Take (part) or Toss? Applying a Job Demands-Resources Lens to Public Leaders’ Motivation to Engage in Leader Training

Abstract

Although mechanisms taking place prior to a leader training (LT) itself seem crucial for its effectiveness, public leadership scholars have so far rarely studied this pre-training stage. Drawing on Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory, this study aims to initiate this endeavor by identifying personal and job-related factors (i.e., resources and demands) that are linked to public leaders’ motivation to develop as a leader. Structural equation modeling reveals that predominantly public leaders’ self-efficacy, development needs perception and organizational support are crucial for their motivation to develop, which in turn is decisive for explaining public leaders’ willingness to participate in LT. This study theoretically contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of mechanisms underlying public LT and informs HR managers of potential levers to adequately support self-directed LT in public organizations.

Keywords

public leader training motivation to develop as a leader perceived development needs structural equation modeling job demands-resources model

Introduction

Given the labor shortage and impending waves of retirements in the public sector (Colley, 2013) as well as the need to re- and upskill public leaders to ensure they can effectively lead and perform in multifaceted, rapidly changing and often ambiguous public sector contexts, continuous learning has become increasingly important in public organizations (Thunnissen & Sanders, 2021; Van Wart, 2013). Consequently, public organizations have increased their investments in different forms of leader development (Kjeldsen & Andersen, 2021; Seidle et al., 2016; Virtanen & Tammeaid, 2020). Leader training (LT), as one specific way of developing leaders, has so far received the most attention in public administration and management scholarship (An et al., 2018; Jacobsen et al., 2022). It focuses on the training of “individual-based knowledge, skills, and abilities associated with formal leadership roles” (Day, 2000, p. 584).

The aforementioned investments of public organizations in development programs are a great foundation and a necessary condition, but they are not sufficient to ensure targeted and successful development of public leaders. A complex interplay of various organizational and personal factors is necessary, with (intrinsic) motivation of leaders playing a particularly decisive role therein (Colquitt et al., 2000; Wallace et al., 2021). While some public organizations require that all leaders or those at certain management levels take part in mandatory LT (Gregersen et al., 2021), the HR departments of most public organizations offer a catalog of different training topics or other, free development formats for which their leaders can voluntarily sign up. In the general leadership literature, the term self-directed or self-initiated leadership development is used to describe the latter case, in which leaders themselves take the initiative to search for suitable ways to engage in development, decide whether and in which development activity they are willing to take part, and thus select which skills they want to strengthen (Maurer & Lippstreu, 2010; Nesbit, 2012).

Such a voluntary training participation is considered and empirically confirmed to have a more beneficial impact on leaders’ training transfer than a mandatory training participation (Lacerenza et al., 2017; Thompson & Reichard, 2016). However, voluntary training participation requires a certain level of motivation prior to a training, in the general leadership literature often referred to as leaders’ motivation to develop or pretraining motivation (Aguinis & Kraiger, 2009; Wallace et al., 2021). Thus, leadership scholars emphasize the importance of the early stage prior to a training activity (i.d. in the pre-training stage) for ensuring a holistic training process and training effectiveness (Aguinis & Kraiger, 2009; Avolio & Hannah, 2008 ; Thompson & Reichard, 2016; Wallace et al., 2021).

In the context of these studies, it seems relevant for an efficient cost-benefit approach to only spend money on training for those leaders who show a certain degree of motivation to develop further. Whether and to what extent this motivation is given can be determined in the pre-training stage, in which no costs have been spent yet. Such an approach could be especially promising for the public sector, as it has to pay particular attention to minimizing costs and maximizing beneficial training outcomes due to the use of taxpayers’ money (Seidle et al., 2016).

Further, public organizations are often characterized by high goal ambiguity, the presence of multiple principals and bureaucratic structure (Boyne, 2002; Rainey, 2009; Van Slyke & Alexander, 2006). These characteristics create demands on and constraints for public employees and leaders, as dealing with them costs extra energy and necessitates certain competencies. Thus, it gets difficult for leaders to do more than their concrete tasks ask them to (Grøn et al. 2024). However, overcoming these burdens might be necessary to secure creating public value constantly and offering highly reliable public services in the long-term. Continuous learning and further development are mechanisms that contribute to get closer to this goal (Thunnissen & Sanders, 2021; Van Wart, 2013). Therefore, understanding public leaders’ motivation to develop and willingness to participate seems a crucial first step into this direction.

