Dr Chris Baker – Professional Development Lead / The Cabot Learning Federation

Confident Leaders – By Design

Abstract

The following research study aimed to explore self-efficacy across a range of leadership levels and contextual factors, something lacking in the literature at that time. A mixed-methods case study approach was used to explore the self-efficacy levels of 138 leaders within a multi-academy trust of 20 schools in the Southwest of England. A 10-point general rating scale was used within a questionnaire to assess levels of self-efficacy. Semi-structured interviews were subsequently used to explore the perceptions of self-efficacy development. The hope was that a greater understanding of what self-efficacy levels were and how they had been developed could lead to improvements in the design and delivery of leadership development programmes and result in leaders being confident by design rather than chance.

Key Words: Self-efficacy, Leadership development, Systematic, Experience, Context, Superiors

Introduction

As someone who has completed a wide range of leadership development courses, sadly resulting in limited impact and more recently held the responsibility for leadership development across 36 schools, the research study held a strong personal relevance. Strengthening this was a number of key insights from the leadership and self-efficacy literature.

Improving the performance of leaders is key to school improvement.

Quality leadership is second only to the quality of teaching as a school-lever for improving educational outcomes (National College of School Leadership, 2006). Great leaders drive school improvement though their strategic, interpersonal, and operational capabilities and student success is often linked to effective leadership (Leithwood, Louis, Anderson, and Wahlstrom, 2004; Pont, Nusche and Hopkins, 2008). Some researchers have suggested that it is second only to classroom practice in terms of influence on learning and achievement (Leithwood, Louis, Anderson, and Wahlstrom, 2004; Levin, 2008; Ponte, Nusche, and Hopkins, 2008). More recently, the 2024 UNESCO leadership in action report found that a study of 32 countries affirmed that strong leadership correlates with improved teaching practices and that leadership ranked just below teacher’s impact on learning.

Improving leadership performance is difficult.

The growing body of literature about what effective educational leaders do far outweighs that concerned with how to develop leaders (Manzitto, 2016). Research that has been completed has been critical of both the contents and structure of leadership development programmes (Tirozzi, 2000; Murphy and Vriesenga, 2004; Cambron-McCabe and McCarthy, 2005). The difficulty of leadership development lies largely with the lack of consensus around definitions, effective practice, and delineation from other concepts such as management. Sociological perspectives of leadership add to the challenge by highlighting the contextual specificity of leadership across domains and between individuals and situations. Calls for further research into effective leadership development centre around a greater understanding of professional development needs, current development programme content and leaders’ preferences of professional development activities (Daniels, 2019). The 2025 UNESCO leadership report stated that ‘countries need to do more to prepare and train school leaders’ and that the provision of sufficient, timely, structured, relevant and effective training is a challenge (UNESCO, 2024, pg. 57).

Self-efficacy as a useful lens for leadership development

Self-efficacy is defined as ‘one’s beliefs in one’s capabilities to organise and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments’ (Bandura, 1997). Unlike global constructs such as self-esteem, it’s highly specific—essentially task-specific or contextual confidence. Since 1977, self-efficacy theory has been applied across diverse research domains including organisational functioning (Bandura, 1997), academic achievement (Pajares, 1996), teacher performance (Skaalvik and Skaalvik, 2007), and leadership success (Hannah, 2012).

The volume and breadth of literature surrounding self-efficacy support the view that it is a key construct and important to the understanding of human functioning. Two thousand published studies reviewed by Bandura (1997) highlighted its role as a causal variable in performance and achievement. Studies have consistently shown efficacy beliefs to impact on core human behaviours such as choice, motivation, resilience, and problem solving (Bandura, 1977, 1997), Zimmerman, 2000), (Federici, and Skaalvik, 2011).

Cognition

Efficacy beliefs affect thought patterns which contribute to the anticipation of impending events, perception of current experiences and the foresight of future capabilities. Individuals with high levels of self-efficacy view situations as realizable opportunities in which they visualize success and produce guides for positive performance.

