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, an important proportion 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). The trajectory of development that a leader undergoes is influenced by a combination of external conditions and personal characteristics of the individual in question. As such, the factors that can help individuals make the most of developmental interventions have captured the attention of researchers (Avolio & Hannah, 2008; Hannah, Avolio, Luthans, & Harms, 2008; Hannah et al., 2009). 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 leads to 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 et al. 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 (Hannah et al., 2009). While the model proposed by Hannah and colleagues (2009) is very effective at explaining the cycle that could lead to a positive leader development trajectory, it relies on the complexity of the individual’s self-concept as a leader. Indeed, leadership skills develop from proactive efforts to seek out leadership experiences, for which the individual has to at least see him or herself as a potential leader (Hannah et al., 2009; Lord & Hall, 2005). However, simply viewing oneself as a leader is not sufficient. Research in both identity development as well as self-regulation recognizes that holding an identity does not necessarily mean that enacted behaviors will be in line with such an identity (Adriasola, Steele, Day, & Unsworth, 2011; Adriasola, Unsworth, & Day, 2012; Bosma & Kunnen, 2001; Day et al., 2009). This paper builds upon the model proposed by Hannah et al. (2009) by focusing on the self-concordance of leader behaviors and the extent to which what leaders actually do relates to the innermost aspects of their leader self. We refer to this link between behaviors and identity as leader identity self-concordance, and we argue that it allows us to explore the dynamic and action-related effect of leader identity on the behaviors of leaders. Here we examine the level of self-concordance of task goals to the leader identity in order to understand the extent to which an individual’s identity is linked to the other goals he or she pursues. We rely on a conceptualization of self-concordance using the goal hierarchy that was proposed by Adriasola and colleagues (2012). This hierarchy allows us to better represent the ways in which an individual makes meaning of the different goals he or she holds in his or her goal hierarchy. Using this basis, we conceptualized leader identity self-concordance as the number and strength of connections linking leader identities held by an individual with other goals within the goal hierarchy and more specifically with the projects and tasks that occupies the individual in his or her work life. Previous exploratory research that examined cross-sectional data from teachers has provided some evidence suggesting that levels of leader identity self- concordance relate to the extent to which an individual engages in leader behaviors (Adriasola et al., 2011). Building upon this idea, we expect that leader identity self-concordance down (i.e., the evaluation of the extent to which tasks that occupy an individual on a daily basis are perceived as being helpful or related to his or her leader identity) will relate to initial levels of leader self-efficacy. We argue that leaders do not change dramatically what they do in their day to day at work during their development process. Rather, they re-signify their usual tasks in such a way that they become helpful to their leader identity, thereby increasing their leader self-concordance. In time, the investment of effort on tasks they see as related to their leader identity will positively affect their perceptions of leader self-efficacy. This paper builds on this re-signification process to address a dynamic and action- related perspective on the development of leaders. In addition, it proposes the construct of leader identity self-concordance and a measurement for the construct. Initial validation data as well as preliminary data from Executive MBA students undergoing a leadership course are presented to further understand how the proposed relationship works and to complement the theoretical and methodological contributions of this paper.