The fact that the leaders’ own motivation is considered a major driver for public leaders participating in voluntary training activities (Jann & Veit, 2015) while a substantial number of them are claimed unwilling to engage in continuous learning and development (e.g., Thunnissen & Sanders, 2021), highlights the relevance of understanding the role of public leaders’ motivation to develop in the pre-training stage, which rarely has been studied by public management scholars so far. They have predominantly focused on the training and post-training stage, that is, evaluating the effectiveness of established leader training initiatives after the training took place (Grøn et al. 2024; Jacobsen et al., 2022; Seidle et al., 2016).

Another important reason why to have a look at public leaders’ pre-training stage is that many public leadership scholars derive implications of how to design public leader trainings from their study results, for instance if they have studied links between leadership styles and behavior. However, if public leaders are not motivated or willing to participate in those, these implications might never materialize. Thus, revealing the black box of the underlying mechanism of public leaders’ motivation to develop, and consequently their willingness to voluntary participate in leader training, seems to be a crucial puzzle piece for theorizing the holistic public leader training process, including the pre-training, training and post-training stage. It would be of both great theoretical and practical interest of public leadership scholars and public managers.

The present study joins in on this endeavor by taking a closer look at public leaders’ pre-training stage and addressing the following research question: Which personal and job-related factors are linked to public leaders’ motivation to develop as a leader, and what is its link to leaders’ willingness to participate in leader training? To analyze the proposed research question, I draw on a Job Demands-Resources approach (JD-R; Bakker & Demerouti, 2007), since personal and job-related factors could either support (be a resource for) or hinder (be a demand for) leaders’ motivation to develop. Results based on an online survey conducted among German public leaders reveal leaders’ perceived development needs and self-efficacy as personal resources of and organizational support as a job resource of public leaders’ motivation to develop. Organizational goal ambiguity showed a negative link to leaders’ willingness to participate in leader training but was not identified as a job demand for public leaders’ motivation to develop. The findings further support a strong and positive link between motivation to develop and leaders’ willingness to participate in LT.

This study contributes to theory and practice in the following ways: First, it expands research on the rarely studied public sector pre-training stage by identifying relevant personal and job-related factors that are related to public leaders’ motivation to develop and willingness to voluntarily participate in LT. This contributes to a more comprehensive, general understanding of underlying mechanisms in public leader training. It also adds to the complex process of developing an extensive theory of leader development (Day et al., 2021). Second, this study introduces the construct of motivation to develop as a leader (Wallace, 2017; Wallace et al., 2021) in public leadership research. By drawing on a specific public sample and finding support for the importance of the construct, the present study extends its validity to other contexts and paves the way for integrating this construct in future public leadership studies. Third, it offers practical advice to set levers for designing and promoting LT for suitable target groups and to adequately support self-directed leader training in public organizations.

The remainder of this paper is structured as follows: By drawing on JD-R theory, I develop the theoretical framework and derive hypotheses before I present the data and applied methods. Subsequently, the results of structural equation modeling (SEM) are provided, followed by a discussion of the findings and implications for theory and practice.

Theory

Motivation to Develop as a Leader

The concept of motivation to develop as a leader (MTD) describes “an individual difference that predicts the desire to improve leadership knowledge, skills, and abilities and the willingness to overcome challenges to persist in that improvement” (Wallace, 2017, p. 4). To the best of my knowledge, the concept of MTD has so far not been included in public management or public leadership studies but received attention by generic leadership scholars (e.g., Maurer & Lippstreu, 2010; Wallace et al., 2021). For instance, Wallace et al. (2021) understand motivation and ability to develop leadership as so-called “starting inputs of development” (p.4) and include them as “zero-order learning outcomes” (p. 3) within their model of learning outcomes of leader development. In doing so, they highlight the importance of motivation to develop as a leader as one necessary factor for effective learning in leader development activities. This is in line with Aguinis and Kraiger (2009) elaborating that so called “pretraining states” (p. 461), such as pretraining motivation, are important to consider when talking about increasing individual’s willingness to participate in training and enhancing the beneficial effects of trainings.

