Self-leadership is an increasingly current topic, not only for the sake of scholarly study and research, but not least for practical application in modern organizations. The fundamental idea of self-leadership is that employees can take on responsibility for many of the influence processes normally carried out by leaders and leadership systems. Knowledge workers is a category of employees who might be particularily in need of self-leadership, as their work is typically unstructured, cognitively taxing, and requires the right kind of mix between alone time and extensive collaboration. How to prioritize the right types of tasks, make sure to involve the right people at the right time and protect oneself from collaboration overload, generosity burnout or other types of overwork, are examples of dilemmas facing knowledge workers in their everyday working lives. Research and theoretical contributions addressing the particular concerns and needs related to knowledge workers’ self-leadership, however, are limited. In this chapter, we discuss some of the most pressing issues in relation to self-leadership by knowledge workers and present several strategies that may assist and equip them with suitable self-leadership skills and capabilities. One of the main takeouts from this review is that behavioral and structural strategies should be prioritized over cognitive ones. Moreover, senior and experienced workers should make more use of the autonomy available to them by making sure they work in a sustainable manner, as well as role-modeling such behaviors and serving as coaches and mentors for more inexperienced workers.

This chapter takes as its vantage point the fact that leadership is not something that can be taught or learned as a set of objective and universal skills and abilities. Thus, in dealing with an array of mixed and demanding leadership expectations, individuals may fall short of appropriate means to develop realistic leadership self-efficacy. Various dysfunctional misperceptions may be the result, including imposter syndrome, the Dunning-Kruger effect and/or succumbing to narcissistic personality types. What kinds of organizational support help individuals avoid or maneuver out of such dysfunctional thinking and behavioral patterns and instead make more realistic judgments regarding their own and others’ leadership capabilities? Research indicates that becoming aware of these phenomena is key. Changing one’s dysfunctional thinking patterns can be achieved via cognitive behavioral therapy. Other measures at the organizational and individual level are suggested and may be implemented by HR staff and current leaders. It is further argued that leadership education and self-leadership training may serve as an important measure to reduce, prevent and/or counter the development of imposter syndrome tendencies and help build leadership self-efficacy. Through various andragogical processes, it may be possible to reduce inclinations of overestimating other people’s leadership talent, underestimating one’s own, or simply gaining insight into others’ leadership experiences, learning processes and self-evaluations.