Compliments please as well as boosting self-esteem for leadership roles

A study in the Journal of Business and Management has shown that self-esteem plays an important part in determining whether someone wishes to pursue a leadership role. The findings have implications for both organisational success and career development, underscoring, as they do, how self-esteem affects personal motivation.

The research suggests that self-esteem affects a person’s regulatory focus, a psychological framework that influences how individuals approach challenges and goals. There are two main types of regulatory focus: promotion focus and prevention focus. Promotion focus is characterised by a drive for growth, achievement, and opportunity-seeking. In contrast, prevention focus is concerned more with the avoidance of failure, staying safe, and fulfilling one’s basic duties and no more.

Individuals with high self-esteem are more likely to be promotion focused, which then drives them to seek leadership roles. Those with lower self-esteem tend to lean towards prevention focus, which makes them less inclined to pursue leadership roles.

The effect is not solely down to the individual’s personality, however. The work also showed that career encouragement and support from supervisors and peers can affect a person’s focus and the motivational pathways they might take. Encouragement can boost the positive effects of promotion focus, motivating individuals to pursue leadership. However, for those with lower self-esteem, encouragement can have the opposite effect, reinforcing their reluctance to take on leadership responsibilities due to their prevention focus. The research thus highlights a need to consider individual psychological states when offering career support so that talented people who have leadership potential are not lost to those roles because of their lower self-esteem.

The team adds that unlike static predictors, such as personality traits or gender, regulatory focus can be affected by one’s experiences and external support. This makes it a more pliable characteristic that might be influenced to the person’s benefit through good career development advice for those with the potential for leadership.

Guo, J. (2025) ‘Regulatory theory and career encouragement in explaining leadership aspiration’, J. Business and Management, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp.75–98.