Generic leadership studies emphasize the importance of considering leaders’ pretraining states and especially their motivation prior to training to understand underlying mechanisms of leader training. Further, since the lack of motivation and willingness to participate in training is observed in public organizations (e.g., Thunnissen & Sanders, 2021), although they invest huge amounts of taxpayers’ money for training activities, it seems promising to introduce the construct of leaders’ motivation to develop into public leadership training research and examine its relevance during public leaders’ pre-training stage. Given meta-analytical support for personal as well as situational and job-related characteristics being relevant predictors of motivation in the context of training (Colquitt et al., 2000), it seems an interesting first step to identify personal and job-related factors that are linked to public leaders’ motivation to develop.

Job Demands-Resources Model of Motivation to Develop

When theorizing the link between personal and job-related factors and a motivational concept, such as motivation to develop in this case, it is very likely to think of the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007; Borst et al., 2017). The JD-R model is a well-known and frequently used approach in organizational behavior and leadership research because of its power to explain links between personal and job-related factors in form of resources and demands and an affective motivational concept which is consequently linked to different kind of individual outcomes (Bakker, 2015).

The core of the JD-R model is the assumption that workplace characteristics can be classified into job demands (e.g., ambiguity), and job resources (e.g., social support; Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Further, personal resources, e.g., self-efficacy, are included in most JD-R approaches (Borst et al., 2017; Xanthopoulou et al., 2007). These different kind of resources and demands are assumed to have a beneficial, detrimental or, in combination, an interacting effect on individuals’ affective and motivational states (e.g., work engagement) and consequently on various individual outcomes (e.g., performance; Bakker, 2015; Bakker & Demerouti, 2007, 2014; Demerouti & Bakker, 2011).

The JD-R model has also found its way into public sector research (Bakker, 2015; Borst, 2018; Borst et al., 2017; Giauque & Weissbrodth, 2021) but has not yet been used in the context of public leader training. This paper starts this approach and applies the JD-R model to the yet rarely studied pre-training stage in the public sector to focus on the resources of and demands for public leaders’ motivation to develop. Since a recent meta-analysis (Gonzalez-Mule et al., 2021) has found stronger support for the application of additive models (i.e., assuming direct effects of resources and demands) than for the application of multiplicative models (i.e., assuming moderating effects between demands and resources in addition to the direct effects), the present conceptual JD-R model does not include additional moderation effects.

In the following section, the underlying conceptual framework of the study will be developed. Figure 1 presents the model visualization and summarizes the derived hypotheses.

Figure 1.

Conceptual model.

Job Resources

Job resources are understood as characteristics of an individual’s job and its related environment that support the achievement of goals, stimulation of learning opportunities and development, as well as the reduction of work-related stressors (Demerouti & Bakker, 2011). In the present JD-R model, perceived organizational support is included as a job resource. Organizational support receives ample attention from various PA scholars (Homberg et al., 2019), and has been considered as a job resource in the PA context (Giauque et al., 2012), because of its importance for establishing healthy working climates in public sector contexts. Public leaders who perceive that they work in an environment where their opinion is valued, their task and development goals are supported and their well-being is cared of, might be more likely to feel part of a thriving environment in which learning and development is supported and thus feel more motivated to develop as a leader (Frese & Tornau, 2008; Maurer & Lippstreu, 2010).

Accordingly, hypothesis 1 is:

H1: The job resource perceived organizational support is positively related to public leaders’ motivation to develop.

Personal Resources

In contrast to job resources, personal resources refer to supporting “psychological characteristics or aspects of the self” (Borst et al., 2017, p. 4). Two personal resources (i.e., self-efficacy and perceived development needs) are included in the present JD-R model.

Self-efficacy has been identified in JD-R literature as an important personal resource (Borst et al., 2017; Xanthopoulou et al., 2007) and its link to different motivational outcomes is frequently studied (Bandura, 1977; Schunk & DiBenedetto, 2021). In the generic leadership literature self-efficacy is considered as an important antecedent of motivation to develop (Murphy & Johnson, 2016), and the intention to participate in leader training activities (Maurer & Lippstreu, 2010). Further, Day et al. (2021) theoretically highlight the importance of self-efficacy for understanding the underlying mechanisms of the ways in which leaders develop and hence “advanc[e] a 21st-century science of leader development” (p. 3). Given that, it might be reasonable to argue that in the pre-training stage of public leaders those leaders scoring higher on self-efficacy, thus seeing themselves more able to engage in learning activities, are also more likely to show a higher motivation to develop as a leader. Thus, hypothesis 2 follows:

H2: Public leaders’ self-efficacy as a personal resource is positively related to their motivation to develop.

