In leadership development, an established literature and a fertile praxis fall short of clarifying how individuals may develop the many and varied capabilities that contribute to leadership processes. Literature promoting personal growth tends to reduce personal development to cognitive development or rely on broadly defined and under-evidenced notions. The adult development literature offers to this research a conceptualization of personal development as systemic qualitative change in individual sensemaking. As sensemaking develops, it progresses toward greater integration (of interdependent cognitive, emotive, purposive, and conative dimensions), sophistication, and self-determination. The research aimed to examine how changes in the sensemaking of individuals may result in developmental outcomes relevant for personal and leadership development. This inquiry moves from a perspective idealist ontology and a social constructivist epistemology, selects philosophical hermeneutics as a research paradigm, and embraces exploratory qualitative longitudinal research. Purposive sampling guided the selection of research context, a leadership program focused on personal growth. Transcripts from 32 semi-structured constructivist-phenomenological interviews, collected from nine participants across fourteen months, were analyzed through constructivist grounded theory. Development was assessed ipsatively according to a literature-based framework. Contributions, in terms of substantive theory, are not generalizable beyond research context and sample. This research advances the differentiation of developmental context, process and outcomes. Context is found to transcend holding environment—to be ideally conducive to a specific type of change in virtue of a distinctive emerging quality. While vector processes facilitate development, core processes (individual sensemaking) are development. In terms of outcomes, the research supports an association between personal development and development of leadership capabilities, but questions whether self-awareness or personality adjustments per se constitute authentic personal or leadership development. This research exposes a pattern of seeking affirmation, associated with disproportionate identity salience of external image, which is potentially capable of hindering personal development by triggering maladaptive rather than adaptive self-reflection.

In leadership development, an established literature and a fertile praxis fall short of clarifying how individuals may develop the many and varied capabilities that contribute to leadership processes. Literature promoting personal growth tends to reduce personal development to cognitive development or rely on broadly defined and under-evidenced notions. The adult development literature offers to this research a conceptualization of personal development as systemic qualitative change in individual sensemaking. As sensemaking develops, it progresses toward greater integration (of interdependent cognitive, emotive, purposive, and conative dimensions), sophistication, and self-determination. The research aimed to examine how changes in the sensemaking of individuals may result in developmental outcomes relevant for personal and leadership development. This inquiry moves from a perspective idealist ontology and a social constructivist epistemology, selects philosophical hermeneutics as a research paradigm, and embraces exploratory qualitative longitudinal research. Purposive sampling guided the selection of research context, a leadership program focused on personal growth. Transcripts from 32 semi-structured constructivist-phenomenological interviews, collected from nine participants across fourteen months, were analyzed through constructivist grounded theory. Development was assessed ipsatively according to a literature-based framework. Contributions, in terms of substantive theory, are not generalizable beyond research context and sample. This research advances the differentiation of developmental context, process and outcomes. Context is found to transcend holding environment—to be ideally conducive to a specific type of change in virtue of a distinctive emerging quality. While vector processes facilitate development, core processes (individual sensemaking) are development. In terms of outcomes, the research supports an association between personal development and development of leadership capabilities, but questions whether self-awareness or personality adjustments per se constitute authentic personal or leadership development. This research exposes a pattern of seeking affirmation, associated with disproportionate identity salience of external image, which is potentially capable of hindering personal development by triggering maladaptive rather than adaptive self-reflection.

Based on the conceptual argument that the European apprenticeship might explain cross-national variability in adolescent adjustment, the current investigation tested the relationships between mentoring experiences, namely joint activities with mentors as well as perceived mentoring behaviors by unrelated adults in the work setting, and measures of both psychosocial competencies (job skills, self esteem, and well-being) and measures of adjustment (alcohol use, drug use, and deviance). Data were collected from n = 2735 Swiss apprentices and n = 368 U.S. part-time employees who attended high school. Findings provide evidence that perceived mentoring behaviors by unrelated adults in the work setting in both developmental contexts were associated with both psychosocial competencies and adjustment indicators. Contrary to the idea that the European apprenticeship may provide a unique "protective" developmental experience for youth in comparison with U.S. adolescents who work part-time, adolescents in both contexts benefited equally from good mentoring experiences.

