The Role of Self‐Attention in Leader Development

Abstract

The ability to identify emerging leaders and to facilitate their leader development, is paramount for maintaining sound leadership within organizations, across time. However, research into the proximal antecedents of leader development remains in its infancy. The current longitudinal study sought to broaden current perspectives on the role of self‐attention in promoting leader development, namely growth in leader self‐efficacy and self‐reported emergence into leader roles. The leader development of a sample of 81 managers at an Indian IT company was tracked over three time periods, across approximately 12 months of employment. Random coefficient modeling was employed to model participants’ leader development as a function of their methods of self‐attention. As predicted, reflective self‐attention and ruminative self‐attention were shown to differentially relate to the leader development process. Obtained results have implications for identifying the most effective methods to assist individuals in leveraging their leadership potential.