Developing Perceived and Experienced Identity: How Leadership Training Affects Leadership Identity

Research shows that leadership identity is important for public managers’ behavior, but has until now relied primarily on self-reports. Arguing that leadership identity is a relational concept, this article compares the managers’ experienced leadership identity with the corresponding follower perceived leadership identity and followers’ role perceptions of their leaders. Further, we test whether leadership training affects these concepts. Panel data from 911 municipal employees and their 84 managers confirms that managers experience that they have a more dominant leadership identity relative to their employees’ perception, but that employees see their managers as having a more dominant leadership identity after the managers’ participation in leadership training. Data from 171 managers and their 1,572 employees in another municipality further show that many employees emphasize the professional role of their manager. Our study implies that public managers should consider prioritizing leadership training to strengthen their followers’ perceptions of them as leaders.