Research and Evidence

Research, Evidence, and Practical Application
Dr. Lee R. Roberts

Situation → Choice → Behaviour → Repetition → Identity → Character → Direction

Behavioural Wellbeing: An Evidence-Informed Framework for Intentional Human Development

Abstract

Wellbeing is often treated as a feeling, an outcome, or a collection of self-care activities. The book Behavioural Wellbeing proposes a complementary perspective: wellbeing is also something people practise through repeated, value-aligned behaviours that shape functioning and development over time. This conceptual paper examines the scientific basis and appropriate limits of that proposition. Behavioural Wellbeing is defined as the intentional development of the whole person through behaviours that cultivate character, resilience, wisdom, meaningful relationships, and human flourishing while remaining aligned with one’s values. The framework integrates eudaimonic wellbeing, self-determination theory, psychological flexibility, habit science, behaviour-change theory, resilience research, the job demands–resources model, Psychological Capital, and psychological safety. Findings from Roberts’ mixed-methods leadership research and exploratory workplace-training research provide preliminary, context-specific support for its relational and developmental emphasis. However, Behavioural Wellbeing is not yet a validated psychological construct, diagnostic category, or demonstrated causal sequence. Its distinctive contribution is integrative: it connects values, choices, repeated behaviour, relational conditions, and long-term development while retaining personal agency without ignoring biological, social, and organizational constraints. A research agenda is proposed to test the framework’s structure, measurement, and incremental value.

Keywords: behavioural wellbeing, human flourishing, habits, resilience, values, psychological flexibility

Behavioural Wellbeing: An Evidence-Informed Framework for Intentional Human Development

Psychological wellbeing is commonly discussed as an outcome: people experience life satisfaction, positive emotion, meaning, engagement, supportive relationships, or effective functioning. These outcomes are important, but an outcome-focused account can leave a practical question unanswered: What does a person repeatedly do that makes constructive development more likely? The book Behavioural Wellbeing addresses this question by treating wellbeing not only as a state people possess, but as a lifelong practice of becoming (Roberts, 2026b).

The framework defines Behavioural Wellbeing as “the intentional development of the whole person through behaviours that cultivate character, resilience, wisdom, meaningful relationships, and human flourishing while remaining aligned with one’s values” (Roberts, 2026b). Its central claim is not that behaviour controls every outcome. Rather, repeated choices and actions are among the mechanisms through which people influence who they become, how they respond to pressure, and how they affect others. This perspective places daily conduct between aspiration and outcome.

The framework is represented by the developmental pathway Identity → Values → Character → Behaviour → Habits → Resilience → Leadership → Legacy. The pathway is best understood as an organizing heuristic, not a proven linear causal model. Its components are reciprocal. Behaviour can express identity, but repeated behaviour can also revise identity. Values can guide action, while experience can clarify or change values. Resilience supports leadership, and relational leadership can strengthen resilience. Legacy is not a final psychological variable but the accumulated influence of conduct across time.

This paper evaluates the framework against established psychological and organizational research. Its purpose is scientific qualification rather than promotional validation. It identifies where evidence supports the book’s propositions, where the framework offers useful integration, and where claims require direct empirical testing.

Conceptual Boundaries

Behavioural Wellbeing overlaps with established constructs but is not synonymous with any one of them. It differs from subjective wellbeing, which typically emphasizes life satisfaction and affect, by focusing on developmental conduct. It is closer to eudaimonic wellbeing, which includes purpose, personal growth, autonomy, environmental mastery, self-acceptance, and positive relationships (Ryff, 1989). The framework nevertheless goes beyond a list of wellbeing dimensions by asking how repeated behaviour supports or undermines those dimensions.

Behavioural Wellbeing also differs from behaviourism. It does not argue that external reinforcement fully explains human development or that internal experience is irrelevant. Values, identity, meaning, motivation, emotion, relationships, and environmental opportunity all matter. Behaviour is emphasized because it is where internal commitments and external conditions become observable action.

The framework is not a clinical diagnosis, psychotherapy, or replacement for medical and psychological care. Depression, trauma, chronic illness, disability, poverty, discrimination, dangerous work, and other constraints cannot be reduced to insufficient discipline or poor choices. Agency is real but bounded. An ethical model must hold personal responsibility together with compassion and attention to resources, opportunity, and context.

Scientific Foundations

Flourishing as Functioning and Development

The book’s emphasis on becoming is consistent with eudaimonic approaches to wellbeing. Ryff (1989) argued that wellbeing cannot be adequately represented by happiness alone and identified dimensions of positive functioning that include purpose, growth, autonomy, relationships, and mastery. From this perspective, a meaningful life can include discomfort, effort, sacrifice, and moral tension. Feeling good and functioning well frequently overlap, but they are not identical.

This distinction is central to Behavioural Wellbeing. A difficult conversation may temporarily reduce comfort while expressing courage, honesty, and care. Exercise, study, forgiveness, service, or responsible boundary setting may require effort before producing benefit. The framework therefore rejects constant positive emotion as the standard of health. Its stronger proposition is that patterns of value-aligned behaviour can contribute to durable functioning even when individual actions are uncomfortable.

Values, Motivation, and Psychological Flexibility

Self-determination theory provides a foundation for understanding why value-aligned conduct may support wellbeing. Autonomous motivation is strengthened when behaviour is experienced as chosen and integrated rather than imposed, and when the psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are supported (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2000). Values can give action direction, but values do not become behaviour automatically. People also require capability, supportive conditions, and motivation that can withstand competing impulses.

Psychological flexibility further supports the framework. It concerns the capacity to remain in contact with present experience and adjust or persist in behaviour according to valued purposes rather than being governed rigidly by discomfort or avoidance (Kashdan & Rottenberg, 2010). Behavioural Wellbeing similarly does not require the removal of fear, grief, anger, or uncertainty before constructive action becomes possible. It asks whether a person can acknowledge internal experience and still choose behaviour appropriate to values and context.

Values must nevertheless be examined rather than assumed to be beneficial. A person can consistently pursue values that harm self or others, and competing values can create legitimate tension. Integrity requires more than consistency; it requires reflection on consequences, responsibilities, evidence, and the dignity of other people. The book’s emphasis on wisdom and relationships helps prevent values from becoming self-justifying preferences.

Behaviour, Repetition, and Habits

Habit science supports the claim that repetition can make behaviour more automatic. Habits develop through learned associations between recurring contexts and responses, enabling action to proceed with reduced deliberation (Wood & Rünger, 2016). Repetition alone, however, is insufficient. Stable cues, rewards, friction, environment, and competing routines affect whether a behaviour becomes habitual. Intention may initiate action, but context often determines whether it persists.

The COM-B model similarly proposes that behaviour emerges through the interaction of capability, opportunity, and motivation (Michie et al., 2011). This model strengthens Behavioural Wellbeing by correcting an overly individualistic reading. A person may value learning but lack time, access, skill, psychological safety, or physical capacity. Sustainable change may therefore require environmental redesign, social support, training, or removal of barriers rather than greater willpower.

Repeated behaviour can influence self-perception and identity, but the relationship is bidirectional and incomplete. Temperament, personality, learning history, culture, relationships, and biology contribute to development. The framework’s claim should therefore be probabilistic: repeated actions can reinforce patterns of identity and character; they do not manufacture personality without constraint.

Resilience as a Dynamic and Relational Process

Resilience is often marketed as toughness or individual endurance. Developmental research provides a broader account. Masten (2001) described resilience as emerging through ordinary adaptive systems, while later scholarship emphasized interactions among individuals, relationships, communities, and wider systems. This view supports the book’s argument that resilience is built through repeated constructive responses, but it prevents resilience from being reduced to solitary persistence.

The job demands–resources model offers a related organizational explanation. Demands require sustained effort and can produce psychological or physiological cost; resources help people meet goals, reduce costs, learn, and develop (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Personal behaviour matters, but workload, control, leadership, staffing, feedback, and social support shape whether adaptive behaviour is possible. Recent development of JD-R theory continues to emphasize reciprocal relationships among demands, resources, wellbeing, and performance (Bakker et al., 2023).

Psychological Capital provides an additional bridge between person and action. Hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism are treated as developable psychological resources associated with performance and satisfaction (Luthans et al., 2007). Behavioural Wellbeing is broader because it includes character, values, wisdom, relationships, and legacy, but it shares the proposition that important capacities can be intentionally strengthened rather than treated as fixed traits.

Relationships, Safety, and Leadership

Human development is relational. Relatedness is a basic psychological need within self-determination theory, and Ryff’s model includes positive relations as a dimension of wellbeing. Psychological safety research adds a behavioural mechanism: when people believe a team is safe for interpersonal risk, they are more able to ask questions, acknowledge mistakes, seek feedback, and participate in learning (Edmondson, 1999). Safety does not remove standards or accountability. It changes whether uncertainty and error can be addressed constructively.

This evidence supports the book’s movement from self-leadership toward relational leadership and legacy. Leadership is expressed through repeated behaviours—listening, inviting contribution, telling the truth, setting boundaries, responding to mistakes, and acting under pressure. The effects accumulate beyond the individual. Behavioural Wellbeing is therefore not self-optimization in isolation; it concerns the reciprocal development of people and the environments they help create.

Integration With Roberts’ Research

Roberts’ (2026a) mixed-methods study of 31 adults with current or recent leadership experience provides preliminary support for the framework’s relational emphasis. Inclusive leadership was positively associated with resilience, r(29) = .62, p < .001. A simple regression indicated that inclusive leadership explained 38.1% of observed variance in resilience. The qualitative analysis identified integrity, compassion and dignity, authenticity and role modelling, inclusion and psychological safety, tensions and trade-offs, and learning, humility, and adjustment.

These findings align with Behavioural Wellbeing in three ways. First, values became meaningful through observable behaviour rather than statements. Second, resilience appeared relational: openness, accessibility, inclusion, and honest communication could create resources for adaptive functioning. Third, participants described ethical leadership as tension rather than rule following. Values had to be enacted amid competing responsibilities, incomplete information, and consequences.

The evidence must be interpreted cautiously. The sample was small and cross-sectional, measures were self-reported, and regression did not establish causal direction. Resilient people may behave more inclusively, inclusive behaviour may support resilience, or both may be influenced by another factor. The study supports coherence between the framework and observed relationships; it does not validate Behavioural Wellbeing as a complete model.

Roberts’ (2023) doctoral research offers a second, exploratory contribution. Twenty-nine employees across foodservice distribution and emergency services completed workplace learning delivered through collaborative, lecture-based, and e-learning formats. Responses showed that relevance, interaction, pace, prior knowledge, and occupational context affected participation and preference. Secondary paired analysis of reported scores found a small, inconclusive increase in engagement across the training sequence. Because each format was paired with a different topic, causal claims about delivery method were unwarranted.

This study supports the book’s emphasis on continuous learning while qualifying it. Learning is not beneficial merely because training occurs. Development depends on meaningful content, an opportunity to practise, social and organizational support, and application. Behavioural responsibility must be matched by conditions that make constructive behaviour possible.

Scientific Qualification and Research Agenda

Behavioural Wellbeing presently has the status of an evidence-informed conceptual framework. Its components are supported by substantial adjacent literatures, but the integrated construct has not been psychometrically validated. There is no established Behavioural Wellbeing scale, confirmed factor structure, population norm, clinical threshold, or evidence that the proposed pathway predicts outcomes beyond existing measures.

This distinction matters. A framework can be useful before it becomes a validated construct, particularly when it organizes established knowledge into practical questions. Scientific credibility, however, requires claims proportional to evidence. The book can reasonably state that habits, autonomous motivation, psychological flexibility, resources, supportive relationships, and psychologically safe leadership are associated with aspects of functioning. It cannot yet state that Behavioural Wellbeing is a proven unified mechanism or that following the pathway will reliably produce flourishing.

The framework also benefits from resisting exaggerated popular claims. Growth mindset interventions produce variable and often modest effects rather than universal transformation, and grit overlaps substantially with conscientiousness while its incremental predictive value is limited (Credé et al., 2017; Sisk et al., 2018). Perseverance can become maladaptive when goals are harmful, or conditions require disengagement. Behavioural Wellbeing should therefore emphasize wise persistence, feedback, and adjustment rather than endurance at any cost.

Direct validation could proceed in stages. First, qualitative research should test whether people understand the framework and whether important domains are missing. Second, item development and exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses could establish whether Behavioural Wellbeing is one construct, several related dimensions, or primarily an organizing model. Third, longitudinal studies could test whether value clarity, repeated constructive behaviour, relational resources, and psychological flexibility predict later resilience and flourishing. Fourth, intervention studies could compare framework-guided practice with established behaviour-change or wellbeing programs. Incremental validity would require the framework to explain useful variance beyond personality, psychological flexibility, PsyCap, engagement, and existing wellbeing measures.

The book’s faith-informed interpretation should also be presented with epistemic clarity. Scripture and theology can supply meaning, moral commitments, and a view of human worth for readers who share that tradition. They are not empirical tests of psychological causation. Maintaining this distinction allows faith and science to enter honest dialogue without asking either to perform the other’s role.

Practical Implications

The strongest practical use of Behavioural Wellbeing is as a disciplined reflection-and-action framework. A person can identify a value, specify the behaviour that would express it, examine capability and opportunity, reduce environmental friction, repeat the action in a stable context, and review effects on self and others. Reflection should include recovery and adjustment: Did the behaviour build capacity, damage health, strengthen a relationship, or reveal that the goal requires revision?