Perceived development needs have hardly been considered empirically in the PA context so far, although they play a central role in the pre-training phase and thus in the entire development process. A meta-analysis shows that conducting a needs analysis and aligning leader trainings with these needs has a positive impact on leaders’ learning and transfer (Lacerenza et al., 2017). When studying leaders’ pre-training stage, Maurer and Lippstreu (2010) find a positive link between leaders’ perceived development needs and their motivation to develop as a leader, as well as between perceived development needs and the intention to participate in LT. In line with that, it can be assumed that perceived development needs could have a positive reinforcing effect on public leaders’ motivation to develop and thus act as a supporting psychological factor. A plausible mechanism for this link could be that a public leader who is reflective about this or her own lack of leadership skills or at least needs for development, might also be motivated to overcome their recognized needs for improvement, resulting in a higher motivation to develop as a leader. Accordingly, hypothesis 3 is:

H3: Public leaders’ perceived development needs as a personal resource are positively related to their motivation to develop.

Job Demands

In the JD-R literature, job characteristics would be considered as job demands, if dealing with them takes a toll on employees’ and leaders’ energy, such as ambiguity (Bakker, 2015; Demerouti & Bakker, 2011). Organizational goal ambiguity is a frequently studied construct in the PA literature, since the public sector is portrayed as particularly ambiguous (Chun & Rainey, 2005; Seidle et al., 2016). Dealing with organizational goal ambiguity can be indeed energy and time consuming for public leaders, and thus considered a so-called hindering demand or job stressor (Borst et al., 2017). Public leaders that are unsure about the direction of their organization’s goals and thus their expected actions to reach the goals, might also be unsure about which of their skills should be improved to reach the ambiguous goals. Such a perceived uncertainty and ambiguity in regard of goals and related tasks and competences might diminish public leaders’ motivation to develop as a leader since they do not know for what and in which direction to develop. Hence, I hypothesize:

H4: Organizational goal ambiguity as a hindering job demand is negatively related to public leaders’ motivation to develop.

The Link Between MTD and the Individual Outcome Willingness to Participate in Leader Training

A key interest of researchers is to understand how motivation translates into (intended) behavior. In the present study I also follow this interest by analyzing the link between MTD and willingness to participate in leader training, included as the individual outcome in the present JD-R model. This choice is grounded in the observation that public sector employees are frequently recognized not to be willing to engage in continuous learning and development (Thunnissen & Sanders, 2021). One might ask, what the actual problem is when leaders do not voluntarily participate in development opportunities. Generic leadership researchers would answer that voluntary training participations are better for ensuring learning transfer of new skills into practice than mandatory training participations (e.g., Lacerenza et al., 2017). Further, in the public leadership literature it is common to derive implications for public leadership training—but if leaders do not consider participating, these implications do not have their proposed relevance.

First empirical findings reveal the predictive power of motivation to develop on engagement levels during leader training activities (Wallace, 2017). This study assumes that motivation to develop is an important precursor for leaders’ willingness to participate in LT and thus, also relevant in the pre-training stage. Motivation is considered a core predictor of personal initiative (Fay & Frese, 2001) and leaders’ willingness to participate in leader training can be seen as a personal initiative to develop oneself further. In the generic leadership literature, Maurer and Lippstreu (2010) also find empirical support for motivation to develop as a predictor of intentions to participate in leader development activities. Given that, I assume that the more public leaders are motivated to develop as a leader, the more they are willing to indeed translate motivation into behavior and take over the initiative to actually participate in leader training. Hence, hypothesis H6 follows:

H5: Public leaders’ motivation to develop as a leader is positively related to their willingness to participate in leader training.

Next to the theorized direct relationships between personal and job-related resources and demands and MTD as well as between MTD and willingness to participate in LT, it seems reasonable to expect an indirect link as well, meaning that MTD mediates the relationship between personal and job-related resources and demands and public leaders’ willingness to participate in LT. One reason is that the presence of organizational support—a culture where it is appreciated to take part in training initiatives—might be positively linked to public leaders’ motivation to develop, and consequently willingness to participate in LT. A plausible mechanism might be the establishment of psychological safety (Edmondson, 1999), providing the leader with room to safely explore their MTD through LT without fearing backlash. In addition, public leaders who score high in self-efficacy might feel more motivated and willing to take part in leader trainings because their engagement in such a learning activity might give them a heightened feeling of self-control and confidence through self-determination and in turn even higher self-efficacy (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Further, public leaders’ perception of having development needs might foster leaders’ willingness to participate in LT, mediated by leaders’ motivation to develop, as this offers them the unique opportunity to actually overcome their recognized needs. High goal ambiguity, however, might hinder public leaders from being motivated and then willing to participate in LT, since the ambiguity can obscure which skills the organization expects to be developed further. Given that it seems likely that a motivational state constitutes the unobserved connecting element translating perceptions of certain work characteristics into (intended) behavior, such as public leaders’ willingness to participate in LT, I theorize MTD as having a mediating role. This corresponds with one key element of JD-R theory, which assumes a motivational state to mediate the link between resources and demands and an individual outcome (Bakker, 2015). Thus, H6 reads:

