Exploring the social context of self-leadership-Self-leadership-culture

Abstract

Self-leadership gains in importance in the context of current organizational changes, like in newly developed agile methods, where leadership is mostly replaced by self-leadership (e.g., in Scrum). Until now, the concept of self-leadership has focused on individual- or team-level goal achievement, and is thereby not fully applicable to the broader socio-organizational context. In this paper, we therefore introduce an extended definition of self-leadership, making three major extensions to the existing literature. First, we add an intrapreneurial dimension, which refers to self-leaders directing their actions not just toward their own goals but also toward a larger social entity like the organization as a whole. Second, we define self-leadership as a form of behavior that is in accordance with one’s deeper values, hence authentic. Third, we look beyond the individual or team level, by introducing the idea of a self-leadership-culture (SLC), based on Schein’s concept of organizational culture. In the second part of the paper, we outline the complex relationship of SLC with different contextual variables in leadership, looking at leader–member exchange as well as organizational identification. Furthermore, we propose that SLC generates positive effects such as job satisfaction, work engagement, performance, and innovative behavior. SLC offers a broader perspective for research, compared to self-leadership, but can also be used as an approach for practitioners to enable successful collaboration between self-leaders.

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