Promotion of well-being and leadership qualities among university students after taking a credit-bearing service leadership subject

Abstract

With the increasing development of service economies, service leadership (SL) concepts and educational programs have been advocated in Hong Kong. To assess the impact of SL education initiative, the current research evaluated changes in SL attributes and well-being in 88 students after completing a credit-bearing General Education subject entitled "Service Leadership" at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2017/18 academic year. Through a one-group pretest-posttest methodology, the research showed that students showed positive changes in SL qualities indicated by "self-leadership," "character strength," "caring disposition," and "SL beliefs" as well as personal well-being indexed by "life satisfaction" and "positive youth development." This research also found that changes in SL qualities and well-being were positively correlated with each other. Our findings suggest that it is promising to nurture SL attributes and foster well-being among university students through formal leadership curriculum.