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Striving for personal goals is one important aspect of composing one is life within a developmental context. In this realm, personal life investment (PLI) measures the amount of energy (action and thought) that people report investing in central life domains (e.g., health, family, leisure, independence). This study aimed at understanding the functional relations of PLI, its development between 70 and over 100 years, and its role for successful aging. Obligatory and optional PLI were distinguished to differentiate between life domains where older individuals need to invest energy to maintain a basis for their development and domains that allow for many more degrees of freedom as to where and when to invest. Cross-sectional and longitudinal data from the Berlin Aging Study (BASE) showed that optional PLI, in contrast to obligatory PLI, had only positive motivational and affective correlates, declined between age 80 and 90, and contributed to successful aging as long as older people had enough resources to invest in optional domains. / Das Streben nach persönlichen Zielen ist für die eigene Lebensgestaltung innerhalb eines veränderlichen Entwicklungskontextes zentral. Dabei erfasst das Konstrukt des persönlichen Lebensinvestments (PLI) einen Aspekt der Lebensgestaltung: das Ausmaß an Energie, das in Form von Handlungen und Gedanken in zentralen Lebensbereichen, wie z.B. Gesundheit, Familie, Freizeit oder Unabhängigkeit, investiert wird. Ziel der vorliegenden Studie war die Untersuchung der funktionalen Zusammenhänge des PLI, der Entwicklung von PLI zwischen 70 und über 100 Jahren und der Rolle des Investments beim erfolgreichen Altern. Hierbei wurde zwischen obligatorischem und optionalem PLI unterschieden, also PLI in Lebensbereichen, die im Alter Investment erfordern, um die Grundlagen für die eigene Entwicklung zu erhalten, und PLI in Lebensbereichen, die weitaus mehr Freiheitsgrade hinsichtlich des Ausmaßes und Zeitpunktes des Investments bieten. Analysen von Quer- und Längsschnittdaten der Berliner Altersstudie (BASE) zeigten, dass optionales PLI, im Gegensatz zu obligatorischem PLI, nur positive motivational-affektive Korrelate aufweist, zwischen 80 und 90 Jahren leicht reduziert wird und zum erfolgreichen Altern beitragen kann, sofern die betreffende ältere Person über ausreichende Ressourcen verfügt, um sie in optionalen Bereichen zu investieren.

Striving for personal goals is one important aspect of composing one is life within a developmental context. In this realm, personal life investment (PLI) measures the amount of energy (action and thought) that people report investing in central life domains (e.g., health, family, leisure, independence). This study aimed at understanding the functional relations of PLI, its development between 70 and over 100 years, and its role for successful aging. Obligatory and optional PLI were distinguished to differentiate between life domains where older individuals need to invest energy to maintain a basis for their development and domains that allow for many more degrees of freedom as to where and when to invest. Cross-sectional and longitudinal data from the Berlin Aging Study (BASE) showed that optional PLI, in contrast to obligatory PLI, had only positive motivational and affective correlates, declined between age 80 and 90, and contributed to successful aging as long as older people had enough resources to invest in optional domains. / Das Streben nach persönlichen Zielen ist für die eigene Lebensgestaltung innerhalb eines veränderlichen Entwicklungskontextes zentral. Dabei erfasst das Konstrukt des persönlichen Lebensinvestments (PLI) einen Aspekt der Lebensgestaltung: das Ausmaß an Energie, das in Form von Handlungen und Gedanken in zentralen Lebensbereichen, wie z.B. Gesundheit, Familie, Freizeit oder Unabhängigkeit, investiert wird. Ziel der vorliegenden Studie war die Untersuchung der funktionalen Zusammenhänge des PLI, der Entwicklung von PLI zwischen 70 und über 100 Jahren und der Rolle des Investments beim erfolgreichen Altern. Hierbei wurde zwischen obligatorischem und optionalem PLI unterschieden, also PLI in Lebensbereichen, die im Alter Investment erfordern, um die Grundlagen für die eigene Entwicklung zu erhalten, und PLI in Lebensbereichen, die weitaus mehr Freiheitsgrade hinsichtlich des Ausmaßes und Zeitpunktes des Investments bieten. Analysen von Quer- und Längsschnittdaten der Berliner Altersstudie (BASE) zeigten, dass optionales PLI, im Gegensatz zu obligatorischem PLI, nur positive motivational-affektive Korrelate aufweist, zwischen 80 und 90 Jahren leicht reduziert wird und zum erfolgreichen Altern beitragen kann, sofern die betreffende ältere Person über ausreichende Ressourcen verfügt, um sie in optionalen Bereichen zu investieren.