At the organizational level, leaders can apply the same logic without transferring structural responsibility onto employees. If an organization values learning, it must provide time, psychological safety, feedback, and access. If it values wellbeing, it must examine demands, staffing, role clarity, and dignity, not simply promote individual coping. Values gain credibility when systems and leader behaviour make them practicable.

Conclusion

Behavioural Wellbeing offers a coherent answer to a practical limitation in wellbeing discourse: positive outcomes are partly built through patterns of conduct. Its emphasis on values, repeated behaviour, habits, resilience, relationships, leadership, and accumulated influence is consistent with multiple established research traditions. Roberts’ own studies add preliminary evidence that inclusive behaviour is associated with resilience and that workplace development depends on relevance, participation, and context.

The framework’s credibility depends on restraint as well as integration. It is not yet a validated psychological construct, linear causal theory, or clinical intervention. Personal behaviour matters, but it operates within biological, relational, social, and organizational conditions. Properly qualified, Behavioural Wellbeing is best understood as an evidence-informed developmental framework: not a promise that people can control every outcome, but a structured account of how intentional, value-aligned action can contribute to who they become and to the conditions they create for others.

References

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Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., & Sanz-Vergel, A. (2023). Job demands–resources theory: Ten years later. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 10, 25–53. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-120920-053933

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Sisk, V. F., Burgoyne, A. P., Sun, J., Butler, J. L., & Macnamara, B. N. (2018). To what extent and under which circumstances are growth mind-sets important to academic achievement? Two meta-analyses. Psychological Science, 29(4), 549–571. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617739704

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Principled Action Under Constraint: A Thematic Study of Values-Based Leadership and Behavioural Wellbeing

Abstract

Values-based leadership is often described through ideals, yet its practical meaning becomes clearest when leaders face pressure, competing obligations, and imperfect options. This qualitative study explored how adults with leadership experience described values in ethical decisions, leadership development, and varied organizational or cultural contexts. Thirty-one participants were recruited online as part of a broader mixed-methods project and were invited to answer three open-ended questions. Written responses were analyzed using Braun and Clarke's six-phase approach to thematic analysis. Six related themes were developed: integrity under pressure; compassion and dignity; authenticity through role modelling; inclusion and psychological safety; tensions and trade-offs; and learning, humility, and adaptation. Participants described values not as abstract statements but as behavioural decision rules made visible when standards, relationships, time, or organizational interests conflicted. Compassion was distinguished from avoidance of accountability, while consistency was distinguished from rigid communication. The findings support a behavioural wellbeing perspective in which sustainable leadership depends on repeated choices that preserve personal integrity, relational safety, and adaptive functioning. Because responses were brief, the sample was self-selected, and demographic context was intentionally limited, the results should be treated as an exploratory account requiring deeper interview-based and longitudinal research.

Keywords: behavioural wellbeing, values-based leadership, ethical decision-making, psychological safety, resilience, leadership development

Principled Action Under Constraint: A Thematic Study of Values-Based Leadership and Behavioural Wellbeing

Organizations frequently publish values such as integrity, respect, accountability, compassion, and inclusion. The presence of a values statement, however, does not establish that those values shape behaviour. Values become consequential when they guide what a leader does with incomplete information, how a mistake is handled, whether inconvenient concerns can be raised, and what happens when commercial or political pressure makes consistency costly. The difference between values as language and values as action is therefore central to understanding leadership.

This distinction is also central to behavioural wellbeing. Behavioural wellbeing refers to the repeated choices and patterns of action through which people shape character, sustain functioning, relate constructively to others, and adapt under pressure. It does not reduce wellbeing to feeling comfortable or avoiding strain. A leader may experience discomfort while acting with integrity, enforcing a necessary standard, or acknowledging an error. The relevant question is whether behaviour remains aligned with guiding principles while also supporting learning, dignity, resilience, and responsible performance.

Values-based leadership overlaps with ethical, authentic, and inclusive leadership. These traditions emphasize principled conduct, consistency, self-awareness, openness, and the reinforcement of standards (Avolio & Gardner, 2005; Brown & Treviño, 2006; Carmeli et al., 2010). Although distinct, each asks whether conduct reflects more than short-term performance demands.

The broadness of values-based leadership can create conceptual ambiguity. If the term simply means good leadership, it becomes difficult to test or apply. A behavioural approach narrows the construct by focusing on observable choices. Integrity can be examined through consistency between words and deeds; compassion through the protection of dignity; authenticity through honest modelling; responsibility through ownership of decisions and consequences; and inclusion through voice, access, and respectful participation. Palanski and Yammarino (2007) similarly clarified behavioural integrity by emphasizing consistency and coherence rather than leaving integrity as an undefined virtue.

Values may be most visible under constraint. The behavioural test occurs when truthful reporting could reduce funding, expose an error, delay a project, or create conflict. Likewise, compassion becomes meaningful when dignity must be protected without ignoring performance. Values-based leadership is neither moral perfection nor the mechanical application of one principle; it involves judgment among legitimate obligations.

Values, Resilience, and Relational Conditions

The connection between values and wellbeing is not necessarily that values remove stress. Acting according to one's principles may increase immediate difficulty. Yet values can provide direction when circumstances are uncertain. They may reduce internal ambiguity, support a coherent sense of identity, and help leaders explain difficult decisions. These functions are relevant to resilience because adaptive recovery involves regaining direction and effective behaviour, not merely suppressing discomfort.

Values are also enacted relationally. The way a leader responds to disagreement, error, vulnerability, and difference influences whether others can participate without fear. Psychological safety describes a climate in which interpersonal risk taking, such as asking questions or admitting mistakes, is possible (Newman et al., 2017). Inclusive leadership has been associated with psychological safety because openness and accessibility reduce the perceived cost of contribution (Carmeli et al., 2010). These conditions can support learning and engagement-related experiences, although engagement was not directly measured in the present study.

The application of values across cultural and organizational contexts adds complexity. Respect, candour, hierarchy, and compassion may be communicated differently across settings. A rigid communication style can undermine the very value a leader intends to express. At the same time, unlimited adaptation can become inconsistency if core principles disappear whenever circumstances become difficult. Effective values-based leadership may therefore require stable principles combined with flexible expression.

Purpose and Research Questions

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how adults with leadership experience described the practical use of values in professional life. Four guiding values informed the broader project: integrity, authenticity, compassion, and responsibility. The analysis addressed three questions:

How did leaders describe values-based leadership in relation to ethical decision-making, resilience, and conditions associated with engagement?
How did leaders describe integrating guiding principles into coaching, mentoring, and leadership development?
What challenges and learning did leaders report when applying values across different organizational and cultural contexts?

Method

Design

The study was the qualitative component of a cross-sectional mixed-methods project. Participants provided short written responses to three open-ended survey questions. This format allowed broad online participation and gave respondents time to formulate examples in their own words. It also produced less depth than interviews or focus groups; the analysis should therefore be understood as thematic interpretation of concise written accounts rather than a full phenomenological account of lived experience.

Participants and Recruitment

Thirty-one adults participated in the broader survey. Eligibility required participants to be at least 18 years old and to currently hold, or have recently held, a leadership or supervisory role. Participants were recruited through LinkedIn, Facebook, and X using convenience sampling and limited network sharing. No financial incentive was provided.

No restrictions were imposed by industry, organization size, leadership level, gender, nationality, or cultural background. Demographic information was intentionally minimized to reduce the possibility that participants could be identified from sensitive workplace examples. This protected confidentiality but limited the ability to interpret themes within specific industries, cultures, or levels of authority.

Data Collection

Data were collected through Microsoft Forms after participants reviewed an information sheet and provided informed consent. The open-ended section followed two validated quantitative scales used in the broader project. Participants could skip any open-ended question. The three prompts asked participants to:

describe a situation in which personal values or guiding principles influenced an ethical decision in a leadership or coaching role;
explain how they embedded guiding principles into coaching, mentoring, or leadership development; and
describe challenges or learning associated with applying values across different organizational or cultural settings.

An optional email address was collected only to support withdrawal before anonymization and was destroyed when data collection closed. Responses were retained without identifying organizational or personal details. The project was conducted as university research under the ethical procedures approved for the original MSc study.

Data Analysis

The written responses were analyzed using Braun and Clarke's (2006) six phases: familiarization, initial coding, searching for themes, reviewing themes, defining themes, and reporting. Initial codes stayed close to participant language and included standing firm under pressure, maintaining dignity, modelling values, enabling disagreement, and balancing empathy with standards.

Codes were grouped by conceptual similarity. For example, truth telling under pressure and refusal to cut corners were grouped around integrity; protecting a person's dignity while correcting performance was grouped around compassion; and inviting respectful disagreement was grouped around inclusion and psychological safety. Candidate themes were reviewed for internal coherence, distinction from other themes, and relevance to the research questions. Overlapping themes were refined or combined, and final labels were chosen to communicate the central organizing idea.

The analysis was interpretive, and the researcher's interest in values-based leadership and behavioural wellbeing shaped attention to principles, pressure, and adaptation. Credibility was supported through repeated reading, a documented progression from codes to themes, attention to tensions, and short participant excerpts where they clarified meaning.

Results

Six interrelated themes described values-based leadership as principled conduct within real constraints. The themes are summarized and developed below.

Themes Describing Values-Based Leadership in Practice

Integrity under pressure
Values became visible when honesty, quality, or fairness carried a cost.
Compassion and dignity
Leaders sought to correct problems without humiliating people or abandoning standards.
Authenticity through role modelling
Values were taught through consistent conduct, transparency, and ownership of mistakes.
Inclusion and psychological safety
Listening and respectful disagreement enabled voice, learning, and contribution.
Tensions and trade-offs
Leaders balanced legitimate but competing obligations within organizational constraints.
Learning, humility, and adaptation

Integrity Under Pressure

Participants most clearly described values in situations where an easier option conflicted with a guiding principle. Examples involved pressure to improve reported outcomes, omit a required step, protect organizational interests, or avoid an uncomfortable conversation. One response referred to pressure to "inflate impact figures to secure funding," while another described a suggestion to skip a required process because a project was behind schedule. The important feature was not the industry or decision itself but the presence of a cost attached to honesty or quality.

Integrity was therefore behavioural rather than reputational. Participants did not mainly describe being known as principled; they described choosing consistency when inconsistency offered an immediate advantage. Fairness, truthfulness, and quality functioned as decision rules under uncertainty. This theme also included responsibility for consequences. A principled decision could remain unpopular or create delay, but participants viewed ownership of that consequence as part of leadership.

Compassion and Dignity

Compassion appeared most often when leaders responded to mistakes, conflict, or personal difficulty. Participants distinguished compassion from avoiding standards. One account described a team member's error and a choice to make correction a learning process rather than an occasion for humiliation. The leader still addressed the problem; the difference was how the person was treated during correction.

This theme showed a recurring effort to hold dignity and accountability together. Participants described empathy in delivery, attention to personal circumstances, and support for recovery while retaining responsibility for work. Compassion was not presented as unlimited accommodation. It was a way of preserving the person's worth while responding honestly to performance or conduct.

Authenticity Through Role Modelling

Participants described leadership development as something people observe before they formally learn it. Values were embedded through daily examples: how the leader handled conflict, admitted uncertainty, responded to mistakes, and acted when no ideal option was available. Role modelling gave credibility to coaching because behavioural consistency showed that expectations applied to the leader as well as to others.

Authenticity included intellectual honesty and humility. Participants described the importance of acknowledging mistakes and explaining the reasoning behind decisions. This did not require unrestricted disclosure; rather, it meant avoiding a false image of certainty or perfection. Coaching and mentoring were understood as practice-based processes in which feedback, modelling, and reflection reinforced principles over time.

Inclusion and Psychological Safety

Listening, access, and respectful disagreement formed a fourth theme. Participants sought conditions in which people could raise concerns, offer different perspectives, and admit errors. One participant summarized the aim as creating a climate where it was "safe to disagree." Inclusion meant attention to voice rather than agreement with every suggestion.

When disagreement was permitted, teams could examine assumptions and respond earlier to problems. When mistakes could be acknowledged without humiliation, correction and recovery became more likely. These descriptions align with psychological safety, although it was not directly measured.

Tensions and Trade-Offs

Participants rejected an overly simple picture of values-based leadership. They described conflicts between compassion and accountability, transparency and confidentiality, speed and participation, or honesty and organizational politics. One response described the challenge as balancing "firm standards with empathy." Such tensions did not always have solutions that fully satisfied every value.

This theme reframed ethical leadership as judgment under constraint. Legal, privacy, or time pressures might limit disclosure or consultation without making honesty and participation unimportant. Values sometimes required prioritization, explanation, and acceptance of imperfect outcomes.

Learning, Humility, and Adaptation

The final theme concerned adjustment across organizations and cultures. Participants described learning that the same value could require different forms of expression. One participant observed that compassion "looks different in different cultures." Direct feedback, disagreement, and accessibility could carry different meanings depending on hierarchy, language, and local norms.

Adaptation did not mean abandoning core principles. Participants instead described changing communication, pacing, and support while attempting to preserve integrity, dignity, and responsibility. Mistakes and reflection were important sources of development. This combination of internal consistency and external flexibility resembles adaptive resilience: the leader remains anchored without becoming rigid (Kuntz et al., 2017).

Discussion

The central finding was that participants described values-based leadership as principled action under constraint. Values became visible when leaders faced pressure, competing duties, or a meaningful cost. This interpretation narrows an otherwise broad leadership concept. Values-based leadership is not simply possessing admirable beliefs; it is the repeated translation of those beliefs into conduct.

The themes also reveal that values do not operate independently. Integrity without compassion can become harshness, while compassion without responsibility can become avoidance. Authenticity without judgment can become inappropriate disclosure, while contextual adaptation without integrity can become inconsistency. Participants' accounts emphasized integration: leaders attempted to preserve standards and dignity, stability and flexibility, voice and decisiveness.

