items are reverse-scored: NO (seldom) = 3 points, Sometimes = 2 points, YES (usually) = 1 point.
  • Composite Score Range: Higher composite scores reflect greater communicative competence, empathic attunement, and behavioral flexibility. Discrepancy scores ($|\text{REAL} – \text{IDEAL}|$) quantify interpersonal dissatisfaction and communicative misalignment within the dyad.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Original Foundation Year: 1971 (Millard J. Bienvenu, Interpersonal Communication Inventory).
• Organizational Adaptation Year: 1998 (Jennifer Lyn Graham, Master of Human Kinetics Thesis, University of Windsor).
• Accessibility and Licensing: The complete thesis and adapted questionnaire are publicly archived by the National Library of Canada (Bibliothèque nationale du Canada) under Canadian theses licensing conventions (Library and Archives Canada Record MQ52559). The instrument is accessible without fee for scholarly, educational, non-commercial research, and thesis development, provided formal academic attribution and citation are accorded to the original developers (Bienvenu, 1971; Graham, 1998). Commercial deployment, proprietary consulting distribution, or embedding within commercial software requires authorization from the copyright holders or representative estates.

References

• Altman, I., & Taylor, D. A. (1973). Social penetration: The development of interpersonal relationships. Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
• Barnlund, D. C. (1970). A transactional model of communication. In K. K. Sereno & C. D. Mortensen (Eds.), Foundations of communication theory (pp. 83–102). Harper & Row.
• Bienvenu, M. J. (1971). An interpersonal communication inventory. The Journal of Communication, 21(4), 381–388. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1971.tb02657.x
• Dansereau, F., Graen, G., & Haga, W. J. (1975). A vertical dyad linkage approach to leadership within formal organizations: A longitudinal investigation of the role making process. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 13(1), 46–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/0030-5073(75)90005-7
• Graham, J. L. (1998). An analysis of sport managers’ interpersonal communication skills in selected Ontario amateur sport organizations (Master’s thesis, University of Windsor). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Item 2559. http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape10/PQDD_0009/MQ52559.pdf
• Graen, G. B., & Uhl-Bien, M. (1995). Relationship-based approach to leadership: Development of leader-member exchange (LMX) theory of leadership over 25 years: Applying a multi-level multi-domain perspective. The Leadership Quarterly, 6(2), 219–247. https://doi.org/10.1016/1048-9843(95)90036-5
• Luft, J., & Ingham, H. (1955). The Johari window, a graphic model of interpersonal awareness. Proceedings of the Western Training Laboratory in Group Development. University of California, Los Angeles.
• Monge, P. R., Bachman, S. G., Dillard, J. P., & Eisenberg, E. M. (1982). Communicator competence in the marketplace. In M. Burgoon (Ed.), Communication Yearbook 5 (pp. 505–528). Transaction Books. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.1982.11678810
• Wexley, K. N., Alexander, R. A., Greenawalt, J. P., & Couch, M. A. (1980). Attitudinal congruence and similarity as related to interpersonal evaluations in manager-subordinate dyads. Academy of Management Journal, 23(2), 320–330. https://doi.org/10.5465/255434

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)