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In a rapidly shifting market, organizations seek more diverse and innovative employee development interventions. Yet, these initiatives may have limited impact without employees’ engagement. This conceptual paper aims to propose self-leadership as a value-added strategy for promoting both individual and organizational development.

The authors conducted a conceptual analysis with three case examples. The cases were purposefully selected, aiming to comprehend how the concept of self-leadership has been applied within organizations and to identify real-life examples where self-leadership has been adopted as an organizational strategy.

This study demonstrates that self-leadership plays a significant role in facilitating human resource development (HRD) initiatives. Specifically, the authors illustrate how self-leadership interventions in companies empower individuals to take charge of their development, aligning personal and organizational goals. When effectively applied, self-leadership strategies positively impact HRD practices in the areas of training and development, organization development and career development, yielding benefits for both employees and employers.

This study addresses knowledge gaps in the emerging field of self-leadership in HRD by providing three companies’ examples of how self-leadership can add value to HRD. The findings offer unique insights into the synergy between self-leadership and HRD, benefiting academics interested in this line of inquiry and HRD practitioners seeking innovative approaches to employee and organizational development.

This chapter explores how industrial PhD students are engaged in authentic leadership processes while coping with challenges through self-leadership. The authors illustrate how self-leadership can be a helpful approach to managing the leading-and-being-led dilemma. They argue that self-leadership is a process of goal achievement in collaboration with key stakeholders and, therefore, an important aspect of authentic leadership. The authors identify four aspects of self-leadership that influence authenticity: roles, resources, relations and results. Kringelum, Mortensen and Holmgren call for research into the emergence of self-leadership and authentic leadership, the leadership capabilities required and the double-sidedness and dilemmas inherent in such emergences across different contexts.

This study investigates the relationship between self-leadership and the work performance of gig workers as moderated by perceived organizational support and mediated by work engagement.

Linear regression and the Process macro by Hayes were used to examine the hypothesized model, on a data set of 384 gig workers.

The outcomes indicated a positive relationship between the self-leadership strategies of the freelancers and their work performance. The association of self-leadership and work performance was moderated by perceived organizational support and partially mediated by work engagement.

This study responds to the need for exploration of the moderation and mediating mechanisms through which self-leadership influences how gig workers perform at work.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of online self-leadership training (OSLT) in promoting leaders’ self-leadership skills and recovery experiences.

A non-randomized controlled trial was conducted under two conditions: a standardized seven-week OSLT (N = 43) and a control without any intervention (N = 42). All participants (N = 85) completed standardized questionnaires measuring self-reported self-leadership skills and recovery experiences. Additionally, participants in the intervention group were assigned to invite one team member each (N = 26) to assess their leaders’ pre-post self-leadership skills and pre-post leader–member exchange.

Significant interaction effects of time and group and increases in the OSLT group (t1 vs t2) in self-leadership skills (cognitive and natural reward strategies) and recovery experiences (detachment and relaxation) indicated the effectiveness of OSLT training. Significant improvements in self-leadership skills and leader–member exchange were reported by team members of leaders in the OSLT group.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study was the first to examine the effectiveness of OSLT for leaders in business contexts in a controlled before-after intervention design. The findings of this study revealed improvements in self-leadership skills and recovery experience because of OSLT.

As the work context is dynamically changing, enhancing employee engagement through personal and organizational means is still capturing the attention of organizations as well as human resources researchers and practitioners. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between self-leadership, employee engagement, and perceived organizational support and to test the moderating effect of perceived organizational support.

Data were collected through an online self-reporting questionnaire, with a total of 225 employees from Lebanon and 251 employees from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Moderating analysis was conducted using Process v3.3 on both samples.

Results have shown that self-leadership and perceived organizational support were positively related to employee engagement in both countries. However, perceived organizational support served to enhance self-leadership and employee engagement in the UAE, but not in Lebanon.

The findings of this study can be used to help organizations as well as human resources and regional managers operating in the Middle East in giving insights about investing in self-leadership strategies and positively influence employee perception of organizational support to strengthen employee engagement.

This study is unique in exploring the moderating role of perceived organizational support on the relationship between self-leadership and engagement, and original in theoretically proposing and empirically examining the interaction between perceived organizational support and self-leadership. The context of the study in which the proposed relationships were tested for the first time in Lebanon and the UAE, is also novel as both countries are distinguished from other Middle Eastern countries.

Drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study examined the effect of developmental human resource (HR) practices on employee workplace procrastination and investigated the mediation effect of boredom at work and the moderation effects of exploitative leadership and self-leadership.

Data were collected from 443 employees across companies in China. Hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression analysis and indirect effect testing via bootstrapping in SPSS and Mplus.

This study found that developmental HR practices were negatively related to employee workplace procrastination and that boredom at work mediated the relationship between developmental HR practices and employee workplace procrastination. Moreover, exploitative leadership strengthened the negative relationship between developmental HR practices and boredom at work, whereas self-leadership weakened the positive relationship between boredom at work and employee workplace procrastination. The indirect relationship between developmental HR practices and employee workplace procrastination through boredom at work was moderated by exploitative leadership and self-leadership.