H6a: Public leaders’ MTD mediates the positive relationship between personal and job-related resources and leaders’ willingness to participate in leader training.

H6b: Public leaders’ MTD mediates the negative relationship between job-related demands and leaders’ willingness to participate in leader training.

Data and Method

Sample

To test the hypotheses, I used survey data from leaders of different hierarchical levels working in German public organizations across different subfields (e.g., core administration, healthcare). Participants were recruited in March 2022 by sending out online surveys via panel providers and contact persons in different public organizations. Since this study is part of a larger research project, only the data and variables relevant for the present study are presented in the following sections. 378 participants completed the survey. Eight of these were excluded from the data analysis, since they showed no variation in their responses. The final sample consists of 370 German public leaders with a mean tenure of 12.22 years (SD = 8.76). 43.78% of the respondents were female and on average 49.29 years old (SD = 10.16). A majority (47.84%) of the public leaders were employed in core administrative functions, such as local or state governments, followed by those in educational settings (17.30%), health and social services (12.97%) and the police (12.70%). Appendix A presents a more detailed overview of the demographic and structural characteristics.

Measures

Except for the variable willingness to participate in leader training, all constructs included in the conceptual model were assessed with measures that were previously used in the public administration, generic leadership, or psychology literature and rated on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = “strongly disagree” to 7 = “strongly agree.” Motivation to develop as a leader was measured by three items of Wallace’s (2017) scale. A sample items is: “In general, I have a strong desire to learn the skills associated with leadership.” The three item scale of Pandey and Wright (2006) was used to operationalize organizational goal ambiguity. A reversed sample item is “This organization has clearly defined goals.” Maurer et al.’s (2003) scale was used to assess perceived development needs. One of the three used items was “One or more of my career related skills or knowledge have been in need of improvement.” Perceived organizational support was operationalized by the eight items’ scales of Homberg et al. (2019) with “My organization is interested in my opinion” as a sample item. Self-efficacy was measured by Beierlein’s et al.’s (2013) validated three item scale. A sample item is: “In difficult situations, I can rely on my abilities.”

To operationalize willingness to participate in leader training, the following approach was applied, since yet there was no validated measure that could be used: Various leader training catalogs from different German public organizations on the local, federal and state-level were reviewed, compared and analyzed focusing on topic-related overlaps. Based on their mentioned frequency and claimed importance a list of nine training topics was inductively created. The list includes training topics such as ‘Successful change management - How to develop a vision and turn affected employees into stakeholders.’ The respondents were asked to rate on a 7-point Likert scale how likely it is that they would attend each training from this list within the next 12 months if their organization offered them the opportunity (1 = “very unlikely” to 7 = “very likely”). Appendix B shows the complete list of training topics including the mean, minimum and maximum value of each item. The use of this practical inductive approach increased the practical relevance and external validity of the questions. Reliability and validity analyses supported this approach (Appendix C). For all statistical analyses, an average score over all nine items was used. It was not assumed that the leaders would be interested to participate in all of the nine training topics within the next 12 months. However, it was supposed that for most public leaders at least one of the trainings might fit to their development needs, since the nine topics were selected based on their actual relevance in German public organizations. The number of explicitly nine training topics was not defined beforehand but rather randomly resulted from the inductive approach conducted.

In addition to the main constructs, the conceptual model includes the following demographic variables that served as control variables: leaders’ age, gender and past leader development experiences. The categorical variables gender and past leader development experiences were included in the form of dummy-coded variables, and age as a continuous variable.

