Reflecting on one's best possible self as a leader: Implications for professional employees at work

Are emergency departments leader identity workspaces? A qualitative study of emergency physicians

OBJECTIVE

Emergency medicine is a discipline with complex leadership demands, which are experienced by junior and senior emergency physicians alike. In this environment, emergency physicians can struggle to work out what it means to be a leader and develop professional identities as leaders, necessitating a leader identity workspace. The aim of the present study is to explore whether emergency physicians view their work environment as leader identity workspaces.

METHODS

An online qualitative survey was used that included open-ended questions about emergency physicians' experience of their workplace as a 'space' to craft their leadership identity. Participants' responses were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.

RESULTS

Three themes, comprising several subthemes, were identified that related to emergency physicians' ideal leader selves (leader dreams and desired leader selves), their experience of the community of clinicians in hospitals (confrontational sentient communities) and the types of rituals emergency physicians yearn for to support and legitimate their leadership (seeking vital leadership rites of passage).

CONCLUSION

Our results suggest that neither EDs nor hospitals more generally exhibit the properties of, or are experienced by emergency physicians, as leader identity workspaces.

Turning visions into results: unraveling the distinctive paths of leading with vision and autonomy to goal achievement

Purpose

Leading with vision while granting employees autonomy is one effective organizational response to the demands of a dynamic external environment. The former is thought to align followers' behavior by providing guidance, the latter to increase variance in their behavior by relinquishing control; both exert beneficial but distinct effects on organizational performance. What has remained uncharted heretofore is how these leader behaviors shape their followers' cognition and, subsequently, yield improvements in performance. The authors argue that a leader's vision communication transforms followers' cognitive representation of their work. This not only enables them to specify their goals in alignment with the vision (goal clarity) but also to locate the meaning of their work within the bigger picture of the vision (construal level). By contrast, perceived autonomy in terms of power-sharing might directly affect followers' work engagement more narrowly.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors tested the model on a sample of 408 employees from eleven enterprises of a holding company. In the survey, employees reported perceived vision communication and autonomy provided by their leader. Furthermore, the authors assessed the employees' goal attainment. To capture how employees represent their daily work activities, the authors measured their construal level and their goal clarity.

Findings

The results show that both perceived vision communication and granted autonomy improve employees' goal achievement. Moreover, two processes mediate the relationship between vision communication and goal achievement in followers: first, specifying goals in terms of clarity; second, composing a higher-level mental construal of their work. In contrast, no mediation of empowering leader behaviors was found.

Originality/value

Better goal achievement through visionary leadership is therefore achieved through cognitive alignment of followers, while leader-granted autonomy acts as a motivational tool directly on performance.

Silent but Damaging: Exploring the Link Between Air Pollution and Vocational and General Well-Being

Air pollution has become a daunting challenge with the potential to endanger people’s lives across the globe. However, little is known about the psychological and vocational implications of air pollution. Drawing on feeling-as-information theory, we investigate the within-person relationships of ambient air pollution with vocational and general well-being outcomes (i.e., career choice anxiety and state optimism) through the mediating mechanism of mood state. We tested our hypotheses using an experience sampling method (ESM) with survey data from 67 undergraduate students in South Korea collected over 10 consecutive days. Results showed that daily ambient air pollution predicted higher career choice anxiety and lower state optimism via an increased negative mood. Furthermore, the indirect relation of air pollution with career choice anxiety was found to be stronger for individuals with lower family socioeconomic status. In a supplementary study, we interviewed 16 undergraduate students in South Korea to explain the ESM results in greater depth. Theoretical and practical implications, as well as study limitations, are discussed.