This study extended the literature on the antecedents of employee workplace procrastination. Moreover, by investigating the mediation effect of boredom at work, this study extended the underlying mechanism by which developmental HR practices affect subsequent employee outcomes. Finally, by testing the moderation effect of exploitative leadership and self-leadership, respectively, this study offered insights into the boundary conditions resultant from developmental HR practices.

This research aims to examine the influence of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) dark triad traits, follower COVID-19 anxiety and self-leadership on follower evaluations of the effectiveness of organizations’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.

In this paper data were collected over two time periods. At time 1, mid-October 2021, 650 participants responded to questions on their CEO’s leadership traits and self-leadership. At time 2, (3-week lag) 275 matched individual responses provided followers’ evaluations of the effectiveness of the organization’s COVID-19 response and follower self-leadership.

CEO dark triad traits had direct and indirect negative effects on followers’ evaluations of the organization’s COVID-19 response (through COVID-19 anxiety). Follower self-leadership mitigated the negative effects.

By examining the moderating role of self-leadership, we can offer organizations evidence-based strategies to mitigate some harmful effects of leaders exhibiting dark triad traits.

Given that organizations are still dealing with the ongoing ramifications of COVID-19 and planning for future crises, our findings emphasize the negative effects of dark traits on COVID-19 anxiety, and in turn, on follower’s evaluation of effective organization response to a crisis, highlighting the importance of top-level leader selection.

Our results bolster Manz’s (1986) argument that self-leadership might be key to achieving peak performance in organizations and important for follower well-being.

This study of dark traits is especially important in a crisis context to understand how leaders affect followers’ perceptions about organizational outcomes and factors that might mediate or moderate the negative impact. Despite interest in understanding leadership during a crisis, the majority of research is focused on positive traits of leaders (Palmer et al., 2020).

The purpose of this study is to emphasize the important role of performance-oriented human resource (HR) practices and gender equality perceptions in supervisors and chief executive officers (CEOs) for career development among women in management.

This study used a quantitative methodology to examine relationships among variables. The authors conducted a survey to investigate factors influencing the career development of women managers in professional settings, with a sample of 1,502 female managers in South Korea.

The relationship between performance-oriented HR practices and career development for women managers was supported. In addition, self-leadership significantly mediated the relationship between performance-oriented HR practices and career development. Finally, double moderator effects of gender equality perceptions of CEOs and supervisors on the relationship between performance-oriented HR practices and self-leadership were significant.

This study emphasizes that career development for women in South Korea depends on gender equality awareness and institutional reorganization for best practices at top management levels. Specifically, this study identified the essential role of performance-based HR practices to support self-leadership and career development in women managers. Furthermore, this study recognized gender equality perceptions of CEOs and supervisors as a critical factor in the successful career development of women managers.

This study aims to develop a framework that explains how and when telework is related to emotional exhaustion and task performance, by conceiving work overload as a mediator and self-leadership as a moderator. For this purpose, two studies were conducted. Study 1 aims to understand whether telework would be related to emotional exhaustion and task performance and if work overload would mediate such relationships. Study 2 aims to analyze whether self-leadership was a significant moderator of the mediated relations found in Study 1.

The hypotheses were tested in a sample of 207 (in Study 1) and 272 (in Study 2) participants, which were exclusively teleworking. The results were analyzed using PROCESS macro in SPSS.

The results of Study 1 showed that telework dimensions were negatively related to work overload, which consequently decreased emotional exhaustion and increased task performance. In Study 2, self-leadership moderated the indirect effect of work overload on the relationship between telework and emotional exhaustion, such that the indirect effect was stronger for those who scored higher in self-leadership. However, it was not significant for task performance.

This paper adds to research on telework by focusing on the employee's mental health and performance, in the context of mandatory confinement. The authors identified telework dimensions that may act as resources to cope with the increased work overload inherent to telework, as well as the importance of personal resources in these relationships.

The contemporary business environment steered by forces of globalization, digitization and automation can only be navigated by a resilient workforce. This requires inculcating self-leadership (SL) traits in individuals, which will allow them to exercise self-direction and self-motivation required to survive high-strain situations. The SL characteristics most significantly reflected by Musk are self-goal setting, authenticity and responsibility. Least evidence was found for positive self-talk and self-cueing. This study aims to add to the repertoire of leadership studies, furnishing important implications for academia and practice.

In this paper, the authors explore the dimensionality of SL through a systematic literature review. The authors also take the case of Elon Musk, one of the most resilient technopreneurs in the contemporary business world, and scrutinize his journey as a self-leader.

The SL characteristics most significantly reflected by Musk are self-goal setting, authenticity and responsibility. Least evidence was found for positive self-talk and self-cueing. This study adds to the repertoire of leadership studies, furnishing important implications for academia and practice.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to explore the controversial Elon Musk’s leadership style through the prism of SL.