Motivation

Efficacy beliefs play a key role in the regulation of motivation (Bandura, 1997) and are used to help to form anticipatory views about what an individual can or cannot achieve. Self-efficacious individuals typically view failure as a lack of effort or situational challenges whilst those with low self-efficacy attribute it to a lack of ability.

Affective processes

The literature also highlights the positive and negative influence of self-efficacy on affective processes such as feelings and emotions. Feelings of low self-efficacy have been linked to increased anxiety, stress, and depression (Bandura, 1997). Individuals with low levels of self-efficacy are predisposed to view events negatively and challenges as risky and unsurmountable due to decreased outcome expectancy.

Selective processes

Beliefs of personal efficacy play a key role in shaping the direction lives take by influencing the choices individuals make and the type of environments they inhabit and produce (Bandura, 1997). Individuals typically select activities in which they have strong levels of efficacy and anticipated success and avoid those that they perceive could end in failure.

Resource Allocation

Within the self-efficacy literature, there is a strong suggestion that people use self-efficacy perceptions when determining the amount of time, effort, and resources to expend on a given task (Vancouver and Kendall, 2006; Schmidt and DeShon, 2010). When self-efficacy levels are high, the perception is that less resources are required and if time is limited then individuals are motivated to conserve resources.

To summarise the findings surrounding the impact of self-efficacy beliefs:

Individuals with high levels of self-efficacy typically:

• Accept challenges.
• Demonstrate intrinsic interest and deep engagement with activities.
• Show resilience during difficult tasks.
• Recover quickly from setbacks and disappointments.
• Experience lower levels of stress.

Individuals with low levels of self-efficacy typically:

• Have low aspirations.
• Avoid challenging tasks.
• Lessen their efforts during difficulties.
• Demonstrate weak commitment to goals.
• Focus on personal failings and negative outcomes.

Self-efficacy development

The development of self-efficacy begins in early childhood and new-borns arrive without any sense of self and thus it must be socially constructed through transactional experiences with the environment, Bandura (1997). The acquisition of self-efficacy begins as newborns gain behavioural capabilities and understand agent causation by observing the results of action.

During adolescence, the self-efficacy appraisal process is further complicated by the increased use of social comparisons and vicarious experiences for efficacy information. The increasing role of peers has a broadening and validating impact on self-efficacy development in both positive and negative ways.

Young adulthood provides another temporal junction for self-efficacy development where demands arising from relationships, parenthood, career progression and financial resourcing cause a significant impact. By the middle years, people settle into established lifestyles that stabilise their sense of efficacy in major areas of functioning yet remain dynamic because of declining opportunities and the arrival of positional incumbents.

The loss of physicality, sensory functioning, intellectual faculty, and memory during the later stages of life drive continuing self-efficacy appraisals often resulting in reduced beliefs. This declining perception of efficacy with advancing age can result in a spiral of self-debilitating appraisals that result in a loss of cognitive and behaviour functioning.

Self-efficacy appraisals

Although self-efficacy slowly develops over time, it dynamically fluctuates in the moment through an individual’s perception of their capability to succeed in a given situation. During these self-efficacy appraisals, individuals utilise a range of information:

Past experiences have been shown to be the most influential source of efficacy information (Bandura, 1977) with experiences viewed as successful serving to increase and the contrasting attribution of failure serving to reduce efficacy levels. The influence of past experiences is however complex, and the literature cites contributory factors such as perceived task difficulty, levels of guidance and expended effort (Bandra, 2009). Feltz (2008) found that past performances with high levels of difficulty, little external assistance and limited failures contributed more to efficacy development than those which were easily achieved with external support.

Vicarious Influences are another source of appraisal information and Maddux, (1995) found that comparisons with others can have a powerful influence on self-efficacy beliefs, providing the message that skills are learnable and difficult tasks are surmountable. Vicarious influences strongly impact individuals with less direct knowledge of their own capability and are particularly powerful when observers perceive similarities between themselves and the model.

