Exploring the concept of self-leadership and its cultural dependent applicability: a comparative analysis between Brazil and the United States

• Grant number: 11/02922-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: December 01, 2011
• End date: April 08, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education - Specific topics in Education
• Principal Investigator: Ana Lúcia Kazan
• Grantee: Ana Lúcia Kazan
• Host Investigator: Roger Dale Safrit
• Host Institution: Instituto de Ensino, Pesquisa e Administração (INEPAD). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: North Carolina State University (NC State), United States

Abstract

Self-leadership is process through which people can influence themselves such as to achieve the necessary self-direction and self-motivation to behave and perform effectively in whatever they need to do in life. Self-leadership utilizes thought and behavior control techniques, self-reward, and self-regulation, which give to the practitioners a more confident, more focused, more creative performance, with resulting success and personal efficacy, of high interest to companies and institutions. Despite being a United States born concept, where self-leadership is been studied for over 30 years, self-leadership is starting to be studied in other cultural contexts, such as China. In a time when more and more workers regard their work as a means for self-fulfillment, rather than just a bread-winning activity, and hence expect to have more control and influence over their own development and professional growth, self-leadership comes in handy paving the way to make this autonomy possible with responsibility, focus, and direction. The present study will replicate the author's original doctoral research, originally conducted in the United States seeking for self-leadership determining factors. The present study will compare two student samples, one composed of Brazilians and the other composed of Americans, and will analyze the validity of the self-leadership concept in Brazilian culture. The study will also collaborate with the international effort to validate the Houghton and Neck's 2002 new Revised Self-Leadership Questionnaire, by doing a factorial analysis of the instrument with data collected in Brazil and in the United States. The practical applications of this study's results involve: (a) training and preparing professionals in the contemporary work environment, such as they can participate faster and more effectively of the institutional decisions regarding their own careers; (b) training of contemporary work environment managers, so that they can effectively participate and contribute with the new and more participative workforce; (c) inclusion of a self-leadership related curriculum in colleges and universities; (d) understanding of the institutional and corporate effects of a self-initiated and self-regulated workforce; (e) international self-leadership instrument validation; and (f) understanding of the factors that trigger and/or inhibit self-leadership development. (AU)