Effect of Leader Developmental Readiness on Leadership Development among MBA Students within Private Universities in Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to establish the effect of leader developmental readiness on leadership development among MBA students within private universities in Kenya. Six specific objectives were pursued in the present study: to establish the effect of learning goal orientation on leadership development among the MBA students within private universities in Kenya; to establish the effect of developmental efficacy on leadership development among the MBA students within private universities in Kenya; to establish the effect of self-concept clarity on leadership development among the MBA students within private universities in Kenya; to establish the effect of leader complexity on leadership development among the MBA students within private universities in Kenya; to establish the effect of metacognitive ability on leadership development among the MBA students within private universities in Kenya; and finally to determine whether the learning environment moderates the effect of leader developmental readiness on leadership development among the MBA students within private universities in Kenya. The philosophy that governed the study was pragmatic while the research design was mixed method. The population (N = 1,721) under the study was MBA students within private universities in Kenya. The study adopted stratified random sampling and purposive sampling for quantitative and qualitative data respectively. The sample was n = 288 and n = 20 for the quantitative and the qualitative method respectively. Quantitative data was collected using a questionnaire and corroborated by qualitative data which was collected through interviews. The analyses performed include mean, standard deviation, correlation, One-Way ANOVA and linear regression for the quantitative data, and directed content analysis was performed for the qualitative data. The study found that learning goal orientation and leadership development are significantly correlated, r(288) = .423, p < .001. Learning goal orientation significantly affects leadership development, F(1,286) = 62.346, p < 001, with a R2 of .179. Developmental efficacy and leadership development are significantly correlated, r(288) = .467, p < .001. Developmental efficacy significantly affect leadership development, F(1,286) = 79.803, p < 001, with a R2 of .218. Self-concept clarity and leadership development are significantly correlated, r(288) =.381, p < .001. Self-concept clarity significantly affects leadership development, F(1,286) = 48.580, p < 001, with a R2 of .145. Further the research revealed that leader complexity and leadership development are significantly correlated, r(288) = .458, p < .001. Leader complexity significantly affects leadership development, F(1,286) = 75.896, p < .001, with a R2 of .210. Metacognitive ability and leadership development are also significantly correlated, r(288) = .428, p < .001. Metacognitive ability significantly affects leadership development, F(1,286) = 64.089, p < .001, R2 = .183. Moreover, the learning environment and leadership development are significantly correlated, r(288) = .491, p < .001. However, learning environment does not significantly moderate the effect of leader development readiness on leadership development, F(5,276) = .959, p = .443, R2 change = .01. The five independent variables considered simultaneous have a significant effect on leadership development, F(5,282) = 30.629, p < .001. Therefore, leader developmental readiness significantly affects leadership development. Leader developmental readiness accounts for about 35.2 percent variations in leadership development, which indicates the importance of leader developmental readiness in leadership development. In conclusion, learning goal orientation significantly affects leadership development, while developmental efficacy significantly affects the leadership and self-concept clarity significantly affects leadership development. In addition leader complexity significantly affects the leadership development and metacognitive ability significantly affects leadership development. The learning environment, however does not significantly moderate the effect of leader developmental readiness on leadership development. Based on the study‟s results, the researcher recommends that organizations and leadership development professionals should boost leadership development participants‟ learning goal orientation, developmental efficacy, self-concept clarity, leader complexity and metacognitive ability to enable them benefit more from leadership development. Leader developmental readiness, exposure to developmental experiences (leadership developmental interventions) and reflection are hypothesized to affect leadership development, hence a comprehensive study of the three ought to be carried out to establish whether exposure to developmental experiences and reflection explain the unaccounted for variations (about 64.8 percent) in leadership development