Individuals also develop self-efficacy beliefs from the social messages they receive from others typically in the form of persuasion, feedback, and appraisal. Verbal persuasion presents itself typically as feedback from others and is strongly influenced by the perceived prestige, credibility, expertise and trustworthiness of the persuader, (Feltz and Lirgg, (2001). Self-talk is another form of verbal persuasion that impacts on self-efficacy levels and conflict arises when internal and external messaging are incongruent.

Physiological and emotional states such as fear, anxiety, increased heart rate, sweating and pain provide additional information for efficacy appraisals and become self-talk about the ability to meet future task demands. Attribution is a key factor in the use of this type of information (Bandura, 1997) and sources of physiological and emotional states are easily mis-attributed.

Bandura’s initial set of efficacy influences was extended by Maddux in 1995 to include ‘imaginal experiences’ defined as the envisioning of success in anticipated performance situations. Studies by Callow (2001) and Tsang et al (2012) reinforce the developmental power of imaginal experiences by highlighting how cognitive simulation techniques such as mental rehearsal enhances efficacy and performance.

The Research Study

Exploration of the self-efficacy and leadership development literature bases convinced me of the power that may lie within and the utility of further study. My initial interest centred around understanding more about the current levels of leadership self-efficacy within my organisation and let to the creation of the following research questions.

Research Questions

1.What are leaders’ current perceptions of their levels of self-efficacy?

2.Do leadership self-efficacy levels vary as a result of leadership area, leadership level, time in role, time in leadership?

3.How have leaders’ perceived levels of self-efficacy been developed?

4.What are the implications of the findings for leadership training and development?

Research Methods

Self-efficacy research is dominated by quantitative methods, possibly due to its psychological nature and measurable characteristics (Gardner, 1996; Hohenstein, 2018). However, concerns about narrow conceptualisation and validity issues, plus calls for more qualitative approaches, led me to select a mixed methods design. Qualitative data can be used to explain quantitative findings, providing richer understanding (Cresswell, 2023; Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2010).

My desire to improve leadership development within my organisation and understand a contemporary phenomenon in its real-life context led to a case-study approach. While drawn to grounded, phenomenological, and ethnographic approaches, existing self-efficacy theory precluded grounded theory, and time constraints ruled out extended data collection methods.

All participants were from the case organisation—a federation of 20 schools employing 1,900 people serving 10,500 students. The organisation included eight primary schools, seven secondary schools, one all-through school, one post-16 school, one alternative provision school, and a large central team.

Time constraints led me to select only formally designated leaders, and access was excellent due to established relationships and regular opportunities to meet in person.

Leadership Population:

• Total leaders: 282 (55 primary, 202 secondary, 25 central team)
• Middle leadership: 170 (60%)
• Senior leadership: 67 (24%)
• Principals: 20 (7%)
• Central team: 25 (9%)

Phase One — Questionnaire

Phase one used a paper-based questionnaire to address research questions 1 and 2 and the first challenge was identifying the leadership elements to be assessed. Given the lack of consensus on leadership definitions and the complexity of the field, I used the organisation’s own leadership competency framework rather than attempting to create a bespoke set of competencies.

Leaders rated their self-efficacy against the following competencies using a 10-point scale, with 10 representing the highest level of self-efficacy.