Statistical Analysis

I applied structural equation modeling (SEM) with maximum likelihood (ML) estimator to test the conceptual model and the derived hypotheses. Following the common procedure, I calculated a measurement model and a structural model (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988). The measurement quality of the whole model was analyzed based on four commonly used fit indices in SEM (CFI, TLI, RMSEA, SRMR). To investigate the mediating role of MTD between resources and demands and willingness to participate in LT, bootstrapping with 2000 replications was used for computing bias-corrected confidence intervals of the indirect effects, because their sampling distribution cannot be considered as normally distributed (Bollen & Stine, 1990). The data analysis was performed with the R Studio package lavaan vo.0.6-6 (Rosseel, 2012).

Since I use cross-sectional data for the present analysis, common method bias (CMB) might be an issue (Meier & O’Toole, 2013). However, I applied Podsakoff et al.’s (2003) best practice recommendations to prevent CMB as far as possible when designing cross-sectional questionnaires (e.g., clear instructions, respondent anonymity, reliable and valid measures). In addition, a Harman’s single factor test was used to test for CMB.

Results

Measurement Model

The fit of the measurement model (χ² (443) = 848.638) was classified according to the following values of fit measures: RMSEA = 0.050, CFI = 0.938, TLI = 0.931, SRMR = 0.052. Overall, the measurement fit can be stated as good since the threshold values for good fit indicated by values of >.90 for TLI and CFI as well as of <.06 for RMSEA and SRMR were reached (Hu & Bentler, 1999; Kline, 2010). Further, all items loaded significantly on their respective factor. The results of the Harman’s single factor test reveal a substantially worse model fit of the single factor model (RMSEA = 0.168, CFI = 0.386, TLI = 0.338, SRMR = 0.180). This serves as an indication that CMB is rather unlikely (George & Pandey, 2017). The reliability was good for all measures, as indicated by Cronbach’s alpha values of more than .8. Further, since the root of the AVE of every latent construct was higher than the correlations between the latent constructs, according to the Fornell-Larcker criterion (Fornell & Larcker, 1981), discriminant validity of the constructs is given. Appendix C gives a detailed overview of descriptive statistics, correlations, reliability and validity of the constructs.

Structural Model

Hypothesis H1, which assumes a positive link between organizational support and MTD, is supported by the data since the included job resource organizational support was found to be significantly and positively related to MTD (β = .237, p < .1). When looking at the personal resources, I find support for H2 and H3: Self-efficacy appears to be significantly linked to MTD (β = .286, p < .001. )Perceived development needs were also found to be significantly positively related to MTD (β = .457, p < .001). When looking at the included job demand, the direct link between organizational goal ambiguity and MTD was not significant (β = .001, p = .988) and thus H4 is not supported by the data. H5, which assumes a positive link between MTD and willingness to participate, is supported by the data (β = .664, p < .001).

To analyze hypotheses H6a and H6b whether MTD acts as a significant mediator in the proposed conceptual model, I calculated indirect effects along with 90% bootstrap confidence intervals. Results support MTD fully mediating the link between self-efficacy and willingness to participate in LT, as well as fully mediating the link between perceived development needs and willingness to participate in LT. Thus, H6a is supported by the data, However, no significant indirect effect of the included job demand organizational goal ambiguity on willingness to participate in LT is found. Hence, H6b is not supported by the data. See Table 1 for all direct, indirect, and total effects. Overall, the included variables explained 50.8% of the variance of the dependent variable willingness to participate in LT and 40.8% of the variance of the mediating variable MTD.

Table 1.

Direct, Indirect and Total Effects with Bootstrap Interval.

Kind of effect	Standardized estimate	Unstandardized estimate	Bias-corrected bootstrap interval^a
Kind of effect	Standardized estimate	Unstandardized estimate	5%	95%
Development needs
Direct effect on WTP	0.051
Indirect effect on WTP	0.304*	0.302*	0.225	0.380
Total effect on WTP	0.355*	0.353*	0.260	0.446
Org. goal ambiguity
Direct effect on WTP	−0.127*
Indirect effect on WTP	0.001	0.001	−0.063	0.065
Total effect on WTP	−0.126*	−0.125*	−0.228	−0.021
Organizational support
Direct effect on WTP	−0.069
Indirect effect on WTP	0.158*	0.210*	0.117	0.303
Total effect on WTP	0.088	0.188	−0.015	0.250
Self-efficacy
Direct effect on WTP	−0.021
Indirect effect on WTP	0.190*	0.323*	0.209	0.437
Total effect on WTP	0.168*	0.287*	0.130	0.444

Notes. WTP = Willingness to participate in leader training;.

Bootstrap intervals are calculated based on the unstandardized estimates.

