Abstract

In the current globalized world, a strong reliance on leadership as a potential competitive advantage has resulted in an enormous investment of resources into developing leaders (Allen & Hartman, 2008; DeRue & Wellman, 2009). Accordingly, research into leadership has grown exponentially over the last two decades and resulted in a wide range of theories that have significantly improved our understanding of the leadership processes (Dinh et al., 2014). One area in which the literature has expanded considerably is leader development. Despite arguments supporting dispositional components making first-rate leaders, most of the attributes that have been studied in this field are state-like and therefore receptive of change from appropriate development processes and triggering events (Day, Harrison, & Halpin, 2009; Hannah, Woolfolk, & Lord, 2009; Lord & Hall, 2005). Despite all this research progress, the search to increase the effectiveness of leader development interventions continues to capture attention of researchers and practitioners alike. In this paper, we propose an approach linking what we have learnt about the more stable role of the self-concept and the more dynamic role of behavioral- and action-related approaches in the development of leaders. We understand leader development to be the processes involved in the progression of an individual’s knowledge, skills and abilities as well as the self-concept associated with his or her competence as a leader (Day & Dragoni, 2015; Lord & Hall, 2005). In an effort fort understand the factors that can help individuals make the most of developmental interventions Hannah and colleagues (2009) proposed a model in which they argued that a complex and clear leader self-construct allows situational cues to prime relevant self- aspects that in turn activate a cognitive affective processing system that results in leader behaviors. They also argued that leader behaviors initiated from the leaders’ self- construct—i.e., leader self-concordant behaviors—will prompt positive reactions from followers, which will further enrich the self-concept of the leader and his or her followers. Hannah and his colleagues also suggested that over time a leader’s self-concept will become more complex and provide him or her with more personal resources to draw from when experiencing developmental triggering events (Avolio & Hannah, 2008; Hannah et al., 2009).