Abstract:

Although informal leadership is important for team success, students’ social-evaluative concerns limit the equitable distribution of leadership experience in self-managed student groups. We investigated whether leadership self-efficacy mediates the relationship between anticipated image risk and leadership emergence among undergraduate students at a South African university. Participants, 343 undergraduate students (73% female) who had engaged in group work during their studies, completed validated measures of anticipated image risk, leadership self-efficacy, and leadership emergence. Factor analysis examined the dimensionality of all scales, and reliability analysis indicated adequate internal consistency. We tested the hypothesised mediation model using bootstrapped confidence intervals with 5,000 resamples.

Anticipated image risk was negatively associated with leadership self-efficacy (B = -0.39, p < .001), and leadership self-efficacy was positively associated with leadership emergence, controlling for anticipated image risk (B = 0.62, p < .001). The total effect of anticipated image risk on leadership emergence was negative and significant (B = -0.23, p < .001). When leadership self-efficacy was included in the model, the direct effect became nonsignificant (B = 0.02, p = .754), while the indirect effect through leadership self-efficacy remained significant (B = -0.25, 95% CI [-0.32, -0.18]). This pattern indicates full mediation. The full model explained 30% of the variance in leadership emergence. That is, leadership self-efficacy fully transmits the influence of anticipated image risk on leadership emergence. Students who anticipate negative social evaluations report lower confidence in their leadership abilities, which in turn reduces their likelihood of emerging as leaders.

The findings suggest that educators who use team-based learning focus on building leadership self-efficacy rather than attempting to eliminate students’ fear of peer evaluation, which may be difficult to modify directly. Possible strategies to implement include: mastery experiences through structured role rotation to give every team member low-risk exposure to leadership tasks; low-stakes leadership opportunities that allow students to build confidence before high-stakes assessments raise evaluative pressure; explicit team norming exercises to reframe peer evaluation as developmental feedback; and guided reflection activities to help students recognise and consolidate their own leadership competence.

The presentation will offer prompts for reflection so that educators can evaluate which self-efficacy-building strategies may be feasible within their existing curricula. The aim is to bridge empirical evidence and teaching practice by translating a specific psychological mechanism into concrete pedagogical design considerations.

Keywords:

Anticipated image risk, leadership emergence, leadership self-efficacy, mediation, student teams, team-based learning, higher-education pedagogy.