Implications for Behavioural Wellbeing

The findings support a behavioural conception of wellbeing. Wellbeing was not described as the absence of difficult emotion or conflict. Instead, constructive functioning appeared in the capacity to act coherently, recover through learning, maintain relationships, and adapt without surrendering core principles. Values may provide an internal orientation, while inclusive behaviour and psychological safety provide relational conditions for coping and learning.

This perspective also challenges highly individualistic accounts of resilience. A leader's ability to function under pressure is affected by whether people can share information, question decisions, and admit mistakes. The theme of inclusion and psychological safety suggests that relational practices may reduce avoidable threat and enable earlier correction. The theme of compassion and dignity suggests that recovery is more likely when error does not permanently define the person. These are theoretically plausible connections; the qualitative data do not establish causal mechanisms.

Engagement should be treated with similar caution. Participants referred to trust, contribution, meaning, safety, and commitment, which resemble conditions associated with engagement. However, no engagement scale was administered. The findings therefore support only a theoretical proposition that values-based behaviour may help create engagement-related conditions, not an empirical conclusion that it increases engagement.

Implications for Leadership Development and Coaching

Leadership development should move beyond identifying preferred values to behavioural translation. Leaders can specify what truthful reporting requires when results are poor, how dignity will be protected during correction, and what ownership looks like after a mistaken decision. Translation makes values observable and open to reflection.

Scenario-based development is particularly suitable because it introduces conflict among legitimate priorities. Cases can require leaders to balance empathy with standards, transparency with confidentiality, or inclusion with urgent action. Debriefing can then examine not only the decision but the process: what value was prioritized, what cost was accepted, how affected people were treated, and how the decision was explained.

Coaching can focus on moments when pressure changes behaviour. Leaders may examine whether they become less accessible or more defensive as demands rise, identify nonnegotiable principles, and test whether their communication is unnecessarily rigid. Reflection can convert difficult experience into adaptive learning.

Organizations also influence whether values can be enacted. Incentives that reward results while ignoring conduct can create predictable value conflicts. Leadership systems should therefore reinforce voice, ethical escalation, respectful accountability, and learning from errors. Values become credible when performance management, promotion, and operational decisions support the same behaviours named in organizational statements.

Limitations and Future Research

The study has several limitations. Participants were recruited through online convenience sampling, producing a self-selected group that may have been especially interested in leadership and values. The sample was small and cannot represent the range of industries, cultures, or leadership roles. Because demographic information was minimized, the analysis could not locate themes within specific contexts or examine meaningful differences among participants.

Written survey responses provided breadth but limited depth. Researchers could not ask follow-up questions, clarify ambiguous statements, or explore contradictions within a participant's account. Future studies should use semistructured interviews, critical-incident methods, or longitudinal diaries to examine how values are applied before, during, and after difficult decisions.

The analysis relied on self-description. Participants may have selected morally favourable examples or reconstructed events in ways that protected their identities. Multisource research could compare leader accounts with employee observations and organizational records. Future work should also examine negative cases in which values language is used to justify exclusion, rigidity, or self-interest.

Finally, relationships among values-based action, resilience, psychological safety, and engagement remain largely theoretical in this qualitative report. Larger mixed-methods studies could directly measure each construct and test whether psychological safety or value congruence helps explain behavioural and wellbeing outcomes. Cross-cultural research could examine which principles remain stable and which forms of expression vary across settings.

Conclusion

Participants described values-based leadership as a demanding behavioural practice rather than an idealized identity. Integrity appeared when honesty or quality had a cost. Compassion appeared when dignity and accountability had to coexist. Authenticity appeared through modelling and ownership. Inclusion appeared through voice and safe disagreement. Tensions required judgment, while diverse contexts required humility and adaptation.

Together, these themes position values as part of behavioural wellbeing: principles guide repeated choices, relationships shape the conditions for recovery and learning, and character is expressed through action under pressure. The strongest form of values-based leadership may therefore be neither rigid certainty nor agreeable language. It is principled action that remains responsible, humane, and adaptable when circumstances make those qualities difficult to sustain.

References

Avolio, B. J., & Gardner, W. L. (2005). Authentic leadership development: Getting to the root of positive forms of leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 16(3), 315-338. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2005.03.001

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77-101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa

Brown, M. E., & Treviño, L. K. (2006). Ethical leadership: A review and future directions. The Leadership Quarterly, 17(6), 595-616. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2006.10.004

Carmeli, A., Reiter-Palmon, R., & Ziv, E. (2010). Inclusive leadership and employee involvement in creative tasks in the workplace: The mediating role of psychological safety. Creativity Research Journal, 22(3), 250-260.

https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2010.504654

Kuntz, J. R. C., Malinen, S., & Näswall, K. (2017). Employee resilience: Directions for resilience development. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 69(3), 223-242. https://doi.org/10.1037/cpb0000097

Newman, A., Donohue, R., & Eva, N. (2017). Psychological safety: A systematic review of the literature. Human Resource Management Review, 27(3), 521-535. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2017.01.001

Palanski, M. E., & Yammarino, F. J. (2007). Integrity and leadership: Clearing the conceptual confusion. European Management

Inclusive Leadership and Leader Resilience: A Cross-Sectional Study of Behavioural Wellbeing at Work

Abstract

Behavioural wellbeing concerns the recurring actions and relational conditions through which people sustain effective functioning, recover from pressure, and act consistently with their values. Leadership may be especially relevant because leaders shape both their own behavioural routines and the interpersonal climate in which stress is managed. This cross-sectional study examined the association between inclusive leadership behaviours and self-reported resilience among 31 adults with current or recent leadership or supervisory experience. Participants completed the nine-item Inclusive Leadership Scale and the six-item Brief Resilience Scale. Both measures demonstrated satisfactory internal consistency in the present sample. Inclusive leadership was positively associated with resilience, r(29) = .62, p < .001, 95% CI [.34, .80]. A simple linear regression was significant, F(1, 29) = 17.90, p < .001, explaining 38.1% of the variance in resilience. Each one-point increase in inclusive leadership was associated with a predicted 0.57-point increase in resilience. The findings do not establish causality, but they support a relational view of behavioural wellbeing in which openness, accessibility, availability, and voice may coexist with stronger recovery from stress. Larger, longitudinal, and multisource studies are required to test directionality and underlying mechanisms.

Keywords: behavioural wellbeing, inclusive leadership, resilience, psychological safety, values-based leadership

Inclusive Leadership and Leader Resilience: A Cross-Sectional Study of Behavioural Wellbeing at Work

Leadership research often treats performance and wellbeing as separate concerns. Performance is associated with decisions, execution, and results, whereas wellbeing is frequently reduced to stress management or individual self-care. This separation is incomplete. Leaders function through behaviour: how they respond to pressure, invite contribution, communicate uncertainty, handle mistakes, and recover after setbacks. These repeated actions influence both the leader's own functioning and the social conditions experienced by others. Behavioural wellbeing can therefore be understood as the intentional and repeated pattern of choices, actions, and relational practices that supports sustainable functioning and constructive adaptation over time.

This framing places resilience within everyday conduct rather than treating it only as an internal trait. Resilience includes the capacity to recover from stress and regain effective functioning after adversity (Smith et al., 2008). In organizational settings, however, recovery rarely occurs in isolation. Leaders depend on information, cooperation, trust, and the willingness of others to surface concerns. A leader who is technically capable but inaccessible may carry pressure alone, receive information late, and intensify interpersonal threat. A leader who is open, available, and willing to hear disagreement may create more pathways for shared problem solving. Inclusive leadership may consequently be relevant not only to employee participation but also to leaders' own resilience.

Inclusive leadership is commonly expressed through openness, accessibility, and availability (Carmeli et al., 2010). These behaviours include listening to new ideas, inviting input, being approachable when problems arise, and remaining present to team members. They are relational and observable rather than merely aspirational. Although inclusive leadership is not identical to values-based leadership, it can express values such as dignity, compassion, fairness, and responsibility through daily conduct. This distinction matters. Values have limited organizational effect when they remain statements; they become psychologically and behaviourally consequential when leaders enact them under ordinary and difficult conditions.

Inclusive Leadership as Values in Action

Inclusive leadership is concerned with whether people can contribute without being ignored, embarrassed, or punished for speaking candidly. Carmeli et al. (2010) found that inclusive leadership supported employee involvement in creative work through psychological safety. Subsequent scholarship has situated inclusive leadership across multiple levels of organizational life and emphasized its role in supporting belonging, valued uniqueness, voice, and participation (Nishii & Leroy, 2022). These outcomes depend on concrete leadership behaviour rather than on a leader simply endorsing inclusion as an ideal.

For behavioural wellbeing, the relevant point is not that inclusion removes demands. Leaders still face deadlines, conflict, uncertainty, accountability, and competing stakeholder needs. Inclusive behaviour may instead alter how these demands are processed. When team members can question assumptions, identify risks, and admit mistakes, problems may be addressed before they escalate. When leaders are accessible, team members may share information and responsibility rather than leaving the leader to carry the full cognitive and emotional burden. Psychological safety is therefore a plausible relational mechanism, although it was not directly measured in the present study. The broader literature describes psychological safety as an interpersonal condition that supports learning, voice, and constructive risk taking (Newman et al., 2017).

Inclusive behaviour can also be understood as a form of behavioural consistency. A leader who remains open and respectful under pressure demonstrates that stated values continue to govern conduct when their application is costly. Such consistency may reduce moral and interpersonal conflict. It may also improve the quality of information available to the leader. In this sense, inclusion is neither a symbolic position nor the removal of standards. It is a disciplined way of engaging people while decisions and standards remain necessary.

Resilience as Recovery and Adaptive Functioning

Resilience has been defined in multiple ways, including a personal capacity, a dynamic process, and an outcome following adversity. The Brief Resilience Scale (BRS) was designed specifically to assess the perceived ability to recover or "bounce back" from stress rather than measuring only resources thought to produce resilience (Smith et al., 2008). This recovery-based definition is especially suitable for leadership because pressure is not an exceptional event in many leadership roles. Leaders repeatedly encounter incomplete information, operational disruptions, interpersonal tension, and responsibility for outcomes they cannot fully control.

A behavioural wellbeing perspective does not equate resilience with emotional hardness or uninterrupted performance. Sustainable resilience involves adaptation: regaining direction, learning from events, and returning to effective behaviour. Organizational research similarly suggests that resilience can be developed through person-environment interactions and supportive practices rather than being understood solely as fixed toughness (Kuntz et al., 2017). This approach is consistent with job demands-resources theory, which proposes that resources help people manage demands and support motivation and functioning (Bakker & Demerouti, 2017).

Relational resources may be particularly important for leaders. Approachable leaders can seek input without interpreting questions as threats. Leaders who create voice may gain access to distributed knowledge. Leaders who respond constructively to errors may increase the likelihood that problems are reported early. Each behaviour may reduce avoidable strain and improve adaptive capacity. Conversely, it is also possible that resilient leaders have greater emotional capacity to remain accessible and inclusive. A third possibility is that another factor, such as personality, organizational support, or leadership experience, contributes to both. Cross-sectional data cannot distinguish among these explanations.

Purpose and Hypothesis

The purpose of the study was to examine whether self-reported inclusive leadership behaviours were associated with leaders' perceived resilience. Inclusive leadership was used as a measurable behavioural indicator of values in action, particularly openness, respect, accessibility, and support. Resilience was defined as perceived recovery from stress. It was hypothesized that higher inclusive leadership scores would be associated with higher resilience scores. Because all information was collected at one time, the analysis was designed to estimate association rather than causation.

Method

Design

The study used a cross-sectional, correlational design within a broader mixed-methods project. The present article reports only the quantitative component. A correlational design was appropriate because the research question concerned the strength and direction of the relationship between inclusive leadership and resilience. No intervention was administered, no participants were assigned to conditions, and temporal order was not established.

Participants and Recruitment

Participants were 31 adults aged 18 years or older who currently held, or had recently held, a leadership or supervisory role. Recruitment occurred online through LinkedIn, Facebook, and X using convenience sampling with the possibility of limited network sharing. No financial incentive was offered. Industry, organizational level, gender, nationality, and other demographic variables were intentionally not collected to reduce identification risk when participants were also invited to describe potentially sensitive workplace experiences in the broader project.

The limited demographic information restricts characterization of the sample and prevents subgroup analysis. The sample should therefore be viewed as an exploratory group of adults with leadership experience rather than a representative sample of leaders. All 31 participants completed every item on both quantitative scales, so no cases were removed for missing scale data.

Measures

Inclusive Leadership Scale

Inclusive leadership behaviour was assessed with the nine-item Inclusive Leadership Scale (ILS; Carmeli et al., 2010). The scale assesses openness, accessibility, and availability using a five-point response format from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Higher mean scores indicate greater endorsement of inclusive leadership behaviours. In the present study, the ILS was treated as a behavioural indicator aligned with values in action, not as a complete or direct measure of values-based leadership. Internal consistency was excellent, α = .94.

Brief Resilience Scale

Resilience was measured with the six-item BRS (Smith et al., 2008). Items are rated from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), with Items 2, 4, and 6 reverse scored. Higher mean scores indicate a stronger perceived ability to recover from stress. Internal consistency was acceptable in this sample, α = .80.

Procedure and Ethics

Data were collected through Microsoft Forms. Before entering the survey, participants viewed an information sheet explaining the purpose of the research, voluntary participation, confidentiality, potential risks, withdrawal procedures, data handling, and researcher contact information. Participants provided informed consent and confirmed the eligibility requirements. An optional email address could be supplied solely to support withdrawal before the dataset was anonymized; those addresses were destroyed after data collection closed.

