Abstract

Purpose
In a rapidly shifting market, organizations seek more diverse and innovative employee development interventions. Yet, these initiatives may have limited impact without employees’ engagement. This conceptual paper aims to propose self-leadership as a value-added strategy for promoting both individual and organizational development.

Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a conceptual analysis with three case examples. The cases were purposefully selected, aiming to comprehend how the concept of self-leadership has been applied within organizations and to identify real-life examples where self-leadership has been adopted as an organizational strategy.

Findings
This study demonstrates that self-leadership plays a significant role in facilitating human resource development (HRD) initiatives. Specifically, the authors illustrate how self-leadership interventions in companies empower individuals to take charge of their development, aligning personal and organizational goals. When effectively applied, self-leadership strategies positively impact HRD practices in the areas of training and development, organization development and career development, yielding benefits for both employees and employers.

Originality/value
This study addresses knowledge gaps in the emerging field of self-leadership in HRD by providing three companies’ examples of how self-leadership can add value to HRD. The findings offer unique insights into the synergy between self-leadership and HRD, benefiting academics interested in this line of inquiry and HRD practitioners seeking innovative approaches to employee and organizational development.

Purpose and driving questions

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to explore how self-leadership is applied in the organizational context and how it addresses HRD issues, specifically within the three major domains of HRD practices: training and development (T&D), organization development (OD) and CD. The findings of this research will assist HRD professionals, in both academia and the world of practice, in their efforts to promote personal and organizational growth and development. Three overarching questions guided this inquiry:

Q1. What is self-leadership?

Q2. How has self-leadership been used as an organizational strategy?

Q3. How can self-leadership strategies help address HRD issues within organizations?

Conclusion

In this article, we explored the relationship between self-leadership and HRD and the potential of using self-leadership to address HRD issues within organizations. By studying three selected cases in the real world, we demonstrated the positive contributions of self-leadership interventions to T&D, OD and CD, all core domains of HRD practice. Therefore, we propose self-leadership as a value-added strategy for HRD. In addition, we call for more interdisciplinary research collaborations and interest from the HRD scholarly community in initiating self-leadership studies in response to the list of questions we posed. Efforts in this direction will not only enhance our understanding of self-leadership, but also advance HRD scholarship and broaden the HRD impact in the world of practice.