Setting Direction

Use contextual information to inform decisions

Seek out and utilise research and best practice to inform decisions

Collect, manage, and analyse data to inform decisions

Accurately define vision, values, and strategy

Purposefully develop and maintain the desired culture

Planning and Organising

Manage time and tasks effectively

Manage resources and risk effectively

Manage financial matters effectively

Effectively deploy change management tools and techniques

Monitor, evaluate and adapt plans

Creating Engagement

Seek out and utilise stakeholder voice to inform decisions

Clearly articulate vision and ensure stakeholder understanding

Role model desired attitudes, behaviours, and practices

Remove barriers to success

Keep stakeholders appropriately informed

Building and Sustaining Relationships

Seek out, understand, and respond to stakeholder needs

Actively build trust between yourself and others

Recognise and reward performance

Adapt or tailor Leadership and communication styles to suit needs

Anticipate and manage conflict

Increasing Capability

Identify, understand, and respond to professional development needs

Administer effective performance management processes

Proactively build and contribute to external partnerships

Delegate tasks and devolve responsibilities as appropriate

Review own practice, set personal targets, and engage in deliberate practice

Delivering Impact

Monitor performance and ensure accountability

Challenge underperformance

Effectively plan and lead meetings

Maintain high levels of visibility and interaction

Make calculated decisions

Phase Two — Semi-structured interviews

The qualitative focus of research question 3 led me to select semi-structured interviews as the method as they allow an in-depth exploration of matters that are unique to the experiences of the interviewees’ (McGrath et al, 2019). Bandura’s efficacy information sources (1997) guided the design of the following questions:

• Thinking about tasks where you have high self-efficacy, what developed that perception?
• Thinking about tasks where you have low self-efficacy, what developed that perception?
• Thinking about tasks where you increased self-efficacy from low to high, what made you feel that way?

Time constraints required a reduction in the sample size and so volunteer sampling was used to create a 14-leader interview sample, randomly adapted for contextual representation. Responses were electronically transcribed, and I subsequently used Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-phase thematic framework to analyse the responses.

Results

Research Question One

Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the questionnaire data and highlight differences between individuals and across different tasks. The mean self-efficacy levels across the sample are show below along with task-by-task levels which began to answer the question of what leaders felt they needed more professional development in.

Mean self-efficacy across all capabilities was 7.37 (n=138, SD=1.50).

Highest self-efficacy areas:

1. Actively build trust between yourself and others (8.33)
2. Role model desired attitudes, behaviours, and practices (8.28)
3. Maintain high levels of visibility and interaction (8.11)
4. Make informed decisions (8.08)
5. Collect, manage, and analyse data to inform decisions (7.81)

Lowest self-efficacy areas:

1. Proactively build and contribute to external partnerships (6.51)
2. Administer effective performance management processes (6.61)
3. Effectively deploy change management tools and techniques (6.62)
4. Delegate tasks and devolve responsibilities as appropriate (6.83)
5. Identify, understand, and respond to professional development needs (6.86)

Research Question Two

Inferential statistics revealed statistically significant links between self-efficacy levels and leadership level, time in role, and time in leadership (all p<.05), but not leadership area (p=.73).

These results raised the issues of whether time in role or leadership experience was more important for development, and why leadership area showed no significant effect. Literature supported time in leadership’s importance due to transferability of efficacy beliefs and coping efficacy development.

Research Question Three

The six stages of thematic analysis led me through initial patterns to a set of 23 initial codes which I consolidated into a smaller set of 13 sub-themes and then finally the three main themes below:

• Internal Antecedents: Traits (gender, personality, preference, proactivity) and states (overconfidence, spiralling, understanding, assessment)
• External Antecedents: Organisational, subordinate, and superior factors
• Efficacy Information: Mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, imaginal experiences, and social persuasion (coaching/mentoring, reflection)

Discussion Points

Reflections on the data set as a whole led to the following questions and a further exploration of the literature base.

• Does gender affect self-efficacy beliefs?
• Does a perceived imposter syndrome affect self-efficacy beliefs?
• Does personality self-efficacy beliefs?
• Can leadership self-efficacy levels be too high?
• Does assessment affect leadership self-efficacy beliefs?
• Do organisational factors impact on self-efficacy levels?
• Do changes in role requirements affect self-efficacy levels?
• Do subordinates have an impact on self-efficacy levels?
• Do superiors have an impact on self-efficacy levels?
• Is experience important to self-efficacy development?
• How does role-modelling affect self-efficacy beliefs?
• How important is feedback to self-efficacy development?
• How can networking contribute to the development of leadership self-efficacy beliefs?
• What role does coaching have in the development of leadership self-efficacy beliefs?

