The Multiple Advantages of Self-Leadership in Higher Education: The Role of Health-Promoting Self-Leadership among Executive MBA Students

Rune Bjerke ()
Additional contact information
Rune Bjerke: Department of Leadership and Organization, Kristiania University College, 0107 Oslo, Norway

Administrative Sciences, 2024, vol. 14, issue 9, 1-21

Abstract: The purpose of this conceptual and explorative study is to document the advantages of health-promoting self-leadership practice. Professional certification programs are criticized due to a lack of practice among participants, involvement, and short duration. This study is based on self-leadership practices over several weeks of two executive MBA student classes from spring 2020 and 2021. A preliminary theoretical framework is developed suggesting that health-promoting self-leadership, which includes three orientations, has an impact on self-efficacy, mental fitness, and performance. Two different self-leadership classes with managers from the public and private sectors went through a self-development process as a semester project. The content analyses of 112 student reports unfolded students’ self-development processes and results identified in diaries, notes, tables, training schedules, and reflections. The findings, based on two different samples and aggregated data, support the theoretical framework. Moreover, the processes of self-development and self-leadership seem to be advantageous for almost all managers. The health-promoting self-leadership practice improved managers’ mental and physical fitness, energy balance, self-efficacy beliefs, and performance. These outcomes were achieved through physical activity, self-talk, meditative exercises, reward systems, visualizing, diet programs, and routines. The findings underscore the importance of self-development processes amongst managers, and that health-promoting self-leadership courses should last over several weeks.

Keywords: health promoting self-leadership; self-development process; value- and behavior-oriented self-leadership; self-efficacy- and energy-oriented self-leadership; mental fitness; performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L M M0 M1 M10 M11 M12 M14 M15 M16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/14/9/211/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/14/9/211/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jadmsc:v:14:y:2024:i:9:p:211-:d:1474498

Access Statistics for this article

Administrative Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Nancy Ma

More articles in Administrative Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().