The BRS was presented before the ILS, followed by open-ended questions used in the broader study. Quantitative items were completed before the qualitative prompts so that reflection on ideal values-based conduct would be less likely to shape scale responses. The study was conducted as university research and followed the approved ethical procedures for the original MSc project.

Data Analysis

Survey data were exported to Microsoft Excel for cleaning and then analyzed in jamovi. Reverse-scored BRS items were recoded before mean scale scores were calculated. Completeness and distributions were examined prior to inferential analysis. Histograms, Q-Q plots, skewness, and kurtosis indicated no substantial departure from approximate normality. Internal consistency was estimated with Cronbach's alpha.

Pearson's product-moment correlation was used to estimate the association between ILS and BRS mean scores. A simple linear regression then estimated resilience from inclusive leadership. Statistical tests were interpreted using an alpha level of .05, and a 95% confidence interval was reported for the correlation. Regression terminology describes statistical prediction only; it does not imply temporal or causal prediction.

Results

Descriptive Statistics and Reliability

Participants reported moderately high average scores on both measures. Mean resilience was 3.57 (SD = 0.83, range = 2.17-5.00), and mean inclusive leadership was 3.90 (SD = 0.90, range = 1.11-5.00). The observed ranges indicated sufficient variability for an exploratory test of association. Reliability was acceptable for the BRS and excellent for the ILS (see Table 1).

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics and Internal Consistency of Study Measures

Brief Resilience Scale

M - 3.57

SD -0.83

Minimum - 2.17

Maximum - 5.00

Cronbach's alpha - .80

Inclusive Leadership Scale

M - 3.90

SD - 0.90

Minimum - 1.11

Maximum - 5.00

Cronbach's alpha - .94

Note. N = 31. Scale scores represent item means on five-point response formats.

Association Between Inclusive Leadership and Resilience

Inclusive leadership was positively and statistically significantly associated with resilience, r(29) = .62, p < .001, 95% CI [.34, .80]. The effect was moderate to strong in the observed sample. Participants who described themselves as more open, accessible, and available as leaders also tended to report a greater capacity to recover from stress. The confidence interval remained entirely positive, although its width reflects uncertainty arising from the small sample.

The simple linear regression model was statistically significant, F(1, 29) = 17.90, p < .001, R² = .381. Inclusive leadership accounted for 38.1% of the observed variance in resilience. The unstandardized coefficient was 0.57 (SE = 0.13), t = 4.23, p < .001, and the intercept was 1.36 (SE = 0.54), t = 2.52, p = .017. Within the fitted model, each one-point increase in ILS mean score corresponded to a predicted 0.57-point increase in BRS mean score. In a single-predictor regression, the standardized coefficient was equivalent to the correlation, β = .62.

Discussion

The study found a clear positive association between self-reported inclusive leadership and self-reported resilience among adults with leadership experience. Leaders who reported stronger patterns of openness, accessibility, and availability also reported a stronger capacity to recover from stress. The finding is consistent with the hypothesis and supports further study of leadership behaviour as a component of behavioural wellbeing.

The result should not be interpreted to mean that inclusive leadership causes resilience or that inclusion alone explains effective coping. The data were collected at one point, from one source, using self-report measures. Nevertheless, the magnitude of the association is theoretically meaningful. It suggests that resilience may be related to how leaders engage with people, not only to private coping strategies. This relational interpretation moves beyond the image of the resilient leader as an isolated individual who simply tolerates more pressure.

A Relational Interpretation of Behavioural Wellbeing

Inclusive leadership may contribute to relational resources in several ways. First, openness increases access to information. Team members who believe their input will be considered may identify emerging risks, alternative interpretations, or practical solutions. Second, accessibility reduces the interpersonal cost of seeking clarification or reporting a mistake. Third, availability signals that problems can be shared before they become crises. These behaviours may distribute problem solving and reduce preventable cognitive load.

Job demands-resources theory provides a useful but provisional explanation. Social support, voice, role clarity, and constructive feedback can function as resources when demands are high (Bakker & Demerouti, 2017). Inclusive behaviour may help produce or protect those resources. Psychological safety is another plausible mechanism because it supports interpersonal risk taking, learning, and candour (Newman et al., 2017). Neither resources nor psychological safety were measured here, so these explanations must remain hypotheses for future testing.

Reverse directionality is equally plausible. Leaders with greater resilience may be better able to listen when challenged, remain available during conflict, and avoid defensiveness when others raise concerns. Resilience may provide the emotional steadiness required for inclusive conduct. The relationship may also be reciprocal: inclusive practices build stronger relational resources, those resources support recovery, and improved recovery makes inclusive behaviour easier to sustain. Longitudinal research is needed to examine this potential cycle.

Implications for Leadership Practice

The findings suggest that resilience development should not focus exclusively on individual techniques. Sleep, exercise, emotional regulation, and recovery routines remain important, but organizational resilience efforts may be incomplete if the surrounding leadership climate discourages voice or concentrates all responsibility in one person. Behavioural wellbeing is strengthened when individual disciplines and relational practices reinforce one another.

Leadership development can translate inclusion into observable routines. Examples include asking for dissent before finalizing decisions, responding to reported errors with inquiry before blame, explaining which input influenced a decision, remaining accessible during operational disruption, and separating respect for a person from agreement with an idea. These behaviours do not remove accountability. They improve the conditions under which accurate information, responsibility, and learning can coexist.

Executive coaching may similarly examine how leaders behave under strain rather than relying only on stated values. Useful questions include whether the leader becomes less accessible when pressure rises, whether disagreement is treated as useful information or disloyalty, and whether team members can surface bad news early. Such reflection treats inclusive leadership as a repeated behavioural practice and resilience as adaptive functioning, both central to a practical model of behavioural wellbeing.

Limitations and Future Research

Several limitations require caution. The sample was small and recruited through convenience and network-based online methods. Statistical significance does not eliminate uncertainty about effect stability, and the confidence interval permits a range of plausible population effects. Replication with a larger and more diverse sample is necessary.

Both measures were self-reported, creating a risk of common-method variance and favourable self-presentation. A leader who evaluates the self positively in one domain may do so in another. Future studies should use subordinate- or peer-rated inclusive leadership alongside leader-reported resilience. Behavioural observations, diary designs, and repeated assessments after stressful events could further reduce reliance on generalized self-perception.

The absence of demographic and organizational data prevented analysis of industry, leadership level, tenure, cultural context, or organizational support. These factors may alter both the expression of inclusive leadership and the demands placed on resilience. The study also did not directly measure psychological safety, job resources, personality, stress exposure, or work engagement. Therefore, no mediating mechanism can be tested and no empirical claim about engagement is warranted.

Finally, the cross-sectional design leaves temporal order unresolved. Longitudinal studies could measure inclusive behaviour and resilience at several points, while intervention studies could test whether behavioural leadership training produces changes in recovery, voice, or psychological safety. Multilevel models could examine whether leader behaviour predicts team-level outcomes while accounting for individual differences.

Conclusion

Inclusive leadership and resilience were positively associated in this exploratory sample of adults with leadership experience. The result supports a view of behavioural wellbeing in which sustainable functioning is partly relational: how leaders listen, remain accessible, invite contribution, and respond to difficulty may be connected to how effectively they recover from stress. The evidence is preliminary and noncausal, but it offers a focused direction for research and practice. Resilience should not be understood only as the capacity to endure pressure alone. It may also involve building behavioural and relational conditions through which pressure can be faced with clearer information, shared responsibility, psychological safety, and consistent values.

References

Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2017). Job demands-resources theory: Taking stock and looking forward. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 22(3), 273-285. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000056

Newman, A., Donohue, R., & Eva, N. (2017). Psychological safety: A systematic review of the literature. Human Resource Management Review, 27(3), 521-535. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2017.01.001

Nishii, L. H., & Leroy, H. (2022). A multi-level framework of inclusive leadership in organizations. Group & Organization Management, 47(4), 683-722. https://doi.org/10.1177/10596011221111505

Smith, B. W., Dalen, J., Wiggins, K., Tooley, E., Christopher, P., & Bernard, J. (2008). The Brief Resilience Scale: Assessing the ability to bounce back. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 15(3), 194-200. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705500802222972

Workplace Training and Work Engagement: An Exploratory Pre–Post Study in Two Canadian Work Settings

Abstract

Workplace learning may support behavioural wellbeing when it strengthens employees’ sense of energy, involvement, and capacity to act effectively. This exploratory study examined whether work engagement changed across a sequence of three workplace training sessions in two Canadian organizations. Twenty-nine employees from foodservice distribution (n = 12) and emergency services (n = 17) completed a 17-item measure of work engagement before training and one week after the final session. Each group received collaborative, lecture-based, and e-learning sessions, although training topic was inseparable from delivery format. Participant-level scores reported in the original study were reanalyzed using paired-samples tests. Across all participants, mean engagement increased from 51.10 (SD = 9.34) to 52.76 (SD = 9.53), a mean change of 1.66 points, 95% CI [−0.24, 3.55]. The change did not reach conventional statistical significance, t(28) = 1.79, p = .084, dz = 0.33. Fourteen participants increased, eight were unchanged, and seven decreased. The foodservice subgroup showed a larger but nonsignificant increase than the emergency-services subgroup. Results suggest possible short-term benefit for some employees but do not establish that training, or any particular format, caused higher engagement. The findings support measuring behavioural wellbeing alongside learning outcomes while using stronger designs that separate topic, format, and organizational context.

Keywords: behavioural wellbeing, work engagement, workplace learning, employee training, pre–post study

Workplace Training and Work Engagement: An Exploratory Pre–Post Study in Two Canadian Work Settings

Employee training is normally evaluated through knowledge, skill, completion, and transfer. These outcomes matter, but they do not fully describe the behavioural conditions under which employees learn and continue to function well. A technically sound program can still feel irrelevant, isolating, or exhausting; a well-designed learning experience can create energy, confidence, shared problem solving, and a stronger sense of capability. For behavioural wellbeing, the important question is therefore not only whether employees learned, but whether the learning process coincided with a sustainable form of engagement.

Work engagement is commonly understood as a positive work-related state characterized by vigour, dedication, and absorption (Schaufeli et al., 2002). Vigour concerns energy and persistence, dedication reflects significance and enthusiasm, and absorption describes concentrated involvement. Engagement is not equivalent to momentary enjoyment or course satisfaction. It concerns the employee’s broader relationship with work, which makes it a potentially important but demanding outcome for training research. A brief course may be enjoyed without changing work engagement, and engagement can change because of workload, leadership, staffing, or personal circumstances unrelated to training.

The science of training similarly emphasizes that effective learning depends on more than delivery media. Needs assessment, practice, feedback, learner characteristics, work support, and opportunities to apply learning all influence results (Bell et al., 2017; Salas et al., 2012). E-learning can offer flexibility and self-pacing, whereas face-to-face instruction can enable immediate explanation and social interaction. Collaborative learning can support active practice, but it is not inherently superior for every objective or employee. Meta-analytic evidence indicates that technology-supported instruction can be effective, particularly when instructional conditions are comparable, yet media labels alone do not explain learning quality (Sitzmann et al., 2006).

These distinctions are relevant to behavioural wellbeing. Training may contribute to engagement when employees see the material as meaningful, experience psychological availability, and feel able to participate without interpersonal threat. Kahn’s (1990) foundational account proposed meaningfulness, safety, and availability as conditions of personal engagement. Training that is relevant, participatory, and supported may reinforce these conditions. Conversely, compulsory, poorly paced, or disconnected learning may consume energy without strengthening employees’ relationship to their work.

The present study used data collected in two operational settings to examine a focused question: Did overall work engagement change between the beginning and end of a three-session workplace training sequence? The study is exploratory because it involved a small sample, had no untrained comparison group, and paired each delivery format with a different topic. It was anticipated that mean engagement might increase after the training sequence, but the analysis was designed to estimate the magnitude and uncertainty of change rather than to claim a causal training effect.

Method

Design and Participants

The study used a single-group pre–post design embedded in a mixed-method doctoral research project. Participants were 29 employees from two small-to-medium Canadian work settings: a foodservice distribution organization (n = 12) and an emergency-services organization (n = 17). The foodservice group included four women and eight men. The emergency-services group included five women and 12 men. Participation was voluntary, and the dissertation reports that employees who were unavailable or involved in delivering the training were excluded from recruitment.

Both groups completed three training sessions. Foodservice participants received collaborative food-safety training, lecture-based traceability training, and an e-learning course on Microsoft Excel. Emergency-services participants received collaborative hypothermia training, lecture-based air-ambulance safety training, and e-learning on swift-water operations. Because one topic was assigned to each format within each organization, topic and format were completely confounded. The sequence also did not include a no-training group or random assignment to format.

Measure

Work engagement was assessed before the first course and one week after the final course using the 17-item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale framework. Items represented vigour, dedication, and absorption and used a response scale from 0 (never) to 5 (always). The three components were summed to produce a total engagement score, with higher values indicating greater engagement. The original study reported acceptable-to-good internal consistency. For foodservice participants, Cronbach’s alpha was .81 at pretest and .89 at posttest. For emergency-services participants, alpha was .74 at pretest and .67 at posttest. The lower posttest reliability in the emergency-services subgroup warrants caution but remains usable for exploratory group-level analysis.

