Geef me de ruimte! Het effect van behoefte aan autonomie en autonomie op het werk op de mate van zelfleiderschap bij werknemers in de zorg

While much research has focused on self-leadership, few researches have addressed how, why and when this appears. This thesis presents a quantitative research on the effects of the need for autonomy and job autonomy on self-leadership. Based on the literature on self-leadership, the Job-Demands Resources Model, the Job-Demands Control Model and the Self-Determination Theory, we hypothesized that employees with a high need for autonomy and much job-autonomy would be most likely to posses self-leadership skills. Employees from several health organizations (N=222) completed a questionnaire containing an existing self-leadership scale, an existing scale for job autonomy and a new scale to measure need for job autonomy. The results of the multiple regression analyses revealed that the need for job autonomy and job autonomy both predict self-leadership. The effect of the need for autonomy on self-leadership is stronger than the effect of job autonomy on self-leadership. An interaction effect between need for autonomy and job autonomy on self-leadership could not be found. The findings suggest that personal traits are more relevant than contextual factors in predicting self-leadership by employees within health organizations