***

p < .001. **p < .01. *p < .05. ⁺p < .1.

In regard of the links between the included control variables and MTD as well as willingness to participate in leader training, I found the following pattern: The age of the leaders was not related to MTD (β = −.035, p = .455) nor their willingness to participate in LT (β = −.005, p = .901). However, gender was negatively related to MTD (β = −.175, p < .001): female leaders on average were likely to show higher MTD scores. Further, if leaders had already participated at least once in LT, they were more motivated to develop (β = −.225, p < .001) but not necessarily more willing to participate (again) (β = −.005, p = .348).

Discussion and Conclusion

The main goal of this paper was to shed light on the rarely studied pre-training stage in public leaders’ training process. More specifically, by drawing on JD-R theory, this paper aimed to analyze which personal and job-related factors are linked to public leaders’ motivation to develop as a leader, and what its link to leaders’ willingness to participate in leader training is like. This study thus follows calls to draw more attention to the pre-training stage in which already important levers for leaders’ effective training participation can be set (Hannah & Avolio, 2010) and brings in a new perspective on leader training in public settings. Hence, it answers the call for widening the research focus on public leader training (Perry, 2009). By identifying personal and job-related factors that are linked to public leaders’ motivation to develop and their willingness to voluntarily participate in LT, this study lays a first cornerstone for this promising research focus.

The present study supports generic leadership scholars in showing that motivation to develop is a key variable for understanding underlying mechanisms in LT (Hannah & Avolio, 2010; Wallace et al., 2021) and highlights the relevance of MTD also for public leader training settings. This is accompanied with the finding that leaders’ perception of having development needs is important for understanding leaders’ MTD and willingness to participate in LT. The observation that MTD fully mediates the relationship between leaders’ development needs and their willingness to participate in leader training emphasizes the importance of jointly considering these variables when aiming to understand mechanisms in public leaders’ pre-training process. Further, this study shows that self-efficacy, which has been highlighted as an important antecedent of MTD (Maurer & Lippstreu, 2010), general motivation to learn during training (Colquitt et al., 2000; Maurer et al., 2003) and personal initiative at work (Frese & Tornau, 2008) is also relevant for explaining MTD and willingness to participate in the context of public LT. Additionally, organizational support appears here as a supporting job-related factor for fostering public leaders’ MTD as well as for willingness to participate, even if in an indirect way.

These findings should encourage public leadership scholars to understand public leaders’ pre-training stage as the first stage in the holistic leader training process, followed by the training stage and post-training stage. It seems promising for further theorizing to apply a more holistic perspective on leader training when trying to understand when and how it works. To build up a theory for public leader training that explains the underlying mechanisms, this paper argues to definitely include public leaders’ motivation to develop and leaders’ perceived development needs. However, also the identified personal and job-related resources should be included in such a theory of public leader training. The role of self-efficacy was also previously identified as relevant for advancing leadership scholars’ understanding of learning and development processes (Day et al., 2021). Further, the findings regarding the role of organizational support emphasize the necessity for further theorizing on how public organizations could strengthen a culture of continuous learning and thus facilitate public leaders to be motivated and willing to further develop their skills. Creating awareness for the beneficial effects of a supportive culture of learning might be one first step in this direction. If public organizations explicitly signal that they care for their leaders’ development and are open for their leaders to select these kind of development programs which they think to address their perceived needs best, a supportive learning culture is established that is likely to heighten public leaders’ motivation and consequently willingness to participate in trainings.

Overall, this paper, as one of the first to explicitly focus on public leaders’ pre-training stage, highlights that the development of a holistic (public) leadership training theory could help public leadership scholars to approach the question of under which conditions public leader training is (most) effective (Abner et al., 2020; Seidle et al., 2016) from a more holistic point of view. Given that in the pre-training phase training costs are most likely not yet issued but that this phase is crucial for the formation of public leaders’ motivation and willingness to voluntarily participate in training (Avolio & Hannah, 2008; Thompson & Reichard, 2016), this underresearched phase of the holistic training process should be under stronger focus of public leadership scholars. Drawing on meta-analytic evidence that transfer of training content into practice is more effective when leaders’ participation is voluntary, compared to when it is mandatory (Lacerenza et al., 2017), this paper postulates that public leaders’ pre-training stage matters for effective training participation. Only if we understand when public leaders are motivated to develop, further research and derived practical implications on how to design different kind of training programs might really make a difference. Consequently, public leadership scholars should be encouraged to target further leader training research on potential mechanisms underlying the holistic training process from the pre-training stage to the post-training stage.