Analytic Strategy

The present paper reanalyzed the participant-level total scores printed in the approved dissertation. Means, standard deviations, and individual change directions were calculated. Paired-samples t tests estimated pre–post change for the complete sample and each work setting. Mean differences are accompanied by 95% confidence intervals and standardized paired effect sizes (dz), calculated as the mean change divided by the standard deviation of change scores. A Welch independent-samples t test compared change scores across settings. These analyses replace the original dissertation’s reported two-way analysis of variance, which did not appropriately represent the paired structure of the data. Statistical significance was evaluated at α = .05, but estimation and design limitations received greater interpretive weight than a binary threshold.

Results

Overall Engagement Change

Across the 29 participants, mean engagement increased from 51.10 (SD = 9.34) before training to 52.76 (SD = 9.53) after training. The mean increase was 1.66 points (SDchange = 4.98), 95% CI [−0.24, 3.55]. The paired comparison did not reach conventional statistical significance, t(28) = 1.79, p = .084, dz = 0.33. The confidence interval included both negligible decline and a modest improvement, so the data do not support a definitive population-level increase.

Individual responses were heterogeneous. Fourteen participants reported higher engagement at posttest, eight reported no change, and seven reported lower engagement. This distribution is important because the positive mean did not represent a universal response. Almost half improved, whereas slightly more than half were unchanged or declined.

Differences Between Work Settings

Foodservice participants increased by an average of 3.25 points (SDchange = 6.92), but the confidence interval was wide and included zero, t(11) = 1.63, p = .132, 95% CI [−1.14, 7.64], dz = 0.47. Seven increased, two were unchanged, and three decreased. Emergency-services participants increased by an average of 0.53 points (SDchange = 2.70), t(16) = 0.81, p = .430, 95% CI [−0.86, 1.92], dz = 0.20. Seven increased, six were unchanged, and four decreased.

The mean change was 2.72 points larger in foodservice than emergency services, but the between-setting comparison was not statistically significant, Welch’s t(13.38) = 1.29, p = .217. The foodservice group also displayed substantially greater variability. Its apparent increase may reflect a genuine contextual response, regression to the mean, unrelated workplace events, or the influence of a small number of large individual gains. The available design cannot distinguish these explanations.

Discussion

The study found a small, uncertain increase in work engagement after three training sessions. The combined effect size was modest, and the confidence interval narrowly crossed zero. This result is more informative than a claim that training either did or did not work. It suggests that an improvement of practical interest is possible, but the evidence is not precise enough to establish a reliable change in the population represented by these organizations.

The individual pattern reinforces this cautious interpretation. Fourteen employees improved, but 15 were unchanged or declined. Training may have been meaningful for some employees while being neutral for others. Behavioural wellbeing is unlikely to respond uniformly because employees enter training with different needs, workloads, expectations, skill levels, and opportunities to use what they learn. The two settings also differed in their routine exposure to training. Emergency-services employees reportedly trained frequently and had relatively stable scores. A three-course sequence may therefore have represented ordinary activity rather than a distinctive organizational investment. Foodservice employees had less frequent development exposure, creating more room for novelty, inclusion, or perceived support to influence their experience.

The observed change should not be attributed to one format. Collaborative sessions received strong reactions, particularly in emergency services, but format was inseparable from topic. Hypothermia and food safety were taught collaboratively; air-ambulance safety and traceability were delivered as lectures; swift-water operations and Excel were delivered online. Relevance, prior knowledge, instructor skill, duration, room conditions, and topic interest could all have produced the reported reactions. The design therefore estimates change across a package of learning experiences, not the causal effect of collaboration, lecture, or e-learning.

The findings nevertheless have practical value. First, organizations can evaluate training as both a learning intervention and an employee experience. Knowledge tests and completion records should be supplemented with short measures of relevance, confidence, participation, and perceived ability to apply learning. Work engagement should be measured only when the organization has a plausible reason to expect broader change, because it is more distal than course satisfaction.

Interpreting Change as a Behavioural-Wellbeing Signal

The average score is only one way to read the results. The three engagement dimensions also provide clues about possible mechanisms. In the foodservice group, mean vigour rose from 18.67 to 20.08 and dedication from 14.50 to 16.83, while absorption declined slightly from 18.50 to 18.00. Emergency-services means were comparatively stable: vigour shifted from 18.59 to 18.41, dedication remained 15.59, and absorption rose from 16.53 to 17.24. These component patterns were not subjected to additional significance tests, so they should remain descriptive. They nevertheless illustrate why a total score can conceal qualitatively different experiences. Greater dedication may reflect strengthened meaning, whereas higher absorption without greater vigour could reflect concentration without added energy.

Behavioural wellbeing should not be inferred from a single upward score. Sustainable engagement involves the ability to invest effort and recover, not perpetual intensity. An organization could temporarily raise absorption through workload pressure while undermining recovery. Evaluation should therefore pair engagement with signs of strain, autonomy, role clarity, psychological safety, and recovery. This broader view prevents training from being used as a superficial remedy for structural problems that require changes in work design or leadership.

The near-significant combined result also illustrates the limitations of threshold thinking. A p value of .084 does not mean there was an 8.4% probability that training had no effect, nor does it prove a “trend” that would become real with more participants. It means that the observed standardized difference would not be especially unusual under a model of no mean change. The confidence interval is more useful: effects ranging from a negligible decline to a modest improvement remain compatible with the data. Replication and a stronger comparison condition are needed to narrow that range.

Second, heterogeneous change argues for responsive design. Employees who begin with lower familiarity may need scaffolding; experienced employees may need advanced practice rather than repeated introductory content. Self-paced components can support autonomy, while facilitated discussion and hands-on practice can support social learning and immediate feedback. A blended design can preserve these benefits without assuming that each employee possesses a fixed “learning style.” Evidence does not justify matching instruction to a single preferred style as a universal rule; training should instead align instructional methods with objectives, tasks, learners, and context (Salas et al., 2012).

Third, evaluation timing matters. A posttest one week after the final course captures only short-term association. Sustainable behavioural wellbeing would be better reflected in follow-up engagement, application of new skills, reduced friction in work processes, and supportive team behaviour. Transfer research shows that learning produces workplace benefit when employees have opportunity, support, and reinforcement to use new capability (Blume et al., 2010). Training should therefore be connected to work routines rather than treated as an isolated event.

Managers can create this connection through brief pretraining conversations and posttraining follow-through. Before training, employees can identify a work problem and an intended application. After training, teams can review what was tried, what changed, and what support is missing. Supervisors can protect time for practice, make relevant tools accessible, and recognize careful experimentation rather than only flawless performance. These actions make development part of everyday work and create evidence about whether the training is changing behaviour.

Limitations and Future Research

The study has several limitations. The sample was small and drawn from two organizations, limiting precision and external validity. Voluntary participation may have favoured employees already receptive to training. There was no comparison group, random assignment, or control for concurrent changes in workload and leadership. Repeated testing may have affected posttest responses. Training topics, delivery formats, instructors, and duration were not independently manipulated. The engagement scale’s emergency-services posttest reliability was below the conventional .70 benchmark. Finally, the analysis used scores reported in the dissertation rather than a newly audited raw dataset.

A stronger study would randomly assign the same topic and learning objectives to multiple delivery conditions, retain a wait-list comparison group, and assess engagement at baseline, immediately after training, and several months later. Multilevel models could separate employee change from team and organizational context. Qualitative interviews could investigate why some employees improve while others remain stable or decline. Outcomes should include learning, transfer, work engagement, and behavioural indicators relevant to the role.

Conclusion

Work engagement increased modestly across a three-session training sequence, but the change was not statistically conclusive and varied substantially across employees and settings. The data support neither a broad causal claim about training nor a ranking of delivery formats. They do support a more useful behavioural-wellbeing question: under what conditions does workplace learning help employees feel more energetic, dedicated, and capable in their work? Answering that question requires designs that separate content from format, follow employees beyond immediate reactions, and treat individual variation as information rather than noise.

References

Bell, B. S., Tannenbaum, S. I., Ford, J. K., Noe, R. A., & Kraiger, K. (2017). 100 years of training and development research: What we know and where we should go. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 305–323. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000142

Blume, B. D., Ford, J. K., Baldwin, T. T., & Huang, J. L. (2010). Transfer of training: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Management, 36(4), 1065–1105. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206309352880

Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal, 33(4), 692–724. https://doi.org/10.2307/256287

Noe, R. A., Clarke, A. D. M., & Klein, H. J. (2014). Learning in the twenty-first-century workplace. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1, 245–275. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091321

Salas, E., Tannenbaum, S. I., Kraiger, K., & Smith-Jentsch, K. A. (2012). The science of training and development in organizations: What matters in practice. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 13(2), 74–101. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612436661

Schaufeli, W. B., Salanova, M., González-Romá, V., & Bakker, A. B. (2002). The measurement of engagement and burnout: A two sample confirmatory factor analytic approach. Journal of Happiness Studies, 3(1), 71–92. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015630930326

Sitzmann, T., Kraiger, K., Stewart, D., & Wisher, R. (2006). The comparative effectiveness of web-based and classroom instruction: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 59(3), 623–664. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2006.00049.x

Do Workplace Learning Preferences Generalize Across Industries? A Comparative Study of Foodservice and Emergency Services

Abstract

Organizations often seek a single delivery method that will engage employees across roles. This exploratory comparative study examined whether workplace learning preferences and engagement responses were consistent in two Canadian settings. Participants were 12 foodservice-distribution employees and 17 emergency-services employees. Each group completed collaborative, lecture-based, and e-learning sessions, course evaluations, preference questions, and work-engagement measures. Preference patterns differed sharply. In foodservice, 50% selected collaborative learning, 33% e-learning, and 17% lecture as their general preference; when asked which specific course they liked most, responses were nearly evenly divided across collaborative (27%), lecture (36%), and e-learning (36%) sessions. In emergency services, 82% selected collaborative learning and 18% lecture, with no e-learning selections; the same 82% chose the collaborative hypothermia course as their favourite. Engagement increased by 3.25 points on average in foodservice and 0.53 points in emergency services, but the difference in change was not statistically significant, Welch’s t(13.38) = 1.29, p = .217. These findings indicate that preference is shaped by occupational context, topic relevance, prior experience, and course design. They do not demonstrate that one format caused better outcomes because each format was paired with a different topic. Behavioural-wellbeing practice should favour adaptable, multimodal learning systems over universal format prescriptions.

Keywords: workplace learning, training preference, occupational context, employee engagement, behavioural wellbeing

Do Workplace Learning Preferences Generalize Across Industries? A Comparative Study of Foodservice and Emergency Services

Training decisions are often framed as a choice among classroom lecture, e-learning, and collaborative or hands-on instruction. This framing promises efficiency: identify the preferred format, standardize delivery, and expect engagement to follow. In practice, employees react to a complete learning experience. Topic relevance, prior knowledge, pace, facilitator skill, technology, social norms, workload, and opportunity to apply learning are experienced together. A format cannot be evaluated independently when these conditions differ.

Occupational context may be especially influential. Emergency-services work relies on coordinated action, recurrent certification, shared procedures, and practice under consequential conditions. Foodservice distribution combines operational coordination with administrative, technical, safety, and compliance tasks. Employees in these settings may value different forms of autonomy, interaction, and realism. Even within one organization, an employee may prefer e-learning for a software procedure and collaborative practice for a safety task.

This contextual view aligns with research on workplace learning. Learning in contemporary organizations occurs through formal instruction, informal interaction, practice, reflection, and access to resources (Noe et al., 2014). Training effectiveness depends on design and the work environment, not simply the medium (Bell et al., 2017; Salas et al., 2012). Meta-analytic evidence shows that web-based instruction can equal or outperform classroom instruction under some conditions, but differences depend on instructional features and comparability rather than technology alone (Sitzmann et al., 2006). Collaborative and team training can be highly valuable when the performance objective itself requires coordination, shared mental models, and behavioural practice (Salas et al., 2008).

For behavioural wellbeing, fit matters because learning requires attention, effort, uncertainty, and exposure of what one does not know. Appropriate structure can help employees participate with energy and confidence; poor fit can create frustration or withdrawal. Yet preference should not be confused with effectiveness. Employees can prefer a pleasant course that produces little transfer or dislike demanding practice that improves performance. Preference is best treated as evidence about learner experience, not as a complete evaluation.

The present paper compared two work settings to answer three questions. Did employees report the same general learning preferences? Did evaluations of the specific sessions follow those preferences? Did work engagement change similarly across settings? The purpose was not to rank industries but to identify which conclusions generalized and which appeared context-bound.

Method

Comparative Design

The study involved 29 volunteers: 12 employees in a foodservice distribution organization and 17 in an emergency-services organization. Both groups followed the same broad research sequence. Participants completed baseline personality and work-engagement questionnaires, attended three training sessions, completed course evaluations and quizzes, and then completed a second engagement questionnaire and open-ended preference questions.

The session topics differed by industry. Foodservice training covered food safety through collaboration, traceability through lecture, and Excel through e-learning. Emergency-services training covered hypothermia through collaboration, air-ambulance safety through lecture, and swift-water operations through e-learning. Delivery format was therefore nested within topic, organization, instructor, duration, and sequence. This limitation prevents causal comparison of formats.

Measures and Analysis

Course evaluations assessed satisfaction, clarity, relevance, amount learned, and general format preference. Open-ended questions asked which specific course participants liked most and least and whether preferred delivery would affect enjoyment and participation. Work engagement was measured before the first session and one week after the final session using a 17-item measure of vigour, dedication, and absorption (Schaufeli et al., 2002).

Preference percentages and reported evaluation responses were compared descriptively. Participant-level engagement totals printed in the dissertation were reanalyzed with paired-samples tests within each setting and a Welch test comparing change scores. Because course-level raw evaluation files were not reanalyzed and subgroup sizes were small, percentage differences are descriptive rather than inferential.