Conclusions and Professional Recommendations

The study culminated in the creation of a set of conclusions which then stimulated a set of associated professional recommendations. These recommendations were then used to inform the planning of future leadership development activities within the case organisation and disseminated o impact more widely on the sector.

Educational leadership self-efficacy is contextually sensitive.

Both quantitative and qualitative data showed variance between contextual groups, suggesting context impacts leadership self-efficacy levels. Interview data highlighted additional contextual factors including job role changes, team dynamics, and school culture.

Professional Recommendations: Leadership development design must consider participants’ leadership level and experience, as training misaligned with actual requirements can damage self-efficacy levels.

Internal trait and state factors affect self-efficacy beliefs.

Results highlighted internal influences on self-efficacy including gender, personality, overconfidence, and understanding, aligning with Paglis and Green’s (2002) antecedents. Respondents noted overconfidence’s negative impact, leading to reduced performance and damaged self-efficacy.

Professional Recommendations: Leaders must acknowledge internal and external factors affecting self-efficacy development, avoiding superficial understanding that relies solely on Bandura’s (1977) sources.

Leadership development must consider self-efficacy information sources.

Interview respondents emphasised experience’s positive impact and decreased self-efficacy without it. They referenced self-efficacy increases from good role models and positive feedback, strengthening the importance of quality appraisal information.

Professional Recommendations: All leaders should engage in effective coaching/mentoring and networking opportunities. The importance of experience aligns with Kolb’s experiential learning cycle (1984) and Revans’ action learning (1982), while feedback’s importance is supported by Kluger & Denisi (1996) emphasis on modelling.

Experience is vital to the development of leadership self-efficacy.

Data from both phases of the research highlighted the importance of experience in the development of self-efficacy beliefs. The descriptive analysis of the questionnaire data from phase one highlighted a link between high efficacy ratings and high frequency tasks.

Professional Recommendations: Leadership training courses should contain experiential elements and opportunities to experience future role requirements. This integration of opportunities for practice aligns with Baldwin and Ford, 1988 work on the transfer of training.

Superiors have a significant impact on the leadership self-efficacy of their subordinates.

Interview respondents highlighted the presence of positive role models, the provision of effective feedback and opportunities to gain experience as self-efficacy stimulants. The self-efficacy literature supports this by highlighting the impact of superiors as providers or limiters of appraisal information like experience, feedback and vicarious influence.

Professional Recommendations: Professional development relationships should be intelligently arranged, and leaders need to understand more about the impact of self-efficacy and how to develop it effectively. Paglis (2010) suggested that the combination of subordinate and superior may be a crucial factor in self-efficacy development and Yukl (2006) highlighted the role superiors play in sensemaking by controlling the flow of information.

Limitations and further study

Despite a rigorous approach to the design of the research there were a number of limitations linked to the research:

• The choice to focus on one organisation as a bounded case reduced the opportunity for generalisability.
• Leadership in schools does not only occur within individuals with formally assigned leadership titles or responsibilities and so results cannot purport to represent whole school and organisational leadership self-efficacy.
• The self-report nature of both the questionnaire and interview processes may have invited a level of variability due to memory and response biases.
• It is possible that respondents were reluctant to admit low levels of confidence due to a social desirability bias and my position as an insider researcher.

The power of the insights gained during the study and the potential for even greater impact stimulated interest in the following research areas:

• The dynamic nature of self-efficacy means that longitudinal studies could enhance the identification of efficacy information sources and key influences.
• Studies that push past correlation and explore the causal relationships between efficacy beliefs and leadership performance would add weight to the subject’s importance.
• References in the interview data to gender, school context and personality indicate the value of further research into the contextual leadership factors that affect a leader’s self-efficacy beliefs.
• The presence of an executive leadership layer within groups of schools may have a negative influence on levels of trust and effective delegation and thus a negative impact on self-efficacy.

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