Practical Implications

Public HR mangers should be encouraged by the presented findings to draw more attention to public leaders’ pre-training stage in general and the role of motivation to develop in specific. Understanding how motivated to develop leaders of an organization are can help HR managers to better understand and anticipate the likelihood of their leaders to participate in leader training. This supports them to organize learning and development opportunities. If HR managers want to facilitate their leaders in getting ready and motivated for development, it seems promising, following the results above, to focus on helping leaders to become aware of their development needs. HR managers could design questionnaires, hold peer meetings, or create other approaches to support leaders in understanding which of their leadership skills could be developed further. Despite its relevance, needs analyses are rarely conducted by all kinds of organizations (Brown, 2002; Lacerenza et al., 2017). Further, HR managers should ensure that general support of their organization is given and thus leaders perceive themselves as part of an environment where learning and development is supported and expected. Another lever to foster leaders being motivated to further develop might be to strengthen their self-efficacy beliefs, for instance by elaborating with them what they learned and achieved in the past.

Limitations and Future Research Directions

As any research, this study is not without limitations. First, I want to acknowledge a theoretical one. The conceptual model consists of four personal and job-related factors that were included based on theoretical and empirical considerations regarding their relevance to explain public leaders’ MTD and their willingness to participate. Different variables and other explanations underlying public leaders’ MTD and willingness to participate could have been included. Social desirability, pressure from leaders’ supervisors, or the signaling effect to employees, for instance, could be additional reasons why leaders might participate in LT. However, since the variables included in the present conceptual model explained a large amount of variance, it seems justified to conclude that this study has laid a first cornerstone for this promising research focus. It paves the way for future studies to identify other relevant puzzle pieces that contribute to the big picture of LT in the public sector.

Second, there are also methodological limitations. Although the Harman’s single factor test showed no indications for CMB, the issue of CMB cannot be fully ignored. Future studies could overcome this potential issue by using data from multiple sources or applying a longitudinal research design that would allow for stronger causal inference. This study attempts to stimulate a specific kind of behavior by asking public leaders about their willingness to participate in LT. Future studies could additionally include a real behavioral outcome in their research design, like leaders’ actual training participations within a 12 month period. This would also overcome the limitation that this study only uses leaders’ average willingness score over the nine items, and does not compare for instance leaders with very high or low willingness regarding particular training initiatives to leaders with medium-level willingness rating for all initiatives.

Third, I want to address empirical limitations arising from the used data sample. Since this study draws on a sample of German public leaders, the possibility of simply generalizing the findings to other samples might be limited. The Germanic administrative tradition is characterized by a rule-of-law culture, high formalization levels, and a certain understanding of leadership roles. In other traditions, that put more emphasis on pragmatism and flexibility (e.g., the Anglo-American; Backhaus & Vogel, 2022), differences in antecedents of public leaders’ motivation to develop might occur. Therefore, public leadership scholars should extend future leader training research to include various administrative and cultural public sector contexts.

Footnotes

Appendices

Appendix A.

Sample Characteristics (n = 370).

Variable	Category	n	%
Gender	Male	208	56.22
Gender	Female	162	43.78
Subfield	Core administration (e.g., local, state government)	177	47.84
	Education	64	17.30
	Health and Social Services	48	12.97
	Police	47	12.70
	Military	16	4.32
	Other	18	4.86
Leadership position	Leader of leaders and employees	130	35.14
Leadership position	Leader of employees	240	64.86
Kind of contract	Civil servant (special employment)	250	67.57
Kind of contract	Employee	120	32.43
Pay group	E1-E4 resp. A2-A4 (lower service)	1	0.27
	E5-E8 resp. A5-A9 (intermediate service)	37	10.0
	E9-E12 resp. A9-A13 (upper intermediate service) service	177	47.84
	E13-E15 resp. A13-A16 (higher service)	119	32.16
	B1-B11/non-tariff (top management)	18	4.86
	No answer	18	4.86
Past development	Yes	300	81.08
Past development	No	70	18.92

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Leonie Backhaus

Author Biography

Dr. Leonie Backhaus is a research associate at the chair of Public Management at Universität Hamburg (Germany). Her research interests are leadership in the public sector, leadership and employee development, and motivational, behavioral and performance-related employee outcomes.

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