Results

General Format Preference

Foodservice preferences were diverse. Fifty percent selected collaborative learning, 33% e-learning, and 17% lecture. Ninety-two percent reported enjoying group brainstorming. Emergency-services preferences were more concentrated: 82% selected collaborative learning, 18% lecture, and none selected e-learning. Ninety-four percent enjoyed group brainstorming. Thus, liking group interaction was common in both settings, but it did not translate into the same degree of format consensus.

Table 1

Learning Preferences and Favourite Sessions by Work Setting

General preference: collaborative

Foodservice distribution - 50%

Emergency services - 82%

General preference: e-learning

Foodservice distribution - 33%

Emergency services - 0%

General preference: lecture

Foodservice distribution - 17%

Emergency services - 18%

Enjoyed group brainstorming

Foodservice distribution - 92%

Emergency services - 94%

Favourite session: collaborative topic

Foodservice distribution - 27%

Emergency services- 82%

Favourite session: e-learning topic

Foodservice distribution - 36%

Emergency services - 0%

Favourite session: lecture topic

Foodservice distribution - 36%

Emergency services - 18%

Preferred format expected to improve enjoyment/participation

Foodservice distribution - 100%

Emergency services - 88%

Note. Percentages are reported in the dissertation and may not sum to 100 because of rounding. Specific sessions differed in topic, duration, and facilitator as well as format.

Foodservice Evaluations

All foodservice participants were satisfied with the Excel e-learning course. Half reported learning a lot and 17% a great deal. The self-paced ability to practise while learning was cited positively. The lecture-based traceability session produced mostly favourable reactions, although 8% were unsatisfied and 8% judged the information not very clear. The collaborative food-safety course was also positively evaluated: 17% were extremely satisfied and 83% very satisfied.

When participants selected the specific course they liked most, the distribution did not mirror their general preference. Approximately 27% chose collaborative food safety, 36% chose lecture-based traceability, and 36% chose e-learning Excel. Reasons referred to discussion, structure, relevant content, practice, and self-pacing. The near-even split suggests that topic and instructional execution mattered at least as much as a generalized format preference.

Emergency-Services Evaluations

Emergency-services participants strongly favoured the collaborative hypothermia course. Eighty-two percent selected it as their favourite, matching the percentage who selected collaboration as their general preference. Participants emphasized hands-on practice and focus. The course was also considered highly relevant: 65% rated it extremely relevant and 29% very relevant.

The lecture-based air-ambulance course was considered clear and generally satisfactory, but it received the lowest quiz marks of the three sessions. The e-learning swift-water course was rated very satisfactory by 76% and somewhat satisfactory by 24%, yet no participant selected it as a favourite. Twenty-four percent reported learning nothing new, consistent with prior exposure to the material. When asked which course they liked least, 59% selected lecture and 41% selected e-learning. Reasons included length, tedium, and lack of hands-on participation.

Work Engagement

Foodservice engagement increased from M = 51.67 (SD = 11.70) to M = 54.92 (SD = 12.37), a mean change of 3.25 points, 95% CI [−1.14, 7.64], p = .132. Emergency-services engagement increased from M = 50.71 (SD = 7.62) to M = 51.24 (SD = 6.92), a mean change of 0.53 points, 95% CI [−0.86, 1.92], p = .430. The difference between change scores was not statistically significant, Welch’s t(13.38) = 1.29, p = .217.

Preference concentration therefore did not correspond to a larger increase in broad work engagement. Emergency-services employees expressed stronger collaborative preference yet showed a smaller mean engagement change. This result underscores that course preference and work engagement are different constructs.

Discussion

The results do not support a universal learning-format prescription. Emergency-services participants strongly preferred collaborative learning, whereas foodservice employees reported a mixed profile. The most plausible explanation is not that one occupation contains a single personality type. Rather, collaborative practice closely resembled the coordination demands of emergency work and addressed an applied hypothermia task. The foodservice topics involved different kinds of activity: procedural compliance, software skill, and safety discussion. Each could reasonably benefit from a different instructional arrangement.

The divergence between general preference and favourite course in foodservice is especially revealing. Half selected collaboration as a general preference, but only 27% identified the collaborative course as their favourite. Lecture and e-learning each attracted 36%. Employees explained choices through relevance, amount of content, structure, practice, and pace. A preferred medium did not override these concrete design features. In emergency services, by contrast, general and course-specific preferences aligned, but topic relevance and occupational realism remained inseparable from format.

A Context–Task–Learner Framework

The comparison suggests a three-part framework for interpreting preferences. Context includes occupational norms, team interdependence, technology, development history, and consequences of error. Task includes the behaviour to be learned, required judgment, desired fluency, and need for coordination. Learner conditions include prior knowledge, confidence, accessibility needs, language, schedule, and preference. A responsible design decision considers all three rather than allowing one preference item to dominate.

For the emergency-services hypothermia session, the context emphasized coordinated action, the task required applied team behaviour, and learners were accustomed to group practice. Collaboration therefore had a strong functional fit. For Excel, the task allowed repeated individual practice and control of pace, which made e-learning attractive to some foodservice employees. Traceability and air-ambulance safety involved information-rich material for which structured expert explanation was valued, although extended passive delivery created attention costs. These examples show that a method can be suitable for one phase of learning without being sufficient for the entire sequence.

A multimodal design does not require duplicating every course in three formats. It means selecting complementary activities. An information-rich session might use a short digital primer, a concise facilitated explanation, scenarios requiring decisions, and a searchable reference. A team skill might use demonstration, guided practice, feedback, and later rehearsal. The objective remains consistent while the route includes enough variety to support access and performance.

These findings caution against the language of fixed learning styles. Asking employees how they prefer to participate can be respectful and useful. Concluding that instruction must be matched to a stable personal style is a stronger claim that the design cannot support. Learners often need multiple processes: explanation to build a mental model, demonstration to make performance visible, practice to build fluency, discussion to test judgment, and reference material to support later recall. An adaptable sequence can meet these needs without categorizing people.

The engagement results provide a second caution. Emergency-services employees showed the clearest preference pattern but the smallest engagement increase. Their routine training exposure may have created a high baseline of familiarity and team coordination, leaving little short-term change to detect. Foodservice employees had more varied preferences and a larger, although nonsignificant, mean increase. Training may have signalled investment or inclusion in a setting where development was less frequent. Alternatively, the difference may be random variation in two small samples.

Implications for Behavioural-Wellbeing Practice

Organizations can apply these findings through adaptive, objective-led design. Before selecting a format, the designer should identify the behaviour employees must perform, the conditions under which it occurs, and the feedback required. High-consequence team tasks call for coordinated practice and debriefing. Software procedures may benefit from demonstration, self-paced repetition, and accessible job aids. Compliance topics may require concise explanation combined with scenarios and decision practice.

Employees should be offered more than one pathway to participate. Pre-reading can support reflection; facilitated discussion can surface experience; hands-on practice can build confidence; digital materials can provide flexibility; and a concise reference can support transfer. This approach treats behavioural wellbeing as supported agency. Employees are neither forced into constant social exposure nor left alone with difficult material.

Evaluation should also separate reaction, learning, transfer, and broader wellbeing. Satisfaction can identify friction in the experience. Quizzes assess immediate knowledge. Observation and later performance indicate application. Engagement measures assess a more distal relationship with work. Treating one of these as a substitute for all others can produce misleading conclusions.

This separation changes management decisions. A highly enjoyable course with weak retention may need more retrieval practice. A demanding simulation with strong transfer but high anxiety may need improved preparation and debriefing. A clear e-learning module that employees cannot access during working time reflects an implementation problem rather than an instructional failure. A stable work-engagement score after effective skill learning may be entirely reasonable because engagement is shaped by the broader job. Evaluation becomes a set of linked questions rather than a single verdict.

The study also highlights the value of employee voice without giving preference absolute authority. Employees possess essential knowledge about barriers, workload, accessibility, and prior learning. Designers should invite that knowledge early and report how it influenced the course. At the same time, professional judgment and evidence remain necessary when employees prefer methods that do not provide adequate practice for the performance objective. Partnership means explaining these decisions and offering workable choices within them.

Limitations and Future Research

The study compared only two organizations with 29 volunteers. Reported percentages were based on small denominators, and some totals reflect rounding. Occupational setting was confounded with organization, workforce, topic, facilitator, delivery conditions, and prior training frequency. Each format was paired with one topic, and session order was not counterbalanced. Preference and engagement were self-reported. The study did not establish whether preferred courses produced superior retention or transfer.

Future research should use the same learning objectives across formats, randomly assign employees where feasible, and counterbalance order. A factorial design could test format, occupational context, and prior knowledge separately. Researchers should compare general preference with observed participation, knowledge retention, transfer, and engagement over time. Multiple organizations within each industry are required before drawing occupational conclusions.

Conclusion

Learning preferences did not generalize cleanly across foodservice distribution and emergency services. Foodservice employees valued multiple formats depending on relevance, pace, and practice, whereas emergency-services employees strongly favoured collaborative, hands-on learning. The setting with greater preference consensus did not show a larger engagement gain. The practical lesson is not to search for one universally engaging medium. It is to build learning around the required behaviour, occupational context, and multiple ways for employees to prepare, participate, practise, and apply what they learn.

References

Blume, B. D., Ford, J. K., Baldwin, T. T., & Huang, J. L. (2010). Transfer of training: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Management, 36(4), 1065–1105. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206309352880

Salas, E., DiazGranados, D., Klein, C., Burke, C. S., Stagl, K. C., Goodwin, G. F., & Halpin, S. M. (2008). Does team training improve team performance? A meta-analysis. Human Factors, 50(6), 903–933. https://doi.org/10.1518/001872008X375009

Big Five Personality Traits and Work Engagement: An Exploratory Study of Context-Dependent Associations

Abstract

Personality can shape how employees invest energy, respond to demands, and participate in workplace learning, but trait–engagement relationships may depend on context. This exploratory study examined associations between Big Five personality traits and work engagement among 29 employees in Canadian foodservice distribution (n = 12) and emergency services (n = 17). Participants completed a 44-item Big Five inventory and a 17-item work-engagement measure before and after three training sessions. In the combined posttraining sample, conscientiousness had the largest association with engagement, r(27) = .28, p = .141, 95% CI [−.10, .59], followed by extraversion, r(27) = .21, p = .274. Agreeableness, neuroticism, and openness were near zero. Subgroup patterns differed markedly. In foodservice, baseline engagement correlated with extraversion, r(10) = .74, p = .006, and conscientiousness, r(10) = .62, p = .032; conscientiousness remained associated at posttest, r(10) = .66, p = .020. No emergency-services correlation was statistically significant, and point estimates were small. The results do not support personality-based assignment to training formats. They instead show that trait associations estimated in small groups can be unstable and context-sensitive. Behavioural-wellbeing practice should use personality to encourage reflection and flexible support, not to label employees or prescribe a fixed way of learning.

Keywords: Big Five, work engagement, conscientiousness, extraversion, behavioural wellbeing

Big Five Personality Traits and Work Engagement: An Exploratory Study of Context-Dependent Associations

Work engagement describes the energy, dedication, and absorption employees bring to their roles. Although organizational conditions strongly influence engagement, employees do not enter those conditions as interchangeable actors. They differ in habitual patterns of sociability, emotional reactivity, organization, cooperation, curiosity, and self-regulation. Personality may therefore help explain why employees respond differently to similar demands and development opportunities. The practical danger is moving too quickly from this plausible relationship to deterministic claims: that an extravert must learn collaboratively, that a person high in neuroticism cannot tolerate group work, or that conscientious employees will always be engaged.

The Big Five model organizes personality around extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience (John et al., 2008). Extraversion includes sociability, assertiveness, and positive emotionality. Agreeableness reflects cooperation and interpersonal concern. Conscientiousness concerns organization, persistence, and goal-directed behaviour. Neuroticism describes a tendency toward negative affect and emotional instability, whereas openness concerns curiosity, imagination, and receptivity to experience. These dimensions are broad tendencies, not diagnoses or complete descriptions of a person.

Personality is relevant to behavioural wellbeing because traits can influence repeated patterns of action under ordinary demands. Conscientiousness may support planning and persistence, extraversion may facilitate social resource seeking, and lower neuroticism may reduce vulnerability to threat and strain. Meta-analytic research has linked personality to job satisfaction and performance, with emotional stability and conscientiousness often demonstrating useful associations (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Judge et al., 2002). Work engagement also has dispositional correlates, but it remains responsive to job resources, leadership, workload, and meaning. A trait association should therefore be interpreted as a tendency expressed within conditions, not an unchanging individual destiny.

This interaction between person and context is central to workplace learning. Employees may prefer different degrees of autonomy, interaction, pace, or structure. Preferences can inform facilitation, but evidence does not support assigning instruction according to simplistic personality categories or presumed learning styles. Effective training aligns practice, feedback, content, and support with the task and the learner’s current needs (Salas et al., 2012). Personality information can contribute to that conversation only when used cautiously and alongside direct evidence about behaviour and context.

Why Context May Alter Trait–Engagement Associations

Traits influence probabilities of behaviour, but situations vary in the latitude they allow. Highly standardized, consequential work can create strong norms that reduce visible individual differences. In less constrained roles, employees may have greater freedom to organize, socialize, or seek novelty in ways that express personality. Teams can also supply resources that compensate for individual tendencies. A structured partner or checklist may support an employee who is less naturally organized; psychologically safe facilitation may enable a quieter employee to participate; predictable preparation may reduce threat for an employee prone to worry.

