Page No 294-304
Marco R. Furtner, Pierre Sachse, and Silvia Exenberger
Leopold-Franzens University of Innsbruck, Austria
Self-leadership, the process of self-influence on one’s thought and behavior
patterns is growing in its importance due to increasing demands for organizations
in a fast-paced world. Thus, self-leadership skills have become essential for
individual (self-organization of work processes), group (self-management teams,
shared leadership), and organizational levels (flat hierarchies, achievementoriented organization cultures).
However, training programs of self-leadership
skills have so far not been investigated, leaving open the question as to which
extent self-leadership may be acquired and fostered by training or intervention
programs. In the current study, N = 29 participants were supervised and trained
for over four weeks in all self-leadership strategies (full-range self-leadership
training), and then compared to a control group (N = 29) without such training.
Findings from a mixed method approach (with quantitative and qualitative data)
indicate important effects of cognitive orientation towards personal strategies
for an improvement in intrinsic motivation and goal pursuit. These findings show
that specific self-leadership skills (such as natural reward strategies and
constructive thought patterns) can be improved and optimized in targeted
trainings. Given the rising importance of self-leadership in organization and
personnel development (e.g., self-responsibility and self-determination of
employees), findings are highly relevant for applied contexts
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