An examination of leader self-development: A moderated mediation model

WHO WANTS TO BE HERE? Empirically Investigating Motivation and Engagement During Leader Development

“…We therefore see leader identity as a driver of learning in leadership. Leader development researchers have established the theoretical positive link between leader identity and engagement in leader development (Day & Harrison, 2007;Lord & Hall, 2005), and empirical research has produced evidence of such a link (Day & Sin, 2011;Hiller et al, 2006;Key-Roberts et al, 2012). In concurrence with this research, we predict a similar relationship.…”

“…Thus, highly motivated leaders may be interested in leader development because it relates to leadership, but when engagement in development becomes more challenging, their performance goals may overwhelm their developmental goals, causing them to lose interest. Indeed, empirical investigations have revealed relatively weak correlations between motivation to lead and engagement in leader development (Key-Roberts et al, 2012;Maurer & Lippstreu, 2010).…”

Integrating worthiness with leader identity development for college students

“…Worthiness research in a leadership context is currently in only its nascent stages; however, it has been well‐explored in other related fields (e.g., identity, self‐esteem, and mattering) and should be applied to LID scholarship. Given the extent of exploration in other fields and the importance of leader identity as an antecedent to variables such as leadership self‐efficacy and motivation to lead (Guillen et al., 2015; Key‐Roberts et al., 2012), the concept of worthiness should become a research priority for leadership scholars, especially amongst populations of college age students undergoing significant life transitions.…”

“…While there have been a handful of studies in recent years that have examined adjacent concepts (e.g., anticipated image risk and its impact on leader identity endorsement; Lee Cunningham et al, 2023;Ryan et al, 2021;Zhang et al, 2020), the careful internal calculus undertaken by individuals to claim a leader identity remains a black box despite calls to investigate these internal cognitive processes and associated identity work (see Guillen et al, 2015;Greenberg et al, 2007). This gap is significant, as prior research has demonstrated a strong relationship between leader identity, leadership-self-efficacy, and motivation to lead (Key-Roberts et al, 2012). Therefore, in this article, we argue the concept of self-worth (or "worthiness"), which we will operationalize below, is a central component of leader identity development that is deserving of more scholarly attention in the quest to understand how individuals, particularly college students, make meaning of leadership experiences and claim a leader identity.…”