Engagement itself is partly situational. Job resources such as autonomy, feedback, support, and opportunities for development are associated with engagement because they help employees meet demands and experience growth (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Personality can influence how resources are noticed or used, while resources can change the behavioural expression of personality. A correlation between conscientiousness and engagement in one organization could therefore reflect role fit, reward systems, or access to structured development rather than a direct trait effect.

Measurement can further change the observed pattern. Broad personality traits contain multiple facets, and two employees with similar total extraversion scores may differ in assertiveness and sociability. Total engagement likewise combines energy, meaning, and concentration. A broad correlation can conceal more specific relationships, such as sociability with relational participation or industriousness with persistence. Small samples amplify this problem because a few unusual profiles can move a coefficient substantially.

The present study asked two questions. First, which Big Five traits were associated with work engagement in the combined sample after the training sequence? Second, were the observed patterns consistent across the foodservice and emergency-services settings? Because the sample was small and subgroup analyses were numerous, effect sizes and confidence intervals were emphasized. The study did not test whether personality caused engagement or whether training altered personality–engagement relationships.

Method

Participants and Procedure

Participants were 29 employees from two Canadian organizations. Twelve worked in foodservice distribution and 17 in emergency services. They completed a demographic survey, a Big Five personality measure, and a baseline work-engagement measure. Each group then participated in collaborative, lecture-based, and e-learning sessions addressing job-relevant topics. One week after the final session, employees completed the engagement measure again. Training preference evaluations and qualitative questions were also collected but are not the primary data in this paper.

Measures

Personality was assessed with a 44-item Big Five inventory derived from the widely used trait framework described by John and colleagues (2008). Items were summed by trait. The dissertation reported internal-consistency coefficients of α = .73 in foodservice and α = .63 in emergency services. The latter value indicates limited precision and increases the likelihood that observed correlations were attenuated or unstable.

Work engagement was assessed using a 17-item measure of vigour, dedication, and absorption based on the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (Schaufeli et al., 2002). Total scores were used in the correlational analyses. Reported alpha coefficients ranged from .67 to .89 across group and measurement occasion.

Analysis

Pearson correlations reported in the dissertation were retained for the five traits at baseline and posttest within each setting and for the combined posttest sample. Two-tailed p values and 95% confidence intervals were calculated from the reported correlations and sample sizes. These calculations are secondary analyses of reported summary statistics rather than a new raw-data audit. No correction for multiple testing was applied because the aim was exploratory description; however, the number of correlations and small samples require strong caution. A nominally significant coefficient should be treated as a signal for replication, not as a confirmed personality effect.

Results

Combined Posttraining Associations

In the combined sample, conscientiousness had the largest positive association with posttraining engagement, r(27) = .28, p = .141, 95% CI [−.10, .59]. Extraversion was also positive but small, r(27) = .21, p = .274, 95% CI [−.17, .54]. Neuroticism had a small negative association, r(27) = −.10, p = .599, 95% CI [−.45, .27]. Agreeableness, r(27) = .01, and openness, r(27) = .06, were near zero. None of the combined coefficients was statistically significant, and every confidence interval included zero.

Table 1

Correlations Between Big Five Traits and Work Engagement

Extraversion

Foodservice pre - .74**

Foodservice post - .55

Emergency pre - .08

Emergency post - −.02

Combined post - .21

Agreeableness

Foodservice pre - .27

Foodservice post - .12

Emergency pre - −.24

Emergency post - −.20

Combined post - .01

Conscientiousness

Foodservice pre - .62*

Foodservice post - .66*

Emergency pre - −.03

Emergency post - −.20

Combined post - .28

Neuroticism

Foodservice pre - −.25

Foodservice post - −.29

Emergency pre - .04

Emergency post - −.06

Combined post - −.10

Openness

Foodservice pre - .49

Foodservice post - .41

Emergency pre - −.20

Emergency post - −.21

Combined post - .06

Note. Foodservice n = 12; emergency services n = 17; combined n = 29. Coefficients are Pearson’s r. p values were calculated from correlations reported in the dissertation. p < .05. *p < .01.

Foodservice Distribution

The foodservice subgroup produced several moderate-to-large positive coefficients. At baseline, extraversion was associated with engagement, r(10) = .74, p = .006, 95% CI [.29, .92]. Conscientiousness was also associated with engagement, r(10) = .62, p = .032, 95% CI [.07, .88]. Openness had a moderate point estimate, r(10) = .49, but its confidence interval included zero, p = .106, 95% CI [−.12, .83]. Agreeableness was smaller, and neuroticism was negative.

At posttest, conscientiousness remained positively associated with engagement, r(10) = .66, p = .020, 95% CI [.14, .89]. Extraversion decreased to r(10) = .55, p = .064, and openness decreased to r(10) = .41, p = .186. Agreeableness was small, and neuroticism remained negative. With only 12 participants, even the larger coefficients had wide confidence intervals.

Emergency Services

The emergency-services results differed substantially. Baseline correlations ranged from −.24 for agreeableness to .08 for extraversion; none was statistically significant. At posttest, correlations ranged from −.21 for openness to −.02 for extraversion. All five point estimates were negative and small, and all confidence intervals were broad. For example, posttest conscientiousness was r(15) = −.20, p = .442, 95% CI [−.62, .31], contrasting with the positive foodservice coefficient.

The absence of a similar pattern across settings is not evidence that personality is irrelevant in emergency services. Restricted score ranges, measurement reliability, occupational selection, team routines, training exposure, and small-sample fluctuation could all reduce or reverse observed correlations. The contrast demonstrates that a coefficient from one small workplace should not be treated as a general personality rule.

Discussion

The most defensible combined-sample conclusion is that none of the Big Five traits showed a precisely estimated association with posttraining work engagement. Conscientiousness and extraversion had the largest positive point estimates, while neuroticism was weakly negative, but uncertainty was substantial. These directions are broadly compatible with theory: organized goal pursuit may support sustained effort, and positive social engagement may help employees access interpersonal resources. Compatibility with theory, however, does not convert exploratory estimates into confirmed effects.

The foodservice results suggest that conscientiousness may be especially relevant in that setting. Its association was positive at both measurement occasions, and employees high in conscientiousness may have experienced alignment between structured work, skill development, and goal-directed behaviour. Extraversion had the largest baseline coefficient but weakened after training. This could reflect sampling fluctuation, a change in the salience of social interaction, or unrelated changes in engagement. The study did not test these mechanisms.

The contrast with emergency services is the paper’s most important finding. If personality alone determined engagement, similar coefficients should have appeared across both settings. They did not. Emergency-services work may provide strong role structures, recurrent team training, shared operational identity, and situational demands that overshadow broad trait differences. Alternatively, the group’s relatively homogeneous experience and smaller variance may have limited detectable associations. The lower reliability of the personality measure in that subgroup also weakens inference.

For behavioural wellbeing, these findings support a contextual approach. Personality can help an employee notice patterns: whether they restore energy through interaction or solitude, prefer advanced structure, become activated by uncertainty, or seek variety. Reflection can support self-management and communication. It should not become a label used by managers to restrict opportunity. A person low in extraversion may contribute deeply in a collaborative session when preparation and turn-taking are provided. A highly extraverted employee may still benefit from quiet practice. A conscientious employee can be engaged in one environment and depleted in another.

The results also challenge personality-based training matching. Foodservice participants reported varied preferences, while emergency-services participants strongly favoured collaborative learning. Those patterns may reflect occupational culture and course relevance as much as trait profiles. Organizations should therefore offer multiple participation routes—individual preparation, discussion, hands-on practice, feedback, and accessible reference material—instead of assigning employees to formats on the basis of a questionnaire.

From Trait Scores to Behavioural Experiments

A constructive alternative is to translate trait reflection into small behavioural experiments. An employee who finds group discussion draining might receive questions in advance, contribute in writing, and then test one verbal contribution. An employee who seeks stimulation might practise pausing and summarizing others before offering a new idea. Someone who struggles with organization might test a checklist and implementation intention. These actions preserve the insight that tendencies matter while rejecting the idea that they set permanent limits.

Progress should be evaluated through observable outcomes and employee experience: Was preparation completed? Were questions raised? Did the person recover after a demanding session? Was the skill used at work? A score can start the conversation, but behaviour and context determine whether an intervention is useful.

Ethical Use of Personality Information

Personality assessment creates ethical responsibilities. Employees should understand why data are collected, who can access results, and how long information will be retained. Participation should be genuinely voluntary, and scores should not be presented as clinical judgments. Managers require training to interpret ranges and uncertainty rather than treating cut points as fixed identities. Where personality is used in development, the employee should retain agency over reflection and disclosure. The goal is to expand behavioural options, not to justify exclusion or surveillance.

Limitations and Future Research

The study used small convenience-sized organizational samples and multiple correlations, increasing false-positive and false-negative risk. The analyses were bivariate and did not control for age, role, tenure, workload, job resources, or baseline wellbeing. Self-report measures shared method variance. Reliability was modest in parts of the sample. The combined posttest coefficients were available only as reported summaries, and the design cannot establish temporal or causal direction. Subgroup differences were described but not tested through adequately powered interaction models.

Future research should recruit larger samples across multiple teams and industries, preregister hypotheses, and use validated contemporary scoring procedures. Multilevel longitudinal analysis could test whether personality predicts engagement trajectories while accounting for job demands and resources. Personality-by-context interactions should be specified in advance. Multisource behaviour, absence, learning transfer, and supervisor support could complement self-report. Most importantly, researchers should test adaptable supports rather than fixed trait-to-format matching.

Conclusion

Big Five traits were not consistently related to work engagement across two Canadian work settings. Conscientiousness and extraversion showed promising associations in foodservice, but these patterns did not replicate in emergency services and were weak in the combined sample. Personality may inform behavioural-wellbeing reflection, yet context determines how traits are expressed. Responsible practice uses trait information as one tentative lens among many, preserves employee agency, and designs work and learning environments that permit multiple effective ways to participate.

References

Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. (1991). The Big Five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44(1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1991.tb00688.x

Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The job demands–resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(3), 309–328. https://doi.org/10.1108/02683940710733115

Christian, M. S., Garza, A. S., & Slaughter, J. E. (2011). Work engagement: A quantitative review and test of its relations with task and contextual performance. Personnel Psychology, 64(1), 89–136. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2010.01203.x

John, O. P., Naumann, L. P., & Soto, C. J. (2008). Paradigm shift to the integrative Big Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and conceptual issues. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (3rd ed., pp. 114–158). Guilford Press.

Judge, T. A., Heller, D., & Mount, M. K. (2002). Five-factor model of personality and job satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(3), 530–541. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.87.3.530

Woods, S. A., & Sofat, J. A. (2013). Personality and engagement at work: The mediating role of psychological meaningfulness. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43(11), 2203–2210. https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12171

Why Employees Engage in Workplace Learning: A Qualitative Descriptive Study of Relevance, Interaction, and Agency

Abstract

Employee engagement in training is often attributed to delivery format, yet employees experience format together with relevance, interaction, pace, and practical application. This qualitative descriptive study examined how employees explained their reactions to three workplace learning experiences. The source study involved 29 Canadian employees in foodservice distribution (n = 12) and emergency services (n = 17). Each group completed collaborative, lecture-based, and e-learning courses followed by open-ended questions, informal conversations, and researcher observations. A secondary qualitative synthesis of the evidence reported in the approved dissertation identified four recurring themes: (a) relevance gives learning a reason, (b) participation sustains attention, (c) agency over pace and access supports engagement, and (d) no single format is sufficient. Collaborative activity was valued for discussion, hands-on practice, problem solving, and focus. Lecture was valued when it was structured, credible, detailed, and relevant but was associated with visible disengagement during extended passive delivery. E-learning supported flexibility and immediate practice but was weakened by familiar, overly easy, or insufficiently interactive content. Employees generally expected preferred approaches to improve enjoyment, although some explicitly prioritized content over format. The findings position behavioural wellbeing as an interaction between meaningful work, social participation, and practical agency. Training should combine clear relevance, active practice, usable resources, and choices in participation rather than assigning employees to fixed learning-style categories.

Keywords: qualitative description, workplace learning, employee voice, behavioural wellbeing, engagement

Why Employees Engage in Workplace Learning: A Qualitative Descriptive Study of Relevance, Interaction, and Agency

Employees rarely describe a training experience only as “a lecture” or “e-learning.” They talk about whether the topic mattered, whether they could ask questions, whether the course respected what they already knew, whether they could practise, and whether the pace allowed them to think. These accounts matter because engagement is enacted through attention, participation, persistence, and willingness to apply learning. A format label captures the container but not the behavioural experience inside it.

Work engagement has been conceptualized as vigour, dedication, and absorption (Schaufeli et al., 2002). In a training setting, related behaviours include sustained attention, active contribution, asking questions, testing ideas, and remaining involved when learning is difficult. Course enjoyment is not identical to work engagement, but employees’ descriptions can reveal conditions that invite or inhibit these behaviours. Kahn’s (1990) account of meaningfulness, psychological safety, and availability provides a useful interpretive frame. Employees are more able to invest themselves when an activity feels worthwhile, interpersonal participation is safe, and they have the physical and psychological resources to be present.

Training research similarly emphasizes active learning, feedback, practice, and work relevance (Bell et al., 2017; Salas et al., 2012). Learning is more likely to transfer when employees can connect new capability to their work and receive support for application (Blume et al., 2010). However, organizational discussions can reduce these principles to a debate about preferred media. The idea of matching each person to a fixed learning style is attractive because it appears individualized, but it risks ignoring task requirements and the value of multiple forms of instruction.

Qualitative description is well suited to examining practical accounts without imposing a highly abstract explanatory theory (Sandelowski, 2000). The present paper therefore asked: What features did employees describe or display when explaining engagement and disengagement across collaborative, lecture-based, and e-learning sessions? A secondary synthesis was conducted using the qualitative material documented in an approved doctoral dissertation. The aim was to preserve participants’ practical meanings while identifying implications for behavioural-wellbeing design.

Method

Participants and Learning Context

The source study involved 29 volunteers from two Canadian organizations: 12 foodservice-distribution employees and 17 emergency-services employees. Both groups experienced three broad delivery approaches. Foodservice participants completed collaborative food-safety training, lecture-based traceability training, and e-learning on Excel. Emergency-services participants completed collaborative hypothermia training, lecture-based air-ambulance safety training, and e-learning on swift-water operations.

The learning experiences differed in topic, instructor, duration, technology, prior familiarity, and work relevance. These differences are analytically important. Participant comments about a “method” may also reflect the specific content and conditions through which that method was encountered.

Qualitative Sources

After the sessions, participants answered three open-ended questions: which course they liked most and why, which they liked least and why, and whether delivery in a preferred approach would improve enjoyment or participation. The researcher also documented informal, unstructured conversations and observations during in-person sessions. Observations included apparent attention, note-taking, phone use, restlessness, interaction, problem-solving, and questions.

The dissertation reports selected quotations and summarized responses rather than a complete verbatim transcript corpus. Accordingly, this paper is a secondary qualitative description of documented evidence, not a claim to have re-coded full raw interviews. Counts are used only where the dissertation supplied them. Observational interpretations are treated as field evidence rather than objective measurements of internal engagement.

Analytic Approach

Reported quotations, response summaries, and observations were extracted and organized by work setting and delivery condition. The material was compared for recurring explanations of attention, enjoyment, participation, and perceived learning. Initial descriptive categories included relevance, structure, social interaction, hands-on practice, pace, flexibility, prior knowledge, fatigue, and access to reference material. Related categories were consolidated into four themes while preserving contradictory cases. The analysis deliberately looked for evidence that challenged a simple “collaboration is best” conclusion.

Credibility was supported through source triangulation across open-ended responses, informal comments, observations, and course-evaluation patterns. Transferability is limited by the two settings and the selective reporting of source material. Reflexively, the analysis recognizes that visible quietness is not necessarily disengagement and visible activity is not necessarily learning.

Results

Relevance Gives Learning a Reason

Employees repeatedly connected favourable reactions to usefulness. A foodservice participant preferred the traceability lecture because it was structured, content-rich, and addressed a topic on which more information was needed. An emergency-services participant valued the air-ambulance lecture because an external source presented relevant information that was easy to follow. These accounts complicate the assumption that lecture is inherently disengaging. When content met a perceived need, and the presenter conveyed credibility, employees could value a relatively passive format.

Relevance also shaped negative reactions. In emergency services, 24% reported learning nothing new from the swift-water e-learning course, and the dissertation notes that many had completed similar content previously. No participant selected that course as a favourite despite generally satisfactory evaluations. Employees were not rejecting digital learning in the abstract; some were responding to redundancy.

Collaborative sessions benefited from close alignment with operational activity. Hypothermia practice was highly relevant to emergency participants, and food safety was directly connected to distribution work. Relevance gave participation a reason: employees could see what the knowledge was for and how it connected to role behaviour.

Participation Sustains Attention

Participants described collaborative learning through discussion, shared thinking, hands-on practice, and problem solving. One foodservice employee explained that discussion made it easier to learn by hearing what others were thinking. An emergency-services employee reported staying more focused when learning involved hands-on practice. Observations during the hypothermia session described active problem solving, listening, and collaboration throughout a course lasting almost two hours. Foodservice participants also appeared engaged throughout the shorter collaborative safety session and valued its visual and participatory elements.

Lecture observations showed a different behavioural pattern. In foodservice, visible disengagement reportedly began after about 20 minutes; phone use, fatigue, and reduced attention increased, with about one third appearing engaged beyond 30 minutes. Emergency-services participants began to look tired and restless after approximately 30 minutes of an hour-long lecture. Few questions followed. These observations suggest that extended passive attention placed demands on psychological availability.

The observations are not definitive. The emergency-services room was warm and darkened for remote presentation, and the material was detailed. Note taking or quiet attention may have been misread, just as visible restlessness may have reflected room conditions rather than content. Still, convergence across two settings suggests that long periods without active response created attention risk.

Participation did not automatically guarantee sufficient learning. Foodservice participants enjoyed the collaborative food-safety session, but some considered it too easy or insufficiently detailed. Emergency-services participants valued hypothermia practice yet felt the session was rushed and would be better divided into two parts. Active learning therefore requires appropriate challenge, time, and feedback; movement and discussion are not substitutes for instructional depth.

Agency Over Pace and Access Supports Engagement

E-learning was most valued when it created control over pace and allowed immediate practice. A foodservice participant favoured the Excel course because learning could be practised during the course and completed at an individual pace. Some participants also valued digital delivery for flexibility. Remote workers appreciated access through Microsoft Teams because it enabled inclusion without being physically present.

Agency also involved access to support and durable resources. Some foodservice participants wanted face-to-face discussion so they could ask questions and learn from others. An emergency-services participant who preferred hands-on learning still requested a paper copy for later reference. Employees were therefore seeking different forms of control: control over pace, control over when to access material, access to questions, and access to a resource after the session.

These preferences are not mutually exclusive. A well-designed course can include a self-paced introduction, a facilitated practice session, and a concise job aid. Agency concerns whether employees have workable routes into and beyond the learning, not whether they complete everything alone.

No Single Format Is Sufficient

Foodservice participants’ favourite-course choices were almost evenly divided among collaborative, lecture, and e-learning experiences. Their reasons referred to different benefits: discussion, structure, content, practice, and pace. All reported that preferred delivery would increase inclination to participate, but the explanations suggested that “preference” bundled several needs rather than one stable sensory style.

Emergency-services participants showed stronger consensus. Eighty-two percent preferred the collaborative course, and no one chose e-learning. Yet 12% explicitly said tailoring to preference was not necessarily beneficial; one response emphasized that content, rather than training style, made learning interesting. The remaining employees generally supported preference-sensitive delivery while also describing value in a mix of approaches.

The negative-case evidence is important. It prevents the themes from being converted into a simple rule that every employee should receive collaborative instruction. Employees valued lecture when it provided relevant expertise and e-learning when it supported pace and practice. They valued collaboration when the task benefited from shared action. The common requirement was an intelligible connection among content, participation, and use.

Discussion

The qualitative evidence indicates that engagement arose from an instructional ecology rather than a medium. Relevance supported meaningfulness; interaction and hands-on practice supported attention and social learning; control over pace and resources supported agency; and blended elements addressed different needs over time. These conditions map onto behavioural wellbeing because they affect whether employees can invest energy without unnecessary friction and translate learning into capable action.

Engagement as Observable Participation and Inner Experience

The source material draws attention to an important methodological distinction. Engagement can be inferred from behaviour, reported as experience, or measured as a broader state, but these forms are not interchangeable. Asking questions, practising, and collaborating are observable participation behaviours. Feeling interested, confident, or mentally present is subjective experience. Vigour, dedication, and absorption refer to a broader relationship with work. A quiet learner can be cognitively engaged, and a visibly active learner can participate without understanding.

For this reason, facilitators should avoid diagnosing engagement from appearance alone. Phone use and restlessness may indicate withdrawal, but they can also reflect accessibility needs, urgent operational demands, or physical discomfort. Note-taking may support processing or may become transcription without comprehension. The most credible evaluation combines observation with employee explanation and evidence of learning. Simple prompts—“What helped you stay involved?” and “Where did attention become difficult?”—allow participants to interpret their own behaviour.

This distinction also strengthens psychological safety. When facilitators publicly label employees as disengaged, they can create defensiveness and shame. When they treat attention as a shared design problem, they invite information about pace, relevance, clarity, and environment. The behavioural-wellbeing goal is not continuous visible enthusiasm; it is a workable pattern of participation, challenge, recovery, and application.

Meaningfulness appeared when employees needed the content and could connect it to work. This finding is consistent with Kahn’s (1990) argument that personal investment depends partly on the value of the role activity. In practical terms, trainers should begin by making the work problem visible. Employees need to know what decision, task, risk, or relationship the learning will improve. Relevance cannot be manufactured through enthusiastic delivery if the content repeats what participants already know.

Participation helped sustain attention, especially when the work itself required coordination. Collaborative practice allowed employees to hear reasoning, test action, and receive immediate social feedback. Psychological safety is relevant because asking questions and exposing incomplete knowledge involves interpersonal risk (Edmondson, 1999). Facilitators can reduce that risk by normalizing uncertainty, inviting contribution, and responding constructively to errors.

Agency extended beyond choosing a preferred format. Employees wanted pacing, access, questions, practice, and reference material. A behavioural-wellbeing approach therefore designs choice around learning actions. Employees might read privately before discussion, practise with peers, replay a digital demonstration, or use a job aid later. Such choice expands participation without assuming that one preference defines the person.

Practical Design Principles

The themes support four design principles. First, lead with the work-relevant behaviour and assess prior knowledge. Second, break extended presentation into shorter explanation–practice–feedback cycles. Third, combine synchronous interaction with accessible self-paced and reference resources. Fourth, evaluate whether employees can apply learning, not merely whether they liked the session. These principles are compatible with lecture, collaboration, and technology when each is used deliberately.

These principles can be translated into a practical learning arc. Before the session, establish relevance with a real work problem and allow employees to identify existing knowledge. During the session, alternate concise explanation with decisions, questions, or practice. Give participants a psychologically safe way to signal confusion, including written or anonymous routes. After the session, provide a usable reference and a specific opportunity to apply the behaviour. Follow-up should ask what was tried and what organizational barrier prevented use.

Facilitator behaviour is part of the intervention. Invitations to contribute must be genuine, errors must be handled as information, and discussion must not be dominated by the most verbally confident employees. Structured turn-taking, paired reflection, and advance questions can widen participation. For self-paced learning, visible support and response channels prevent autonomy from becoming isolation. These choices operationalize respect and inclusion rather than treating wellbeing as a separate wellness topic.

Limitations and Future Research

The analysis is limited by selective qualitative reporting. Complete transcripts, original coding records, and all open-ended responses were not available in the dissertation text. Informal interviews were unstructured, and observations were made by the researcher who designed the study. Participants may have provided socially desirable feedback. Apparent attention was not validated against learning, and each format remained confounded with topic and conditions. The sample represented only two Canadian organizations.

Future qualitative work should audio-record semistructured interviews, retain complete response sets, document reflexive decisions, and include a second analytic perspective. Sampling should seek employees with favourable, neutral, and negative experiences. Interviews conducted after employees attempt to use the learning could distinguish enjoyment from transfer. Video or structured observation, used ethically, could clarify participation patterns without claiming direct access to internal engagement.

Conclusion

Employees engaged when learning felt relevant, allowed meaningful participation, and gave them practical agency over pace, access, and application. Collaboration was powerful when it matched hands-on and team-based work; lecture remained valuable when concise, credible, structured, and relevant; e-learning helped when it enabled flexible practice rather than merely repeating familiar information. The behavioural-wellbeing implication is clear: design the conditions in which people can attend, contribute, practise, and use what they learn. Format should serve those behaviours, not become a label that defines the learner.

References

Blume, B. D., Ford, J. K., Baldwin, T. T., & Huang, J. L. (2010). Transfer of training: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Management, 36(4), 1065–1105. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206309352880

Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999

Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal, 33(4), 692–724. https://doi.org/10.2307/256287

Sandelowski, M. (2000). Whatever happened to qualitative description? Research in Nursing & Health, 23(4), 334–340. https://doi.org/10.1002/1098-240X(200008)23:4%3C334::AID-NUR9%3E3.0.CO;2-G

Research and Evidence

Abstract

Conceptual Boundaries

Scientific Foundations

Flourishing as Functioning and Development

Values, Motivation, and Psychological Flexibility

Behaviour, Repetition, and Habits

Resilience as a Dynamic and Relational Process

Relationships, Safety, and Leadership

Integration With Roberts’ Research

Scientific Qualification and Research Agenda

Practical Implications

Conclusion

References

Abstract

Values, Resilience, and Relational Conditions

​

Purpose and Research Questions

​

Method

Design

Participants and Recruitment

Data Collection

Data Analysis

Results

Integrity Under Pressure

Compassion and Dignity

Authenticity Through Role Modelling

Inclusion and Psychological Safety

Tensions and Trade-Offs

Learning, Humility, and Adaptation

Discussion

Implications for Behavioural Wellbeing

Implications for Leadership Development and Coaching

Limitations and Future Research

Conclusion

References

Abstract

Inclusive Leadership as Values in Action

Resilience as Recovery and Adaptive Functioning

Purpose and Hypothesis

Method

Design

Participants and Recruitment

Measures

Inclusive Leadership Scale

Brief Resilience Scale

Procedure and Ethics

Data Analysis

Results

Descriptive Statistics and Reliability

Association Between Inclusive Leadership and Resilience

Discussion

A Relational Interpretation of Behavioural Wellbeing

Implications for Leadership Practice

Limitations and Future Research

Conclusion

References

Abstract

Method

Design and Participants

Measure

Analytic Strategy

Results

Overall Engagement Change

Differences Between Work Settings

Discussion

Interpreting Change as a Behavioural-Wellbeing Signal

Limitations and Future Research

Conclusion

References

Abstract

Method

Comparative Design

Measures and Analysis

Results

General Format Preference

Foodservice Evaluations

Emergency-Services Evaluations

Work Engagement